33 Facts About Fernanda Montenegro

Arlette Pinheiro Esteves Torres ONM, known by her stage name Fernanda Montenegro, is a Brazilian actress.

Fernanda Montenegro made her debut in telenovelas in 1954 with A Muralha on RecordTV, where she appeared in other productions as well.

Fernanda Montenegro has done work in most of Brazil's main broadcasters, such as Band, TV Cultura, RecordTV, and TV Globo, in addition to the defunct TV Excelsior, TV Rio and TV Tupi.

In November 2024, she was recognized by Guinness World Records for achieving the biggest audience in a Philosophy lecture, with over 15,000 people attending an event on 18 August 2024 at the Ibirapuera Park, where Fernanda Montenegro read La Ceremonie des Adieux by Simone de Beauvoir.

Fernanda Montenegro was born as Arlette Pinheiro Esteves da Silva, the daughter of Vitorio Esteves da Silva, a mechanic of Portuguese origin, and Carmen Nieddu Pinheiro Esteves da Silva, a housewife, daughter of Italians from the island of Sardinia.

Fernanda Montenegro began her artistic life in the theatre with the play Alegres Cancoes nas Montanhas in 1950.

Fernanda Montenegro subsequently worked with other acclaimed actors like Sergio Britto, Cacilda Becker, Nathalia Timberg, Claudio Correa e Castro and Italo Rossi.

Fernanda Montenegro appeared in several plays on TV between 1951 and 1970.

Short of a celebrated scene, early on, which featured Fernanda Montenegro's character winning an Oscar, the telenovela was, once more, a flop.

Nevertheless, Fernanda Montenegro still managed to be nominated as Best Actress in the Contigo Awards, which laureates excellence in Brazilian telenovelas.

Fernanda Montenegro returned to television's good graces in a supporting role as the exploitive stepmother of the lead character in the ensemble piece mini-series Hoje E Dia de Maria, a coming-of-age tale set in a fantasy world, positively reviewed for its inventiveness, its stunning art direction and overall production design, as well as its acting.

Fernanda Montenegro scored her second nomination as Best Actress in the Contigo Awards, while the mini-series garnered two nominations for the International Emmy Awards and won the Grand Prize of the Critics of the Sao Paulo Association of Art Critics Award.

In 2012, Fernanda Montenegro starred in the latest episode of the miniseries As Brasileiras as an actress without much talent named Mary Torres.

Fernanda Montenegro was awarded for her role, and became the first Brazilian actress to win an Emmy Award.

Fernanda Montenegro was again nominated for an Emmy in 2015, and the series was awarded Best Comedy at the 43rd International Emmy Awards Gala.

Fernanda Montenegro's debut came in 1965, as Zulmira, in the movie A Falecida.

The film was a cinematic adaptation of the play, by the greatest of Brazilian dramatists, Nelson Rodrigues, and earned its female lead, amongst positive reviews, her first distinction as a film actress, as Fernanda Montenegro won the Candango Trophy as Best Actress in the Brasilia Festival of Brazilian Cinema.

In 1998, Fernanda Montenegro starred in Central do Brasil, as Dora, her most internationally famous and prestigious role.

Fernanda Montenegro was honored on numerous occasions, earning additional Best Actress awards from the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and others.

Fernanda Montenegro was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award, for a Golden Globe and for the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, a feat which gave Montenegro the distinction of being the first Latin American actress to be bestowed with such an honor by the Academy.

Fernanda Montenegro is the first person nominated for a performance in the Portuguese language.

In 2025, her own daughter, Fernanda Montenegro Torres, accomplished that feat being the second Brazilian person to be nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards for the movie I'm Still Here.

In 2000, the celebrated television mini-series "O Auto da Compadecida", in which Fernanda Montenegro appeared as the Holy Mary, was re-cut into a film of same title and released to movie theaters to significantly appreciative domestic appraisal.

Fernanda Montenegro returned to the Berlin Film Festival with O Outro Lado da Rua, which landed stellar reviews and garnered the International Confederation of Art House Cinemas Award.

Fernanda Montenegro herself was honored, winning the Horizons Award in the San Sebastian International Film Festival and the Best Actress Award in the Tribeca Film Festival.

Domestically, the film fared well, landing six nominations to the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize, with Fernanda Montenegro winning the Best Actress award.

Still in 2004, Fernanda Montenegro landed a supporting role, playing Leocadia Prestes, mother of Brazilian communist leader Luiz Carlos Prestes, and mother-in-law of Jewish-German socialist revolutionary Olga Benario in the biopic Olga, based on the book by Brazilian biographer Fernando Morais.

In late 2006, Fernanda Montenegro garnered attention for leading a movement of film artists and investors who firmly opposed a Congressional Bill that reduced federal incentives in cultural programmes, reallocating such funds to public investments in the fields of sports and leisure.

Also in 2007, Fernanda Montenegro played Transito Ariza, in Love in the Time of Cholera, an adaptation of the novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In 2012, Fernanda Montenegro starred in the short film A Dama do Estacio directed by Edward Ades and in 2013 participated in the film cast Time and the Wind an adaptation of the novel by Erico Verissimo with Thiago Lacerda, Marjorie Estiano and Cleo Pires.

In 2024, at 95 years old, Fernanda Montenegro entered the Guinness World Record for the largest audience during a philosophical reading for her stage reading of French writer and feminist activist Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography La Ceremonie des adieux at Ibirapuera Park drawing an audience of 15,000 people.

Also in 2024, Montenegro and her daughter Fernanda Torres portrayed Eunice Paiva at different stages of her life in the acclaimed film I'm Still Here, directed by Walter Salles, who directed Montenegro in Central Station.

Fernanda Montenegro was married to Fernando Torres from 1954 until his death in 2008.