69 Facts About Carmen Miranda

Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, known professionally as Carmen Miranda, was a Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer and actress.

In 1943, Carmen Miranda starred in Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here, which featured musical numbers with the fruit hats that became her trademark.

Carmen Miranda came to resent the stereotypical "Brazilian Bombshell" image she had cultivated and attempted to free herself of it with limited success.

Carmen Miranda focused on nightclub appearances and became a fixture on television variety shows.

Carmen Miranda is considered the precursor of Brazil's 1960s Tropicalismo cultural movement.

Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Carmen Miranda da Cunha in Varzea da Ovelha e Aliviada, a village in the northern Portuguese municipality of Marco de Canaveses.

Carmen Miranda was the second daughter of Jose Maria Pinto da Cunha and Maria Emilia Miranda.

In 1909, when Carmen Miranda was ten months old, her father emigrated to Brazil and settled in Rio de Janeiro, where he opened a barber shop.

Carmen Miranda's mother followed in 1910 with their daughters, Olinda and Carmen.

Carmen Miranda was christened Carmen by her father because of his love for Bizet's Carmen.

Carmen Miranda was educated at the Convent of Saint Therese of Lisieux.

Carmen Miranda's father did not approve of Miranda's plans to enter show business; her mother supported her, despite being beaten when her father discovered that his daughter had auditioned for a radio show.

Carmen Miranda then worked in a boutique, and opened a successful hat business.

Carmen Miranda was introduced to Josue de Barros, a composer and musician from Bahia, while she was working at her family's inn.

Carmen Miranda's second single, "Pra Voce Gostar de Mim", was a collaboration with Brazilian composer Joubert de Carvalho and sold a record 35,000 copies that year.

Carmen Miranda signed a two-year contract with RCA Victor in 1930, giving them exclusive rights to her image.

In 1933 Carmen Miranda signed a two-year contract with Radio Mayrink Veiga, the most popular Brazilian station of the 1930s, and was the first contract singer in Brazilian radio history; for a year, in 1937, she moved to Radio Tupi.

Carmen Miranda later signed a contract with Odeon Records, making her the highest-paid radio singer in Brazil at the time.

Carmen Miranda's rise to stardom in Brazil was linked to the growth of a native style of music: the samba.

The samba and Carmen Miranda's emerging career enhanced the revival of Brazilian nationalism during the government of President Getulio Vargas.

Carmen Miranda performed a musical number in O Carnaval Cantado no Rio and three songs in A Voz do Carnaval, which combined footage of street celebrations in Rio with a fictitious plot providing a pretext for musical numbers.

Several months after the film's release, according to Cinearte magazine, "Carmen Miranda is currently the most popular figure in Brazilian cinema, judging by the sizeable correspondence that she receives".

Carmen Miranda played Mimi, a young radio singer falls in love with a university student.

Carmen Miranda's stardom is evident in a film poster with a full-length photograph of her and her name topping the cast list.

Carmen Miranda appeared in the film Banana da Terra that year in a glamorous version of the traditional dress of a poor black girl in Bahia: a flowing dress and a fruit-hat turban.

Carmen Miranda refused, saying that there were many capable musicians in New York who could back her.

Carmen Miranda remained steadfast, feeling that North American musicians would not be able to authenticate the sounds of Brazil.

President Getulio Vargas, recognizing the value to Brazil of Carmen Miranda's tour, announced that the Brazilian government would pay for the band's transportation on the Moore-McCormack Lines between Rio and New York.

Carmen Miranda took the official sanction of her trip and her duty to represent Brazil to the outside world seriously.

Carmen Miranda left for New York on the SS Uruguay on 4 May 1939, a few months before World War II.

Carmen Miranda's fame grew quickly, and she was formally presented to President Franklin D Roosevelt at a White House banquet shortly after her arrival.

Partly because their unusual melody and heavy accented rhythms are unlike anything ever heard in a Manhattan revue before, partly because there is not a clue to their meaning except the gay rolling of Carmen Miranda's insinuating eyes, these songs, and Miranda herself, are the outstanding hit of the show.

Carmen Miranda was encouraged by the US government as part of Roosevelt's Good Neighbor policy, designed to strengthen ties with Latin America.

Carmen Miranda was considered a goodwill ambassador and a promoter of intercontinental culture.

Carmen Miranda greeted the audience in English, and was met with silence.

When Carmen Miranda began singing "The South American Way", a song from one of her club acts, the audience began to boo her.

Weeks later, Carmen Miranda responded to the criticism with the Portuguese song "Disseram que Voltei Americanizada".

Upset by the criticism, Carmen Miranda did not return to Brazil for 14 years.

Carmen Miranda's films were scrutinized by Latin American audiences for characterizing Central and South America in a culturally homogeneous way.

When Carmen Miranda's films reached Central and South American theaters, they were perceived as depicting Latin American cultures through the lens of American preconceptions.

Reviewers noted that an import from Rio could not accurately portray a woman from Havana, and Carmen Miranda did not "dance anything Cuban".

Carmen Miranda's performances were arguably hybrids of Brazilian and other Latin cultures.

Critics said that Carmen Miranda's other films misrepresented Latin locales, assuming that Brazilian culture was a representation of Latin America.

In 1942,20th Century-Fox paid $60,000 to Lee Shubert to terminate his contract with Carmen Miranda, who finished her Sons o' Fun tour and began filming Springtime in the Rockies.

In 1944 Carmen Miranda starred with Don Ameche in Greenwich Village, a Fox musical with William Bendix and Vivian Blaine in supporting roles.

In If I'm Lucky, her follow-up film for Fox when she was no longer under contract, Carmen Miranda was again fourth on the bill with her stock screen persona firmly in evidence: heavily accented English, comic malapropisms, and bizarre hairstyles recreating her famous turbans.

Carmen Miranda's ambition was to play a lead role showcasing her comic skills, which she set out to do in Copacabana.

Carmen Miranda was again fourth on the bill as Rosita Cochellas, a rumba teacher who first appears about 40 minutes into the film and has little dialogue.

Carmen Miranda played Carmelita Castilha, a Brazilian showgirl on a cruise ship, with her costumes and performances bordering on self-parody.

In 1948, Carmen Miranda became pregnant, but miscarried after a show.

Carmen Miranda was discreet, and little is known about her private life.

Carmen Miranda performed at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas in April 1955, and in Cuba three months later before returning to Los Angeles to recuperate from a recurrent bronchial ailment.

Carmen Miranda got up and said she was outa breath.

Carmen Miranda went upstairs to bed at about 3 am Miranda undressed, placed her platform shoes in a corner, lit a cigarette, placed it in an ashtray and went into her bathroom to remove her makeup.

Carmen Miranda apparently came from the bathroom with a small, round mirror in her hand; in the small hall that led to her bedroom, she collapsed from a fatal heart attack.

The Jimmy Durante Show episode in which Carmen Miranda appeared was aired two months after her death, on 15 October 1955.

Carmen Miranda is buried in Sao Joao Batista Cemetery in Rio de Janeiro.

Two years later, Macy's wanted to use Carmen Miranda to promote a clothing line.

Carmen Miranda conquered 'White' America as no other South American has done or ever would, in an era when it was enough to be 'recognizably Latin and Negroid' in style and aesthetics to attract attention.

Carmen Miranda was accused of commercializing Brazilian music and dance, but Miranda can be credited with bringing its national music to a global audience.

Carmen Miranda introduced the baiana, a type of traditional dress in Bahia, with wide skirts and turbans, as a Brazilian showgirl at home and abroad.

Since her death, Carmen Miranda is remembered as an important Brazilian artist and one of the most influential in Hollywood.

Carmen Miranda was one of 500 stars nominated for the American Film Institute's 50 greatest screen legends.

The square is located at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Orange Drive, across from Grauman's Chinese Theatre, near where Carmen Miranda gave an impromptu performance on V-J Day.

On 9 February 2017, Carmen Miranda was the subject of a Google Doodle created by Google artist Sophie Diao commemorating the 108th anniversary of her birth.

Helena Solberg filmed a documentary, Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business, in 1995.

At the Closing Ceremony of the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, a few seconds' homage to Carmen Miranda was paid with an animated, projected image on the floor of the Maracana Stadium.

In 2009, Carmen Miranda served as the inspiration for a photo shoot on the 12th season of the reality TV show, America's Next Top Model.

In 2023, Carmen Miranda is mentioned in Young Sheldon, season 6 episode 18, when Dr Linkletter compares Sheldon's desire to find life on other planets to putting fruit on his head and calling himself Carmen Miranda.