Gentile Maria Marchioro Della Costa (born January 1, 1926) is a noted Brazilian theater, movie and TV actress and producer.

She was born in Flores da Cunha

Flores da Cunha

Flores da Cunha is a municipality in the state Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.-See also:*List of municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul...

, a small town of the state of Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul

Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...

, into a family of Italian immigrants

Italian Brazilian

-Italian immigration to Brazil:The Italian government claims there are 25 million Brazilians of Italian descent, which would be the largest population of Italian background outside of Italy itself. There are no actual surveys, or even verifiable calculations supporting such claims. According to...

 from the region of Veneto

Veneto

Veneto is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Its population is about 5 million, ranking 5th in Italy.Veneto had been for more than a millennium an independent state, the Republic of Venice, until it was eventually annexed by Italy in 1866 after brief Austrian and French rule...

. A beautiful woman, she was immortalized in paintings by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti

Emiliano Di Cavalcanti

Emiliano Augusto Cavalcanti de Albuquerque Melo , known as Di Cavalcanti, was a Brazilian painter who sought to produce a form of Brazilian art free of any noticeable European influences...

, Flavio de Carvalho

Flavio de Carvalho

Flávio de Rezende Carvalho was a Brazilian architect and artist.Carvalho was educated in France from 1911 to 1914, and then in Newcastle-upon-Tyne until 1922, attending the King Edward the Seventh School of Fine Arts and Durham University's Armstrong College. In Newcastle he obtained degrees in...

, Guanabarino and Djanira, and in a statue by Victor Brecheret

Victor Brecheret

Victor Brecheret was an Italian-Brazilian sculptor. He lived most of his life in São Paulo, except for his studies in Paris in his early twenties...

. She started her career at 14 years of age, as a fashion model (she is considered the first professional model in Brazil).

She was one of the pioneers in bringing to the theatre texts from Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

, Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

, Jean Anouilh

Jean Anouilh

Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...

, Maxim Gorki, Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier

Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning DBE was a British author and playwright.Many of her works have been adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". The first three were directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Her elder sister was...

, Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

, Georges Feydeau

Georges Feydeau

Georges Feydeau was a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces.-Biography:Georges Feydeau was born in Paris, the son of novelist Ernest-Aimé Feydeau and Léocadie Bogaslawa Zalewska. At the age of twenty, Feydeau wrote his first comic...

, Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...

, Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

, Eugene O'Neill

Eugene O'Neill

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

, Émile Zola

Émile Zola

Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...

, Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller

Arthur Asher Miller was an American playwright and essayist. He was a prominent figure in American theatre, writing dramas that include plays such as All My Sons , Death of a Salesman , The Crucible , and A View from the Bridge .Miller was often in the public eye,...

, Eugène Ionesco

Eugène Ionesco

Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...

, Plínio Marcos, Marcos Reys, Helena Silveira, Jorge Andrade, Antônio Bivar, Gianfrancesco Guarnieri

Gianfrancesco Guarnieri

Gianfrancesco Sigfrido Benedetto Marinenghi de Guarnieri was a Brazilian actor and playwright.- External links :...

, Nelson Rodrigues

Nélson Rodrigues

Nelson Falcão Rodrigues was a Brazilian playwright, journalist and novelist. In 1943, he helped usher in a new era in Brazilian theater with his play Vestido de Noiva , considered revolutionary for the complex exploration of its characters' psychology and its use of colloquial dialog...

, among others. She was directed by Ruggero Jacobbi, Itália Fausta, Bibi Ferreira, Fauze Arap, Antunes Filho, Flamínio Bellini Berri, Flávio Rangel, Gianni Ratto and others.

She was married to Sandro Polloni, a theater producer, also of Italian origin. Together they built what is until today one of the best theater houses in São Paulo

São Paulo

São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, the Teatro Maria Della Costa.

Presently retired from the show business

Show business

Show business, sometimes shortened to show biz, is a vernacular term for all aspects of entertainment. The word applies to all aspects of the entertainment industry from the business side to the creative element ....

, she is the owner and manager of a small hotel

Hotel

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

 (Coxixo Hotel) in the historical and tourist town of Paraty

Paraty

Paraty [pronounced Par-a-CHEE] is a preserved Portuguese colonial and Brazilian Imperial town with a population of about 36,000. It is located on the Costa Verde , a lush, green corridor that runs along the coastline of the state of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil...

, Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

.

External links

• Biography and photos. Hotel Coxixo. In Portuguese.