• • Rare caricature of CARMEN MIRANDA [1909 — 1955] wearing a festive fruit hat — — sketched in Hollywood in
1943. She was 32 years old then.
• • Carmen Miranda [9 February 1909 — 5 August 1955] was a
Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress, and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the
highest-earning woman in the United States and recognized for her signature fruit hat outfit that she wore in the movie "The Gang's All Here" [1943]. She is considered the precursor of Brazil's Tropicalismo.
• • On August 4, 1955, Carmen Miranda suffered a heart attack during a segment of the live TV program The Jimmy Durante Show, although she did not realize it. At the end of the
broadcast, she smiled and waved, then exited the stage. She died later that night after suffering a second heart attack at her home in Beverly
Hills. She was 46 years old.
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