Fernanda Montenegro

Fernanda won Award Contigo! for best actress for her role in the soap "Belíssima" (2006).

After being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 1999 at 69 years old, she turned down every part offered to her in non-Brazilian films.

In 1998 "Central do Brasil" enchanted the world. This film, another nominee for the Oscar, was the highest moment of Fernanda Montengro's cinema career, once she was a nominee for Best Actress. The Oscar was not given to her, but the actress got the Berlin prize.

Her success on television and theater continued, but her cinema career, although it never stopped, was largely unnoticed until 1997, when "O Que é Isso, Companheiro?", a nominee for the Oscar of Best Film in a Foreign Language, was released.

In 1992 she won the medal of cultural merit from Portugal.

Second Brazilian actress to be nominated for a Golden Globe award. The first was Sônia Braga for Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) in 1986. Wagner Moura was the third Brazilian actor to receive a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Narcos (2015) in 2016.

In cinema, after some not very famous films, she worked on "Eles Não Usam Black-Tie" (1981), largely applauded by the critics.

In 1971 she won the medal of Ordem do Cruzeiro do Sul for good services for Brazilian culture.

Appeared in five films that were submitted to the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category: Pecado Mortal (1970), Olga (2004), Hour of the Star (1985) - these three failed to get nominated - and the two consecutive films that managed to get the nomination Four Days in September (1997) and Central Station (1998).

In 1965 her daughter Fernanda Torres was born. She later also became a famous actress. As time went by, more and more successful soap operas and plays came up and she received many prizes. She was later called "The First Lady of Brazilian Theater".

In 1964 she started working for cinema as well. Her first film was "A Falecida".

She begun her artistic life in the theater with the play "Alegres Canções nas Montanhas" in 1950. Among her mates was Fernando Torres, who would soon become her husband. Next she use the married name Arlette Pinheiro Monteiro Torres. In the next years she worked with other great actors like Sérgio Britto, Cacilda Becker, Nathália Timberg, Cláudio Corrêa e Castro and Ítalo Rossi. In the early 60s she moved to São Paulo where she worked on many theater plays and also stared working on television. Her first soap operas was "Pouco Amor Não é Amor".

Arlette Pinheiro Esteves da Silva was born on 16th October 1929 in Rio de Janeiro. She adopted the name "Fernanda" because she thought it sounded good. "Montenegro" came after her family doctor. In late 40s she was translating and adapting famous theater plays to radio.