Elis Regina

Title
I FELT IN LOVE WITH MYSELF
Andressa Cristina Molinari
Universidade Estadual de Londrina

Outline

I. Introduction
Thesis Statement: How Elis Regina´s relationships influenced on her strong personality.
II. Previous career
III. Family relationships
IV. Elis Regina´s affairs
V. Final Comments

Decades after her death, Elis Regina is still considered one of the most brilliant Brazilian singers. She dedicated her life to her music and career. It is interesting to notice how this character progresses from a cheery optimist at the beginning of her career, and we may have to filter our understanding of her life if we are able to believe that in the end she was not the same person who left Rio Grande do Sul to sing MPB. Despite her brilliant career, she was often classified with impolite terms. Caetano Veloso a famous Brazilian singer, once called her brilliant, but low (Echeverria, 1985). To understand how such a brilliant singer had a terrible ending, it is necessary to examine her family relationships and affairs to see how it interfered in her explosive personality.
Elis Regina did not have an ordinary life. This brilliant singer became tremendously popular as soon as she started singing. Since then, she has never been forgotten. During the years of her life she had to go over financial problems, some marriages, an abortion, and also had three children. Unfortunately, she decided to end up her life with alcohol and cocaine intoxication when 36 years old (Kiechaloski, 1984).
Elis Regina was born in Porto Alegre, in May 17, 1945. She lived in working-class family (Kiechaloski, 1984) and was the daughter of Romeu, a workman, and Ercy, the mother, was a made. Elis also had a brother called Rogério.
She started her career when 11 year-old due to her grandmother´s persistence, and the first presentation was on a children´s radio show, called O Clube do Guri. In 1959, Elis Regina recorded her first album, and an embarrassing situation was when at school a teacher called her bitch because she was singing in the radio. Some say that at this time, she was insecure, shy, unsympathetic, and a prepotent woman.
Realizing that in Porto Alegre she could not go further, in 1964 she leaves to São Paulo to sing at Beco das Garrafas. At this time, her financial situation was getting worse. This happened because she needed to provide financially the father (who was unemployed and could not find a job due to his age), and the rest of the family left in Porto Alegre who depended on her money (Echeverria).
During the years, Romeu made from her daughter´s career a way to earn money and became addicted to alcohol. Elis frequently charged the father in the same way as the brother, saying that they needed to care of their own lives.
When 19, she was not as quiet and shy as before, and the song Arrastão launched her career for a national audience since it was broadcast alive for the whole country. From that moment, her popularity rocketed, and she became the most popular and best-paid singer in the country at the age of 21.
However her career was full of rocking, her personal life was a disaster . Solano, her first boyfriend, said that the intimacy with Elis and her family became worse when he went to live with them in Rio. Elis was very aggressive with the economical dependence of her family and mistreated them a lot. The relationship ended because she took an abortion and only after having it done, told him.
In the `70s, Elis married three times and gave birth to three children. Two of her marriages ended in divorce. She was raising then, three children and providing for her parents. According to Kiechaloski the marriages did not take long because of misunderstood and gossiping. Her first marriage was to Ronaldo Bôscoli with who she had a son, João Marcelo. Bôscoli said on an interview to Echeverria, that she was disrespectful, and treated him on the same way as the father. The quarrels he had with Elis were most solved with fighting’s. "It was a delicious and dangerous relationship (…) we did strange and beautiful things (Ronaldo Bôscoli).
Later, Elis married César Camargo with who she spent 11 years and had two more children, Pedro Mariano and Maria Rita. After the end of her third relationship, she began to use cocaine, but she managed to keep her dependence on the drug well hidden from the family and friends.
Temperamental and moody, she was capable of fits of extreme generosity that could turn to moments of anger filled with paranoia. Vinícius de Moraes who was used to call her "Little Pepper", argued that she was a perfectionist and was frequently dissatisfied. In one of her first concerts in Rio, Gilberto Gil called her corny, and after her death he said:
"Nowadays I know very well how an artist feels when assuming the importance of an epoch. I know now how this deep duality settles in a public person. You are famous, and have the power. It is a constant fight between being important and being happy". (translated by the author).

In the ´80s, Elis Regina married for the third time with Samuel McDowel. Unfortunately, the marriage lasted only 6 months. This came on January 1982, when she was found dead of alcohol and cocaine intoxication at age 36. Initially, her death was rumored to be a suicide, but there is no evidence indicating that it was anything more than a tragic accident.
Elis Regina was a real "Hurricane". In her constant search for her own personality, she made a lot of mistakes. Uncontrolled, she misunderstood with most of her friends, family and herself. She threw herself in her wishes and desires without thinking in the consequences of her acts. She did what she wanted, she said what came to the mouth, screamed, quarreled, and did not tolerate insults.
Once Elis said; "Need I accept everyone that comes to me?”. This wild search for personality, the lack of control from the family and her explosive relationships, unfortunately, lead her to follow on the wrong road. The cocaine and the alcohol killed her before she could find her own.

References

Kiechaloski, Zeca. Elis Regina. Porto Alegre: Tchê/RBS, 1984.
Echeverria, Regina. Furacão Elis. São Paulo. Círculo do livro S.a. e Editorial Nórdica Ltda, 1985.
Revistas Veja número 386, 699, Isto É 266 Edição Especial.

Web sites visited
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elis_Regina
www.billboard.com
http://elisreginapimentinha.zip.net/
http://veja.abril.com.br/idade/estacao/elis_regina/reportagem.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv-DSZCIpFo