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Who was Carmen Miranda and what were her most notable songs?

Who was Carmen Miranda?

Carmen Miranda was born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha in Várzea da Ovelha e Aliviada, a village in the northern Portuguese municipality of Marco de Canaveses on February 9th 1909.

Famed for wearing a fruit basket hat, she taught the world how to samba dance. 

The dancer, singer and actor moved to Brazil when she was less than two years old to join her father who had set up a barber's shop.

One of six children, Miranda was named after Georges Bizet's opera Carmen, reflecting her father's love of the art. 

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Her early artistic roots set her on a path to be a world-renowned musician and dancer. She began performing at an early age and at 20 years old she released her first album. 

Miranda’s big break happened following her performance at the National Institute of Music. She landed an audition at a recording studio where she was immediately signed to put out a single.

Miranda’s first album was released in 1929, and was immensely popular among Brazilians. Her performing style helped samba gain respect and a place in the Brazilian (and later, the world) spotlight.

By the time she moved to the United States in 1939, Miranda was a national star in Brazil and had the power to ensure her band could travel with her.

The peak of her career was during the war years, when she starred in eight of her fourteen films. The studios labelled her the "Brazilian Bombshell", but the movies tended to blur her Brazilian identity in favour of a generalised Latin American image.

Hollywood's famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre invited her to leave her hand prints in the cement in 1941, the first Latin American to do so.

Miranda died on Aug 5th 1955  from a heart attack aged just 46 years old. 

Almost a century later, Google has honoured Miranda with a Doodle marking what would have been her 108th birthday. 

Where did her extravagant headwear come from?

Miranda's early work was inspired by baianas, the Afro-Brazilian fruit vendors she regularly saw during her childhood in Rio de Janeiro.

It was working at a hat store that she first discovered her musical talent, which was strongly influenced by the samba music that played throughout the city's favelas. 

Channelling these influence, Miranda one day decided to don a headdress in the form of a fruit-filled turban. 

"Before adopting the fruit-laden turbans that became her trademark, Miranda was a radio singer. Beautiful, charismatic and optimistic, she once said that all she needed to be happy was a bowl of soup and the freedom to sing," Roger Hurlburt from the Sun Sentinel wrote in 1995. 

As Miranda became famous around the world her trademark fruit basket went with her, morphing into a range of exuberant and colourful headdresses. 

What are her most notable songs?

Popular from the 1930s to the 1950s in Brazil and Hollywood, Miranda's most famous songs include "Tico Tico", "South American Way", "Chica Chica Boom Chic", "Rebola a Bola" and 'I Yi Yi Yi Yi'.

They were performed on stage, in movies and sold on records with equal amounts of energy and extravagance. 

In contemporary culture 

Miranda died of a heart attack while filming an episode of the Jimmy Durante Show in 1955. Her funeral in Rio de Janeiro was attended by a crowd of around 60,000 people. 

In the half a century since her death, Miranda has remained an icon in popular culture and one of the most important Brazilian artists.

Her dress sense still inspires designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs, and she was immortalised in a series of US postage stamps.

In 2013, actress Yvette Tucker played Miranda in the film Gangster Squad.

And in 2016 she was honoured at the closing ceremony of the Rio Olympic Games

The history of the Google Doodle

Google Doodle