Trivia of Carmen Miranda

 Trivia of Carmen Miranda (9 February 1909 - 5 August 1955)

*Though her birth name was Maria, her father christened her "Carmen" after George Bizet's incredibly popular opera of the same name. Miranda's dad was a great lover of opera music, and he wanted to pass off some of it grandeur onto his own daughter.When Miranda was just a 10-month-old baby, her entire world changed when her father emigrated to Brazil to open up his own barber shop in Rio de Janeiro. Eventually, the whole family picked up to move to the new country. Although Miranda held onto her Portuguese nationality, she never set foot in Portugal again for the rest of her life.

*Carmen became famous for her over-the-top fruit hats and platform shoes. But despite the fact that her get-up was an exaggeration of the Brazilian culture Hollywood was trying to portray, she actually began working in a hat boutique at the age of 15.At the boutique, she would come up with new designs, many of which could have inspired the fun, exotic hats that we remember Carmen wearing today. Supposedly, her iconic tutti-frutti hat inspired the United Fruit Company’s Chiquita Banana logo.

*In 1929, Carmen made her start in music when she recorded her first album – which did alright. The following year, she recorded “Prá Você Gostar de Mim,” written by Joubert Carvalho, which shot her to Brazilian stardom. The record sold like hot cakes and she became the embodiment of Brazilian samba. That was the push she needed to truly pursue her music career, and she recorded more and more music, eventually traveling around the country to perform at various radio stations.One night, while performing a stage show at one of Rio’s most famous casinos, Casino Urqua, she had no idea that there was a New York Broadway producer in the audience. He was Lee Shubert, and he was so entertained and enamored with her performance that when she finished her show, he invited her to America to perform in the Broadway review of The Streets of Paris on an eight-week contract. She happily accepted.

*Her first Hollywood film, Down Argentine Way (1940) was actually banned in Argentina as people saw it as an insulting and inauthentic portrayal of the country. A large part of Brazil shared these negative feelings toward Carmen, viewing her as an inappropriate, Americanized image of what Brazilian culture really was. On one return trip home, she was booed off stage at a charity event that she had organized. After that, she put herself into exile and did not return to the country for almost 14 years.

*Sentiments arose on her in Cuba after the debut of Miranda's film,Weekend in Havana (1941). Cuban audiences were offended by Miranda's portrayal of a Cuban female. Reviewers of the film asserted that an import from Rio could not possibly portray a woman from Havana. Further, they claimed that throughout the film Miranda does not "dance anything Cuban." Miranda's performances, it was argued, were merely hybridizations of Brazilian culture and other Latin cultures. Critics contend that other of her films likewise misrepresented Latin locales, by assuming that Brazilian culture could suffice as a direct representation of Latin America.

*Her ambition was to play a genuinely leading role and to show off her comic skills, which she sets out to do in the independent production for United Artists, Copacabana (1947) alongside Groucho Marx. It was her first time she appears with a blonde wig. While the films were modest hits, film critics and the audience did not accept Miranda's new image.They prefer her as a brunette.

*Carmen Miranda’s death on 5 August 1955 was unexpected. She had just finished a TV film with Jimmy Durante for NBC, and the company’s officials were unsure whether they should scrap the episode, considering her surprise heart attack, or if they should let it run anyway. The segment had cost $35,000 to make (roughly $380,000 by today’s standards), so it was a tricky decision to make. Ultimately, they decided to air it, as they believed that was what Carmen would have wanted.