Was just clearing some old videos out of the closet, and settled down to watch The Gang’s All Here, in which Carmen Miranda sings “The Lady in the Tutti-Fruitti Hat.” Had forgotten how adorable she was, what a good singer and comic actress; how she always had this wink in her eye to show you she knew how ridiculous it all was.
Any other Carmen fans? Sadly, the only English-language bio is this one, which is sooooo serious and socio-political. I recommend renting the documentary Bananas Is My Business, which is more in the spirit of things, and has some great film clips.
The Gang’s All Here is good – if you’re only going to watch one Carmen Miranda flick, though, I’d have to vote for Down Argentine Way, which also features the Nicholas Brothers, a truly stunning tap team. (Watch them do splits over each other down the stairs!)
The problem with Carman Miranda is that most people know her from the imitations and don’t know what the real thing was like.
I agree. When I saw her in “Sprintime in the Rockies,” singing “Chattanooga Choo Choo” in Portugese, I realized she was a delight. She knew she was kidding around and I’ve rarely seen someone show so much joy in doing a song.
Yes, sometime in the past year or two, I think. It was the first time I saw the clip of her staggering on the “Jimmy Durante Show” from her heart attack a few hours before her death.
I was just paging through a “Far Side” collection and one cartoon is captioned “Carmen Miranda’s Family Reunion”. All of the other family members have things like steaks, cucumbers, cheese, and pie on their heads. Of course, the dog has dog food in a can and a dish. Strange origins of exotic headware!
I “discovered” Carmen Miranda a few years ago myself. I remember too being surprised at how knowing she seemed to be as she performed those silly numbers. I’d always assumed from the imitators that she was to be appreciated only at an ironic remove; to discover that she came with irony included was pretty refreshing. Since then I’ve accumulated a bunch of her recordings: she was not only very funny, but extremely talented (not to mention influential: would Bette Midler ever have put a typewriter on her head for the Oscars if Carmen hadn’t paved the way?). Truly iconic; truly unique.
I have a record album (remember those?) that has her Hollywood songs on one side and her Portuguese songs on the other—really a remarkable singer, and she made Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs sound like Ol’ Man River.
