Doris Monteiro

Dóris Monteiro built a career spanning more than five decades, achieving notable success both on stage as a vocalist and on screen as a performer. Among the first artists to champion bossa nova, she released more than twenty solo long-playing albums.

Her radio debut came at age thirteen in 1947, when she appeared on the novice program Papel Carbono broadcast by Rádio Nacional and captured the weekly prize several consecutive times. The following year she secured steady engagements at Rádio Tupi. In 1951 she cut her debut 78, Se Você Se Importasse on the Peter Pan label, which held the top chart position for three months. While embracing the emerging bossa nova style, she remained rooted in samba-canção and scored additional major successes with “Agulha no Palheiro,” “Graças a Deus” by Fernando César, “Mocinho Bonito” by Billy Blanco, “Gostoso É Sambar” by João Melo, “Samba de Verão” by Marcos Valle and Paulo Sérgio Valle, “Mudando de Conversa” by Maurício Tapajós and Hermínio Bello de Carvalho, “Dó-Ré-Mi” by Fernando César, “Joga a Rede No Mar” by Fernando César and Nazareno de Brito, “Apelo” by Baden Powell, “Palhaçada,” “É isso Aí,” and “Alô Fevereiro.”

Film work followed her musical breakthrough; she took the lead in Agulha no Palheiro directed by Alex Viany and was named Best Actress of 1953. Seven additional screen credits ensued, among them the Italian feature Copacabana Palace. In 1955 she appeared for an engagement at the Cassino de Punta del Este in Uruguay, and in 1957 she shared the stage with Dorival Caymmi in Lisbon and Coimbra, Portugal. October 1990 found her performing in Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo; there Lisa Ono invited her to record the track “Praia Nova,” written by Lisa Ono and Paulo César Pinheiro, for the anthology Bossa Nova Underground. Monteiro remained active well into the new century until her death on July 24, 2023, in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 88.