Actor and director Antônio Abujamra dies in São Paulo

Actor and theater director Antônio Abujamra, aged 82,  died on Tuesday (Apr 28), from a heart attack. Abu, as his friends called him, leaves behind a legacy marked by boldness both on the big screen and on stage.

“All I want to do is to get my face painted and please,” Abujamra used to say about himself.

He was a provocateur, and one to such a degree that, in 2000, he created a talk show called Provocações (literally “provocations”), aired by TV Cultura, in São Paulo, and later on also by TV Brasil, a TV station under the Brazil Communication Company (EBC).

Abujamra's career started in Porto Alegre, in 1961, in an amateur theater production. The theater is also what took him to São Paulo, but it was his eccentric roles on television that brought him his fame, like the wizard Ravengar in Que Rei Sou Eu? (“What king am I?”), a soap opera on Rede Globo.

In 1998, he was as a member of the jury at the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, in Monaco—the only Latin American guest among such world-famous film stars as Claudia Cardinale, Annie Girardot, and Yehudi Menuhin.

Throughout his career, his family grew larger. One of his children is the actor and musician André Abujamra. The actresses Clarisse Abujamra and Iara Jamra are his nieces.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira