Marlene

Marlene stands alongside Emilinha Borba as one of the towering legends of Brazilian radio during its golden period, having committed more than 4,000 songs to tape across her career. Her nationwide fame also brought offers to appear in eleven motion pictures beginning with Corações Sem Piloto in 1944 and in five stage productions starting with Depois do Casamento in 1952, while she took part in four revues after Deixa Que Eu Chuto in 1950. Abroad she toured Uruguay and Argentina, where she appeared in both theater and film, performed at the Waldorf Astoria and in Chicago during visits to the United States, and sang for four and a half months at the Olympia in Paris after Edith Piaf, who had first heard her at the Copacabana Palace in Rio, extended the invitation. As a composer she supplied “A Grande Viagem” to Dalva de Oliveira and saw another of her pieces recorded by Nora Ney. Born Vitória Bonaiutti, she lost her father seven days after entering the world and began performing at Rádio Bandeirantes on the program A Hora dos Estudantes at age thirteen without her mother’s knowledge, prompting the adoption of the stage name Marlene. In 1943 she traveled once more to Rio de Janeiro without informing her mother, mailed photographs to impresario Armando Silva Araújo requesting an audition, secured the engagement, and worked for two months at the Cassino Icaraí in Niterói before Carlos Machado discovered her and brought her to the Cassino da Urca as a singer. She traveled to Argentina in 1946 with Simon Boutman’s orchestra. Upon returning to Brazil she found that President Dutra’s 1946 decree had outlawed gambling and closed the lavish casino era. Rádio Mayrink Veiga then engaged her, and she cut her first album containing “Swing No Morro” by Felisberto Martins and Amado Régis together with “Ginga, Ginga, Morena” by João de Deus and Hélio Nascimento. The following year Carlos Machado hired her again for the Casablanca nightclub. In 1948 Caribé da Rocha invited her to become a Copacabana Palace artist, instructing her to sing exclusively with orchestras rather than croon to intimate groups. That same year César de Alencar added her to the cast of Rádio Nacional. The previous year she had recorded the Carnival marchinha “Coitadinho do Papai” by Henrique Almeida and M. Garcez, her first Carnival success. She introduced the song at the live broadcast from the Rádio Nacional auditorium, and the entire audience joined in. After fulfilling her remaining contract at the Copacabana Palace and completing several fifteen-night runs at the Montecarlo, she left nightclub work to concentrate on radio, recordings, and later cinema and theater. At that time Emilinha Borba reigned as the leading attraction at Rádio Nacional, though Linda Batista also enjoyed wide popularity and captured the Queen of Radio contest in successive years; votes were openly sold and the outcome hinged on the sponsoring company’s budget, giving the event enormous press and radio coverage across the country. Encouraged by César de Alencar, Marlene entered the contest and won the title in 1949 and 1950, ending Linda Batista’s streak and receiving a major national push. Emilinha, who placed third in 1949, claimed the crown only in 1953. The celebrated rivalry between the two singers’ fan clubs across Brazil sprang from this period and owed much of its intensity to marketing, yet it propelled both artists to extraordinary national prominence. Proof appeared in their 1949 duet recording of the samba “Já Vi Tudo” by Peterpan and Amadeu Veloso and the marcha “Casca de Arroz” by Arlindo Marques Júnior and Roberto Roberti, both Carnival hits of 1950, followed in early 1950 by the successful marcha “A Bandinha do Irajá” by Murilo Caldas. Emilinha served as Marlene’s “best woman” at her wedding in the early fifties. Also in 1950 Marlene recorded two of her signature successes, “Macapá” and “Qui Nem Jiló,” both by Humberto Teixeira and Luís Gonzaga. In the Carnival of 1951 she scored another major hit with “Lata d’Água” by Luís Antônio and Jota Júnior. “Mora na Filosofia” by Monsueto and Arnaldo Passos, recorded in 1954, became another staple and was later taken up by Caetano Veloso as a tribute. After 1955 Marlene curtailed her activities and withdrew completely between 1965 and 1968. She returned that year at Sidney Miller’s invitation with the show Carnavália. Two years later she triumphed again with É A Maior. In 1996 she joined the Rio tribute to João de Barro and the following year released another album featuring songs by Chico Buarque and other contemporary composers.