Carmen Miranda got knocked down and kept going. Filming an appearance on The Jimmy Durante Show on August 4, 1955, the "ambassadress of samba" suddenly took a knee during a dance number, clearly in distress. Durante covered without missing a beat, and Miranda was back on her feet in a matter of moments to continue with what she did best: performing. By the next morning, she was dead from heart failure at age 46. This final performance in many ways exemplified the power of Carmen Miranda. The actress, singer, and dancer pursued a relentless mission to demonstrate the provocative theatrical force of her cultural roots in Brazil. Armed with bare-midriff dresses, platform shoes, and her iconic fruit-basket headdresses, Miranda stole the show in films like That Night in Rio and The Gang's All Here. For American film audiences, her life was an example of the exoticism of a mysterious, sensual South America. For Brazilian and Latin American audiences, she was an icon. For the gay community, she became a work of art personified and a symbol of courage and charisma. In Creating Carmen Miranda, Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez takes the reader through the myriad methods Miranda consciously used to shape her performance of race, gender, and camp culture, all to further her journey down the road to becoming a legend.

This is the first book-length study of Carmen Miranda in English. It traces her origins as a radio singer, recording artist and film star in Brazil in the 1930s, before exploring in depth her Hollywood screen roles and the construction of her long-lasting star persona in the USA.

A collection of stories from authors including Ann McCaffrey and C.J. Cherryh, inspired by a song by Leslie Fish, explores what life in space is like

This is the first book-length study of Carmen Miranda in English. It traces her origins as a radio singer, recording artist and film star in Brazil in the 1930s, before exploring in depth her Hollywood screen roles and the construction of her long-lasting star persona in the USA.

Her name was Maria do Carmo Miranda Da Cunha, but to millions around the world she was known as the "Brazilian Bombshell" ... the very essence of Latin fun, verve and vitality. From her first American film appearance in a Betty Grable musical, "Down Argentine Way" (20th Century-Fox), 1940, to her final role with Martin and Lewis, "Scared Stiff" (Paramount), 1953, the irrepressible and irreplaceable Carmen Miranda sang and danced her way across the cinematic screen and into the hearts of an adoring public. Carmen was born in the small northern Portuguese town of Marco de Canavezes in approximately 1909. She was brought to Brazil as a young girl and it was there that she first entered show business. By 1939 she had made some four hundred recordings several Brazilian films, had become a household word throughout South America and a national idol in Brazil when she was "discovered" for the American stage. Her lively sambas, Carnival marches, unique stage presence, and highly demanding rapid-delivery numbers completely overwhelmed audiences. Hollywood immediately clamored for this four-foot, eight-inch dynamo of talent who wore three-inch platforms on her feet and an orchard on her head. Relive those exciting performances with a full-color Carmen Miranda paper doll figure and thirty-one gorgeous costumes from all fourteen American films, including: "Down Argentine Way, " 1940 "Week-End in Havana," 1941 "The Gang's All Here," 1943 "Greenwich Village, " 1944 "Doll Face, " 1945/6 "Copacabana," 1947 "Nancy Goes to Rio," 1948/50 "That Night in Rio," 1941 "Springtime in the Rockies," 1942 "Four Jills in a Jeep," 1943/4 "Something for the Boys ," 1944/5 "If I'm Lucky," 1946 "A Date withJudy," 1948 "Scared Stiff," 1953For film historians, nostalgia enthusiasts, or for a generation that has yet to discover the sheer joy of Carmen Miranda, noted artist Tom Tierney has accurately captured an extraordinary and unforgettable performer in all her mirthful and exotic splendor.

"[A] glorious, glittery saga of friendship and loss... I read The Air You Breathe in two nights. (One might say I inhaled it.)." --NPR "Echoes of Elena Ferrante resound in this sumptuous saga."--O, The Oprah Magazine "Enveloping...Peebles understands the shifting currents of female friendship, and she writes so vividly about samba that you close the book certain its heroine's voices must exist beyond the page." -People The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride--and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the other. Some friendships, like romance, have the feeling of fate. Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music. One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes--and haunt their memories. Traveling from Brazil's inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of Rio de Janeiro's famous Lapa neighborhood, from Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship--its unparalleled rewards and lasting losses--and considers what we owe to the relationships that shape our lives.