Hats off to famous people in the history of fruit. This e-mail, the first in a series of tributes to those who have contributed most to fruit awareness, features Carmen Miranda, the first lady of fruit. Those who do not remember the history of fruit are doomed to repeat it.
For those of you unacquainted with Carmen Miranda, she was a movie star and singer whose popularity peaked in the 1940s. Though multi-talented, she is remembered for her fruit-festooned hats.
In 1945 she earned more money than any other woman in the United States, according to income tax returns. Who says that fruit doesn't pay?
Born in Portugal in 1909, Carmen emigrated to Brazil when she was about a year old. As a teenager she worked in a boutique and learned how to make hats. Soon she opened here own hat store, which was profitable. She became a performer and was largely responsible for the popularization of Samba. She first wore her signature, fruit-laden hat in the 1939 Brazilian movie, "Banana-da-Terra;" It was her take on the traditional working class costume. In 1939 Lee Shubert wanted to bring her but not her band to New York for a musical; she refused since she had no confidence that New York musicians could play authentic Samba music. The president of Brazil saw her trip to the United States as being such an effective promotion of Brazil that he paid for the band to go to New York. Later she became associated with President Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy, which was designed to foster better relations between the U.S. and Latin America. She was the inspiration for Chiquita Banana.
Her first American movie, made in 1940, was "Down Argentine Way" with Don Ameche and Betty Grable, and her last was the 1953 Martin and Lewis vehicle "Scared Stiff." (The former is the only Carmen Miranda movie that I have seen. I watched it at Mike's on 1 December 1990. The best thing in it was a rare movie appearance by the Nicholas Brothers.) She was also featured in a 1995 documentary, "Bananas is My Business."
You can watch a typical performance at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLsTUN1wVrc, where she sings, "The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat" in the 1943 movie, "The Gang's All Here." Below are three stills from this clip. The last shows the largest collection of giant bananas ever assembled for a number in a Busby Berkeley musical. These stills do not do justice to the performance.
Here is a still from her number, "Chica Chica Boom Chic," which you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJLm6WNEv4; this appeared in the 1941 movie, "Week-end in Havana." If this does not sate your desire to see Carmen's performances, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYNpoeg1ls&list=PLE1099F74D3665EA0, which collects sixty of them in one place.
Here are some of her records.
Needless to say, there are many imitators.
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[Continued in Part 2]
