| Elvira Pagã | |
| Birth Name: | Elvira Olivieri Cozzolino |
| Birth Date: | 6 September 1920 |
| Birth Place: | Itararé, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Death Place: | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Years Active: | 1935–1985 |
Elvira Olivieri Cozzolino (6 September 1920 – 8 May 2003), better known by her stage name Elvira Pagã, was a Brazilian vedette and actress, singer, writer and painter. She was the first Rio Carnival Queen, the first woman to wear a bikini in public, and one of the first women to have cosmetic surgery in Brazil. Talented and controversial, she broke the status quo and faced the reigning "machismo" with fearless audacity during the Brazilian military dictatorship and the revolutionary 1960s, where she lived with determination and courage. Pagã retired from public life, wrote and painted in her later years, dying a recluse.
Elvira Olivieri Cozzolino was born on 6 September 1920 in Itararé, São Paulo, Brazil. She moved as a child with her family to Rio de Janeiro and attended the convent school Immaculate Conception. As a student, she organized events with her sister Rosina Pagã and members of Bando da Lua to establish connections with the artistic community in Rio.[1]
In 1935, Elvira debuted with her sister on the show Cine Ipanema as the Pagã Sisters, with the master of ceremonies Heitor Beltrão. They also sang as a duo on Rádio Mayrink Veiga, recording thirteen albums with composers such as Lamartine Babo, Ary Barroso, Braguinha, and Assis Valente.[2] That same year, the sisters made their film debut in the movie Alô Alô Carnaval, with Francisco Alves, Dircinha Batista and Carmen Miranda. The following year, they appeared in the movie Cidade-Mulher, directed by Humberto Mauro, singing the title song "Noel Rosa" with Orlando Silva. The sisters then went on the Rio Carnival circuit with the song "Não te dou a chupeta", and toured for four months through Argentina, Chile and Peru. They made three more films together, O Bobo do Rei (1936), Tres anclados en París (1938), and Favela (1939), before splitting up due to Elvira's 1940 marriage to Theodoro Eduardo Duvivier Filho, nullified in 1951.[3]
Elvira began a solo recording career with Continental Records of São Paulo in 1944. She released a 78'', accompanied by Conjunto Tocantins, interpreting the sambas "Arrastando o pé" by Peterpan and and "Samburá" by and . In 1945, she recorded a four-song album, unusual for the time, with the songs "E o mundo se distrai" and "Meu amor és tu" by Gadé, Almanir Grego and ; and the songs "Cabelo azul" and "Briga de peru" by and Herivelto Martins. That same year, she released a second album with two sambas, "Na feira do cais dourado" by Nelson Teixeira and Nelson Trigueiro, and "Um ranchinho na lua" by Babi de Oliveira.
As the 1950s approached, Pagã's career went in a different direction.[4] She continued recording and made other two films, but her growing notoriety and scandal life seemed to follow her. In 1949, she became Rio's first Carnival Queen. In the early 1950s, after breaking her swimsuit and refashioning it into a bikini, she became known as the first woman to wear a bikini on Copacabana beach.[5] In 1952, she was invited to appear at the Piauí centennial celebrations. However, the Catholic Church banned her appearance as immoral, causing the city to cancel her engagement.[6] Then in 1954, she shocked her christmas card recipients by sending them a nude photograph of herself, after having cosmetic surgery to enhance the aesthetic appearance of her breasts. It was one of the first known elective plastic surgeries.[7] [8]
In the late 1950s, after numerous arrests, stalkings, and attacks both physically and from the media, she decided to retire and write a few books, including "Revelações" and "Vida e Morte". She also began painting and held a showing of twenty of her oil paintings.[9]
Pagã died a recluse on 8 May 2003, but the press did not learn of her passing until August.
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