Carmen Miranda, (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈkaɾmẽȷ̃ miˈɾɐ̃dɐ], February 9, 1909 – August 5, 1955) was a Luso-Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress, and film star who was popular from the 1930s to the 1950s.
Miranda became a popular radio and film star in Brazil in the late 1920s. Her first albums soon made her a national star. Miranda's career in Brazil as a singer of samba was established in the 1920s and 1930s, when she recorded gramophone records, performed regularly on the radio stations of Rio de Janeiro, and was featured in many of the first sound films or chanchadas made in Brazil. By the mid-1930s she had become the most popular female Brazilian singer. Lee Shubert, a Broadway businessman, offered Carmen Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris on Broadway after seeing her perform in a casino in Urca, Rio de Janeiro in 1939
