Brazilian singer, one of the most well-known, well-loved and well-paid entertainers in the history of her country. “Elis & Tom,” a recording she made with Antonio Carlos Jobim, is considered one of the top Brazilian records of all time.
The eldest child of a poor couple, she was the daughter of a housewife of Portuguese descent, and a dad who seemed unable to keep a job. Her mother was attentive to both Elis and her younger brother, Rogerio, perhaps overly so. By the time she began grade school, she knew how to read, write and count. When she was seven years old, she was set to perform on a local radio show called “Clube do Guri,” but when she faced the microphone, she froze, unable to utter a sound. She took piano lessons for two years when she was nine, eventually giving it up because her parents could not afford to buy her a piano of her own. Turning to singing instead, she eventually made another appearance on the children’s radio show; she was an instant sensation, won the prize, and became a regular on the show for the next two years. Her fear of performing, however, had not abandoned her. She still experienced great fear before going on stage, afraid of making mistakes and not being “perfect.” At the age of 13, she signed her first professional recording contract despite her mother’s concerns, and within a year, Elis was earning more money than her father. This contributed to an already unstable family situation, and the conflict worsened over the next few years. She recorded her first record when she was 15, and her natural talents were aided by her strong determination and will to succeed.
In 1965, she performed at Rio’s music festival, singing the controversial, and nearly censored, song “Arrasta.” Considered a defining moment in her career, she posed with arms outstretched like Christ at his crucifixion, tears streaming down her face, as she finished the song. In the late 1970s, her popularity continued to grow; however, her personal problems were taking their toll, and her secret use of cocaine was increasing along with her professional success. Always demanding and filled with energy, she grew more and more insecure about her own intellectual abilities and considered going back to school to complete her education. She drove herself, and her band, relentlessly, leading fellow musicians to dub her “Hurricane” and “Little Pepper.”
During her early years in Rio, she dated a man named Solano. She became pregnant and had an abortion without telling him, and soon thereafter, the relationship ended. In 1967, she married Ronaldo Boscoli, a composer-producer once considered her arch-enemy. She was 22, he was 38, and their relationship was tumultuous, full of passionate love and just as ardent hate. Their terrible public arguments were fodder for the media, and the public speculated that he was a father figure for her. They had one son together before their relationship ended after six years. She soon found herself pursuing another relationship, this time with a married man, Cesar Camargo Marianno. A shy, quiet, sensitive man, he was completely different than her first husband. When Elis invited him to her home to view a film, she presented him a love note to read; shocked, he climbed out her bathroom window and went home to his wife. Eventually, however, he divorced his wife, and he and Elis were married. Their relationship lasted eight years, and they had two children. Soon after the divorce was final, she fell in love with her lawyer, Samuel MacDowell, and in December 1981, they made plans to marry the following year.
Although her romantic relationships were often tortured and problematic, she was a good housekeeper and cook and loved taking care of her children. She maintained her home meticulously, keeping everything in its place, loved to cook big meals for her friends, and enjoyed crocheting and knitting during her spare time. She was always opinionated and would defend her viewpoints forcefully. Although these opinions often changed drastically from one day to the next, she could convincingly express them to others. She once said “between the wall and the sword, I am drawn toward the sword.”
Always volatile, alternating between extremes of joy and anger that sometimes escalated to near paranoia, Elis’s life was filled with high peaks and low valleys. She died of a drug overdose on 1/19/1982, 11:45 AM, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Although rumors of suicide surfaced, there was no evidence found to indicate that her death was not an accidental overdose of cocaine combined with Cinzano. Throughout her career, she made meticulous notes of her future plans, and the night before her death was no exception. She spent that evening alone in her bedroom, planning her future and listening to tapes for a new record.
Link to Wikipedia biography