Ebook: Brazilian Bombshell: The Biography of Carmen Miranda

Fifty years ago she exploded onto the Broadway stage and took Hollywood by storm. Already a sensation in her adopted country of Brazil—with her megawatt smile, her outrageous accent and her outlandish costumes— she had much the same impact then as Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler, Cher, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper have today—earning her the well-deserved moniker of the “‘Brazilian Bombshell.”

Now, for the first time, the story of her meteoric rise to fame and wealth is told by a woman who not only shares her Latin-American heritage, but who has spent years researching her subject. Born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha in a small Portuguese town in 1909, Carmen Miranda achieved star status in Brazil in the 1930’s. At the height of her popularity she abruptly left her country and cultural heritage to seek fame and fortune in the United States and achieved it in the 1940’s with such movies as “The Gang’s All Here,’ and “That Night in Rio.” She became known as “The Lady with the Tutti Frutti Hat,’ a living legend on two continents, and her enduring presence colors the Latin-American music scene even today.

Martha Gil-Montero has gone behind the gaudy facade to find a complex, sometimes tormented woman who in later life struggled to find love and security in an alien land, who struggled too with the very real problem of who she was, a struggle cut short by her death alone in her home in Beverly Hills in 1955. Ms. Gil-Montero has revealed a woman far ahead of her time, and written a portrait that is both a revelation and a loving tribute to the public and private woman.

MARTHA GIL-MONTERO, an inveterate film buff, is a native of Cordoba, Argentina, and a resident of Washington, D.C. since 1979. In 1985, while doing research on the Brazilian national character, she rediscovered Carmen Miranda, and her fascination with the woman led to this biography. A student of language and literature, she has published a volume of poetry and has translated into Spanish two major biographies, one of Fidel Castro and another of Juan Peron.