Marília Pêra, Brazilian actress, Died at 72

  Actor

Marília Pera was born on January 22, 1943, and died on December 5, 2015.

Marília was a Brazilian actress.

Hailed as “one of the decade’s 1980s, ten best actresses” by Pauline Kael, Marília won the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress in 1982 for her role in Hector Babenco’s acclaimed Pixote, and received Best Actress awards at the Gramado Film Festival (Triple Award Winner) and at the Cartegena Film Festival for Carlos Diegues’ Better Days Ahead.

Other films include Bar Esperança, Angels of the Night and Diegues’ Tieta.

Marília was born in Rio de Janeiro to actors Manuel Pêra and Dinorah Marzullo, and was the sister of actress Sandra Pêra.

She is the mother of actor Ricardo Graça Mello, and actresses Esperança Motta and Nina Morena.

In 1982, Marília became the first South American ever honoured in North America with a Best Actress Prize, for Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco, by the National Society of Film Critics Awards.

After Pixote in 1981, Bar Esperança (1983) and Tieta do Agreste (1996), she became the most awarded Brazilian actress ever.

In 1989 she publicly supported presidential candidate Fernando Collor de Mello. This led to her being criticized by some of her fellow actors and her plays were being picketed by activists. Her former husband, Nelson Motta, prohibiting her from involving their two children with Collor.

Marília Pera passed away at her apartment in Rio de Janeiro from lung cancer at the age of 72.