Carmen Miranda, who was discovered when she was twenty, warmed the hearts of her Brazilian compatriots while also conquering the United States with her exotic song and dance. Her tropical hats, decorated with fruit, her extravagant glitter dresses and her winning smile made this Portuguese-born and Rio- bred singer/dancer the personification of the flamboyant lifestyle, sensuality and the temperament of forties Latin-America. Miranda was a star at performing catchy sambas and by the age of thirty she already had dozens of Hollywood musicals to her name and was the best-paid female entertainer in the USA. But what was Carmen Miranda in real life? In this film Helena Solberg goes in search of the woman who had to maintain the myth of being a Brazilian bombshell, and whose funeral in 1955 in Rio was attended by a million mourners. The step by step disclosures about the woman behind the perfect star is constructed like a thriller plot. Solberg uses film fragments and archive footage, interviews with friends and relatives and reclaimed film to sketch the portrait of a woman who had to pay a high price for her fame and career.
