Marília Pêra

Marília Pêra (22 January 1943 – 5 December 2015) was a Brazilian actress. Hailed as "one of the decade's [1980s] ten best actresses" by Pauline Kael, Pêra 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.

Biography

Pêra 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, she became the first South American ever honored in North America with a Best Actress Prize, for Pixote: A Lei do Mais Fraco, by theNational Society of Film Critics Awards. After Pixote (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.

Pêra died at her apartment in Rio de Janeiro from lung cancer at the age of 72.