Actress Fernanda Montenegro joins Brazil Academy of Letters
Actress Fernanda Montenegro, acclaimed as one of the most prominent names in Brazilian theater, took office as the newest member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL) on Friday (Mar. 25). The 92-year-old star is the first woman to occupy chair number 17, succeeding diplomat Affonso Arinos de Melo Franco (1930–2020).
In her address, Fernanda Montenegro expressed her gratitude to artists and mentioned her admission into the Academy as an actress: “I am an actress, I come from this mystical archaic art—the theater. I am the first representative of the Brazilian scene to be received in this house. My craft conveys at once strangeness and understanding. The root of this art shows a complexity only seen through the body and the soul of an actor as they bring the dramatic literature to the verticality of the stage,” she declared.
Arlete Torres
Fernanda Montenegro is the artistic name of Arlete Pinheiro Monteiro Torres, born in Rio de Janeiro on October 16, 1929. An actress and a writer, she was the first Latin American and the only Brazilian nominated for the Oscar as Best Actress, in 1999, for Walter Salles’s Central Station. The film also brought her the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1998. She was also the first Brazilian woman to win an International Emmy as best actress for her performance in the series Sweet Mother, aired on TV Globo, in 2013.
She has worked in most television drama production companies in Brazil, such as Band, TV Cultura, RecordTV and Rede Globo, where she has worked since 1981, as well as former TV Excelsior, TV Rio, and Rede Tupi.
In literature, Montenegro published Fernanda Montenegro: Itinerário Fotobiográfico in 2018, followed by Prólogo, Ato, Epílogo the next year with publisher Companhia das Letras, written in partnership with Marta Góes.
