Portuguese actress. Beatriz Costa, pseudonym of Beatriz da Conceição, is considered an icon of Portuguese popular culture and the major figure of the Golden Era of Portuguese Cinema. She was born into a family of few means and, in 1912, her parents separated and she came with her mother, a seamstress, to Lisbon. Shortly afterwards, they moved to Figueiró dos Vinhos, where Beatriz allegedly served as a model for the painter José Malhoa. Her mother married again and, when she was 6, they went to live in Tomar, where she stayed until 1920. Her mother and stepfather separated and she returned to Lisbon. Beatriz worked as an assembler, maid and embroiderer. She learned to read and write on her own at the age of 13. Fernando Pereira would be her second stepfather, who provided them with better living conditions. A frequent spectator at Parque Mayer, she soon fell in love with the idea of ​​stepping onto the stage and having an audience stand up to applaud her, which was not long in coming. A client and friend of a hairdresser's neighbor of her stepfather, made this wish come to actress Ema de Oliveira, who wrote an introduction note to the administrator of the Éden Theatre. She made her debut at the age of 15, in April 1923, in the revista "Chá e Torradas", as a chorus girl at the Éden. The following year, already registered with the António Macedo Company, she participated in the revista "Résvés", that premiered on June 22, 1924 at the Maria Vitória Theatre, proving to be a success. Luís Galhardo, founder of Parque Mayer, discovering the young woman's talent, gave her the artistic name of Beatriz Costa, which was more fit. That same year, she went on tour for the first time to Brazil, led by impresario António Macedo, artistic director of her company, and José Loureiro, also an impresario and director of several Brazilian theatres. The premiere took place on August 7 at the República Theatre in Rio de Janeiro, in a total of nine new shows in reruns, which included "Fado corrido", "Tiro ao alvo", "Chá e Torradas", "Piparote", "Aqui d'El Rei", "Résvés", "O 31", "Tic-Tac" and "De capote e lenço", with the second row of the audience reserved for theatre critics. With the success achieved in her debut, Beatriz left the second row of chorus girls to take on greater responsibilities. On stage, she gets a place next to the star Lina Demoel, playing six to seven roles in each show, her salary is increased by 50% and dresses are offered to her on behalf of the company, in addition to an artistic party with gross income reverted to her favor. With "De capote e lenço", the farewell show is staged on December 8. On December 9, she continued with the company for a season in the cities of São Paulo and Santos, returning again for a new season in Rio de Janeiro, from where she returned to Portugal on June 14, 1925, already as an acclaimed actress. Back in Lisbon, she remained in the company of Macedo, debuting on July 7 at the Trindade Theatre, with the revista "Desditosa Pátria". She went to Porto to perform at the Sá da Bandeira Theatre, and joins new theater companies, passing through the stages of São Luiz, Éden, Apolo and Maria Vitória, participating in numerous operettas and zarzuelas. Beatriz quickly established herself due to her talent, communicability, joy, intelligence and forcefulness. A very strong thirst for knowledge led her, from the beginning, to become friends with great figures of Portuguese culture, such as Aquilino Ribeiro, Gago Coutinho, Ferreira de Castro, Miguel Torga, António Botto, Vieira da Silva, Agostinho da Silva, Mário Eloy, Vitorino Nemésio or Stuart Carvalhais. The actress became very close to Hermínia Silva and later considered that Palmira Bastos was her great teacher. In 1927, perhaps influenced by the furore caused by the cut à la garçonne popularized by Louise Brooks, she debuted on stage with the new haircut that would become a sensation among women: the big fringe. Already a well-known figure in the artistic world, from then on, as they say in Portugal, everyone knows what it means to have a fringe like Beatriz Costa, who earned the nickname "Menina da Franja" ("Fringe Girl"). In 1928, she made her silent film debut, in the short films "Fátima Milagrosa" ("Miraculous Fátima") where she danced a tango with Manoel de Oliveira and "O Diabo em Lisboa" ("The Devil in Lisbon"), playing cabaret roles in both films. Until 1929, she was on the stages of Variedades, Trindade and Apolo, accumulating hits such as the revista "Pó de Maio", alongside the actor Álvaro Pereira, becoming the number "D. Chica e Sr. Pires" very famous at the time. In June of the same year, with Eva Stachino Company, she went to Rio de Janeiro, where, received with effusive demonstrations by fans, she performed reruns of her successes. After a brief foray into the stages of São Paulo, she is invited by Procópio Ferreira, a prominent comedian in Brazilian theatre, to stay in Rio to work as part of the cast of his comedy company, but she refused. Beatriz returned to Portugal in December. In 1930, she participated in three revistas at the Avenida Theatre and in another silent film, "Lisboa, Crónica Anecdotica" ("Lisbon, Anecdotal Chronicle"). In December, during a visit to Lisbon by Ressano Garcia, a Portuguese subsidiary of Paramount, she received an invitation to a very advantageous contract for the leading role of "A Minha Noite de Núpcias" (adapted from the original "Her Wedding Night", by Frank Tuttle), the third Portuguese phonofilm and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti, to be made in France and premiered in 1931. It was her first major role in cinema, where she starred alongside Estêvão Amarante and Leopoldo Fróes. Returning to Portugal from filming she participated in five revistas at the Variedades and performed one of her first transvestite characters, a street boy, daring and local, in the revista "O mexilhão". On a trip to Spain, invited by the Casa da Imprensa of Badajoz to a party at the Teatro López Ayola, she was resoundingly successful in representing "Burrié", being honored along with the other Portuguese artists who accompanied her. In 1932, she participated in the advertisement "Beatriz Costa, Memorialista", snapshots of artistic vivacity based on the actress' memoirs. In 1933, she starred in the film that consecrated her career and gave her a level of popularity and national acclaim that she hadn't had until then: "A Canção de Lisboa" ("The Song of Lisbon"), where, alongside Vasco Santana and António Silva, she plays "Alice Costa", immortalizing her song "A agulha e o dedal" ("The needle and the thimble"). The film also premiered in Brazil, with the same success. From 1933 onwards, she passed through several theatre companies, accumulating hits, such as "Arre, burro!" (which would become one of her biggest hits in Portugal and Brazil, despite being censored by the Estado Novo regime). In 1936, she was part of the cast of the film "O Trevo de Quatro Folhas" ("The Four Leaf Clover"). In 1937 Beatriz wins, with Vasco Santana, the preference votes of Portuguese cinephiles and they are elected "Princes of Cinema". In the same year she returned to Brazil now with her own company. The newspaper "A Batalha" highlights in its edition of October 15, 1937 the rerun of the revista "Arre, burro!" (after four weeks of resounding success), which would have been insistently claimed by more than a thousand people who wrote letters and sent telegrams either to her or to the company of the República Theatre. She also performed in São Paulo. In 1938 she was on the stages of Variedades and Sá da Bandeira. In the same year, she began filming what would be her last film, to be released in 1939: "Aldeia da Roupa Branca" ("White Clothes Village"), where, alongside Óscar de Lemos and Elvira Velez, she plays the character "Gracinda", also with great success. In May 1939 she left for Brazil again with her company (renamed Companhia Portuguesa de Revistas Beatriz Costa). It was thought to be for a few months, but the Second World War broke out in Europe in September, which kept her on the other side of the Atlantic for about 10 years, which she considered the best years of her life. With the premiere of the film "Aldeia da Roupa Branca" in Brazil, the press at the time highlighted the presence of the Portuguese director Chianca de Garcia in Rio on the occasion of its premiere at Cinema Odeon, with reference to the film's success in Spain, England, Sweden and Norway (being the first Portuguese-language film that crosses these borders). Between 1939 and 1941, she participated in numerous plays, toured Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Campinas, Porto Alegre, Pelotas and Belém do Pará, participated in large advertising campaigns involving the press, radio and cinema, and recorded songs at RCA Victor and at Columbia, performing popular marches, sambas and typical Portuguese songs. Her first album included the popular march "Não te cases Beatriz", in a duet with Léo Vilar, accompanied by the group of Benedito Lacerda and the vocal group Anjos do Inferno and "Beatrizinha". In 1942, the actress created the Companhia de Revistas Beatriz Costa with Oscarito, in partnership with the Portuguese impresario Celestino Moreira. The company included in its repertoire revistas, operettas and burlesque. In September 1942, "O Globo" published an interview between Bandeira Duarte and Beatriz Costa with the suggestive headline: "Beatriz was born twice". On the occasion, the actress declares: "I was born in Portugal (...) But the Beatriz Costa you know was born here, in Brazil. She was baptized on a Brazilian stage... The first handful of Portuguese salt and the first round of Brazilian applause are my two birth certificates, giving me the right to two homelands." She married on February 18, 1947, in Mexico, the Armenian writer, poet and sculptor Edmundo Gregorian, whom she divorced two years later. She did not remarry or had any children. In 1949, she made her last tour in Brazil. In the same year, she returned to Portugal to be the star of a revista aptly called "Ela Aí Está!", that premiered on February 21, 1950 at the Avenida Theatre, which then moved on to the Coliseu of Porto and Avenida Theatre of Coimbra, which was a remarkable event. She also toured Africa, returned to Brazil several times and in 1960 said goodbye to the stage, with the revista "Está Bonita a Brincadeira", at the Avenida. She then began to travel the world, stopping at prestigious theatre festivals and meeting personalities such as Orson Welles, John Ford, Édith Piaf, Salvador Dalí, Sophia Loren, Hassan II of Morocco, Pablo Casals and Picasso. About Marlene Dietrich, she would say: "She was my friend. She cooked, Greta Garbo and I washed the dishes." Museums, monuments, exhibitions, fairs, places of worship, landscapes of choice had an unconditional admirer in her. She recorded in her books many of the observations, adventures, and wonders felt then. She, who had always been a rebellious and independent spirit, was always averse to settling in places and attaching herself to objects and houses. That is why she chose the Tivoli Hotel to live in Lisbon, where she occupied room number 600, on the 6th floor, for which she paid a symbolic sum and where she lived for over 40 years. The life of the Hotel cut off the weight of solitude and, in its refined atmosphere, she found the conviviality and diversity of contacts necessary for her communication. Costa was an energy that filled the vast hall of the Tivoli with her laughter, ironies and bluntness. She also turned out to be an excellent investor (she lived off real estate income after losing a vast stock portfolio in 1975) and manager. This allowed her to discreetly support countless institutions and people, especially the homeless. She owed her debut in letters to Jorge Amado, who wrote the preface to her first book: "Sem Papas na Língua" (1975). This work, a bestseller in Portugal and Brazil, was followed by "Quando os Vascos eram Santanas… e Não Só" (1977), "Mulher sem Fronteiras" (1981), "Nos Cornos da Vida" (1984), "Eles e Eu" (1990) and "Saudades do Padeiro" (1993). In 1977, the label EMI-Valentim de Carvalho published an album that compiled several of her musical successes, which in 1996 would be re-edited under the title "Grande Marcha de Lisboa". In 1993, the actress saw an auditorium dedicated to her in Mafra, the Cine-Teatro Beatriz Costa and a museum in Malveira, the Museu Popular Beatriz Costa. These initiatives touched her deeply. To the point that she had a perpetual grave built in the cemetery in Malveira, to later rest. In 1994, the Loures City Council awarded her the Medal of Honor. She died on the morning of April 15, 1996, at the age of 88, in her room at the Hotel Tivoli, in Lisbon, being buried in the Cemetery of Malveira, fulfilling her last wish. In 1999, she was honored with the unveiling of plaques in Charneca do Milharado, the village where she was born, and in Malveira, where she is buried. In 2002, the Tivoli Hotel's restaurant was named after Beatriz Costa. An extensive photobiography was also released. Her name was given to 28 streets in Portugal.