Brazilian actress and model Vera Valdez, 89, died on Jan. 14. Born in Rio de Janeiro, she became a top model in Paris in the 1950s, walking the runways for Schiaparelli, Dior, and that Nazi whore Coco Chanel. She returned to Brazil, where she worked as a costume designer for Louis Malle, acted onstage (primarily with the Teatro Oficina), and appeared in such films as Sol Alegra, Quebranto, The Grandmother, and Tia Virgínia (her last film, in 2023). According to Publico, Valdez came from “a family of diplomats and theater artists. Her strong temperament, the libertarian and foul-mouthed posture that would mark her work on stage, manifested from an early age.” Valdez herself said that “I was raised by a libertarian, bohemian, intellectual, naughty, naughty woman, who gave everything for the theater and taught me the way. I've always been in the theater." Her daughter, Mariana de Moraes (by her first husband, photographer and journalist Pedro de Moraes) is also an actress. (Doesn’t “Vera Valdez” sound like a showgirl who’s murdered at the beginning of a Philo Vance movie?)
