Carmen Miranda

Portuguese-born singer and actress
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Also known as: Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha
Quick Facts
Original name:
Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha
Born:
February 9, 1909, Marco de Canaveses, Portugal
Died:
August 5, 1955, Beverly Hills, California, U.S. (aged 46)
Also Known As:
Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha
Married To:
Dave Sebastian (married 1947)
Movies/Tv Shows (Acted In):
"Scared Stiff" (1953)
"The Milton Berle Show" (1952)
"Nancy Goes to Rio" (1950)
"A Date with Judy" (1948)
"Copacabana" (1947)
"If I'm Lucky" (1946)
"Doll Face" (1945)
"Something for the Boys" (1944)
"Greenwich Village" (1944)
"Four Jills in a Jeep" (1944)
"The Gang's All Here" (1943)
"Springtime in the Rockies" (1942)
"Week-End in Havana" (1941)
"That Night in Rio" (1941)
"Down Argentine Way" (1940)
"Laranja-da-China" (1940)
"Banana-da-Terra" (1939)
"Alô Alô Carnaval" (1936)
"Alô, Alô, Brasil" (1935)
"Estudantes" (1935)
"Degraus da Vida" (1930)

Carmen Miranda (born February 9, 1909, Marco de Canaveses, Portugal—died August 5, 1955, Beverly Hills, California, U.S.) was a Portuguese-born singer and actress whose alluring and flamboyant image made her internationally famous.

Miranda’s family moved to Brazil when she was an infant. In the 1930s she became the most popular recording artist in that country, where she also appeared in five films. Recruited by a Broadway producer, she starred in The Streets of Paris (1939) onstage before making her American film debut in Down Argentine Way (1940). Typecast as the “Brazilian Bombshell” and given such caricatural roles as “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” in Busby Berkeley’s The Gang’s All Here (1943), she became the highest-paid female performer in the United States during World War II. Her final Hollywood film was Scared Stiff (1953).

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.