“Escrava Isaura” | Lucélia dos Santos and Rubens de Falco!

Lucélia dos Santos, Rubens de Falco and the famous telenovela of the 70s “Slave Izaura”!
The attentive Albanian spectator of the 80s immediately remembers the protagonists of the Brazilian telenovela “Skllavia Izaura”.

But who really were these Brazilian actresses?
Maria Lucelia dos Santos – Izaura
She played the main role in the most famous soap opera of 1976, “Slave Izaura”.

She was born in Santo André, on May 20, 1957, an actress and director of theater, cinema and television in Brazil. Has appeared on the TV movie screen precisely with Izaure’s telenovela, which will make him famous from the “first hit”, a love at first sight with the cinema!
For the role of Izaura in the soap opera “Skllavja Izaura”, she received the International “Red Globe” award in 1976, a film broadcast in over 80 countries.

Among these countries that “froze” in front of the screen was our country Albania, where for the time it became the most watched film…

Maria Lucélia dos Santos at the age of 9, heard the actress Cacilda Becker on the radio, who was appealing to children to audition for a role in one of her plays, but Maria’s mother wouldn’t let her perform. However, “Izaura” had developed a taste for performing arts since he saw the show “A. Moreninha”, starring Marília Pêra, on a school trip. Lucélia was completely captivated by the show and decided that she would be an actress for the rest of her days.

This is how she made her stage debut at the age of 14, in the children’s show “Dom Chicote Mula Manca e seu fiel companheiro Zé Chupança”, replacing the actress Débora Duarte, who had moved to Rio de Janeiro to star in the telenovela ” Rede Globo Bicho do Mato”. The actress in question was then invited by Eugênio Kusnet to take part in his intensive two-year performing arts course.

After the course, Lucélia starred in a production of Godspell, which was presented in a circus tent in the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Botafogo. After finishing high school in Rio, where she took the vestibular test for Medicine at the insistence of her father, she failed to enter the University, as she was already deeply involved with her acting career.

Lucélia worked as a receptionist at a weight loss clinic, before starring in productions of The Rocky Horror Show and Trans 18. Due to her initial success, Lucélia was invited to star in the film “Paranóia” in 1976, at the age of 19.

After three other small roles in unsuccessful films, in the same year she took the lead role in “Escrava Isaura”, which tells the story of a white-skinned slave girl’s struggle to find happiness during the Brazilian Empire. AWARDS AND TITLES
Lucélia is an outstanding actress and director, and for this she has won numerous awards inside and outside of Brazil. In Brazil, she won the Brasília Film Festival’s “Candango” trophy for best actress for her performances in “Engraçadinha” (1981) and “Vagas Para Moças” in Fino Trato (1993).

In 1982 she won the “Kikito” trophy for best actress for her performance in “Luz del Fuego” at the Gramado Film Festival. In 2002, her documentary “Timor Lorosae” received the audience award at the Recife Film Festival. In addition to becoming the first actress to receive the Golden Eagle Award for Best Foreign Actress in China in 1985, Lucélia was awarded the Jewel of China Medal in 2004 for her efforts in bringing together Chinese and Brazilian cultures. She was in the presidential entourage of Fernando Henrique Cardoso in China, where she was warmly greeted by Premier Deng Xiaoping.

Rubens de Falco da Costa (October 19, 1931 – August 22, 2008) – Leoncio, the great villain of Brazilian drama! He was a Brazilian actor best known for his work in soap operas, particularly his portrayal of a slave owner in the 1976 soap opera Escrava Isaura and the 1986 soap opera Sinhá Moça (The Little Miss). . De Falco was born in São Paulo, Brazil on October 19. He started his acting career in the local theater. In 1955, he joined the band “Os Jograis”, from São Paulo, and performed alongside such actors as Ruy Afonso, Italo Rossi and Felipe Wagner.

He made his debut in the cinema in 1952 in the film “Apassionata”, for “Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz”. On television, he had prominent parts in telenovelas such as O Rei dos Ciganos (1967), A Rainha Louca (1967), O Passo dos Ventos (1968), Gabriela (1975), O Grito (1975), Escrava Isaura (1976) , Dona Xepa (1977), A Sucessora (1978) and Sinhá Moça (1986).

Perhaps his best-known work came in 1976, when he portrayed the cruel villain Leôncio Almeida, a powerful rancher and ruthless slave owner in the telenovela The Izaura Slave. De Falco’s character, Leôncio Almeida, fell in love with one of his slaves, played by Brazilian actress Lucélia Santos. Escrava Isaura was extremely well received globally and became a hit in Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Escrava Isaura was the first telenovela ever broadcast in Poland and the Soviet Union and became the first television series to be broadcast in China with foreign actors in the lead role. Rubens de Falco, who starred Leôncio Almeida as one of his signature villains, was called “the great villain of Brazilian television drama” by Lucélia Santos.

He again portrayed a powerful rancher and ruthless slave owner, the cruel villain Baron de Araruna in the 1986 telenovela Sinhá Moça alongside Lucélia Santos, who starred this time as his rebellious daughter. De Falco’s last television role was as Almeida in the 2004 Rede Record remake of A Escrava Isaura and his last film role was as Deputado Ernesto Alves in 2008 in Fim da Linha.

TV SERIES “SLAVE ISAURA” The telenovela, based on the novel of the same name by the 19th century abolitionist writer Bernardo Guimarães, is the most dubbed program in the history of world television, according to research conducted by “Good Morning America”.

Before being invited for the lead role by writer Gilberto Braga and director Herval Rossano, Lucélia was rejected several times by Globo. She even got a role in “Estúpido Cupido”, but it was not completed due to financial reasons.

Escrava Isaura achieved worldwide success. The Brazilian telenovela became the most popular program in the history of Polish television at the time of its original broadcast, reaching more than 81 percent of the share.

It was the first show starring a non-Chinese lead actress to air in the People’s Republic of China, in addition to being the first soap opera to air in the former Soviet Union, where it had wide appeal. The word “fazenda” (Portuguese: farm) jokingly became a synonym for the small landholdings granted by the government through its economic program of perestroika. In the show, “fazenda” is used as a synonym for plantation.

Likewise, in Albania, whole families would sit in front of the screen on nights when the film was broadcast by the only television channel of that time – TVSH.

Meanwhile, today’s Albanian television viewer (among other things open to the world) who has the opportunity of dozens of Albanian television channels, the time and opportunity of an advanced western culture, takes a step back and limits himself to “being educated” with Turkish telenovelas and… …. “Big Brother”.

After all, what is wrong with the viewers when they are fed and “forced” to follow the visual media (current political propaganda) of a weak artistic and cultural level?

Exclusivity on this page is dated June 18, 2023
By: P. Bj

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Albanian Cinematography in activity since 2013