Cidinha Campos

Cidinha Campos (born 1942) is a Brazilian journalist and radio and television broadcaster. She has also been a politician affiliated to Brazil's Democratic Labour Party (, PDT) since 1982, serving terms as a Federal Deputy to the National Congress of Brazil and as a Deputy in the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro state. She is noted for her campaigns against corruption and her work in favour of consumer rights.

Early life Maria Aparecida Campos Straus, better known as Cidinha Campos, was born in São Paulo on 5 September 1942. Her father owned a grocery store. When she was around 5 years old, her mother won an unofficial lottery and the family visited Portugal. There she stayed with her mother's family for about a year. By the time she returned to Brazil, she was speaking Portuguese like a native of Portugal. In her street there was a teacher, whose young daughter was a radio star. When he heard Campos speaking and singing with a Portuguese accent, he arranged for her to sing on Clube Papai Noel, a show broadcast on Rádio Difusora in São Paulo. The show was performed before a live audience and Campos dressed up as a Portuguese fado singer. She then appeared on television in soap operas and was also a TV presenter on children's programmes, first on Super Rádio Tupi until 1955 and then on Record TV until 1970. Campos attended secondary school at Colégio Pais Leme in São Paulo and graduated as a pianist at the Conservatório Dramático e Musical de São Paulo. Career The current affairs programme on RecordTV that Campos presented proved important for her career. She interviewed famous people, such as Jean Genet, Claudia Cardinale, Alberto Sordi, Alain Delon and Jean Paul Sartre. With an interest in sport, she covered the 1970 FIFA World Cup, held in Mexico. In 1971, she then moved to Rio de Janeiro where, in addition to working with TV Tupi, she was to be a sports correspondent for Jornal dos Sports. In 1973-74 she worked with TV Globo before becoming a theatrical producer. The comedian, singer and writer, Juca Chaves, then suggested that she perform and this gave rise to Homen Não Entra (No Men Allowed), a monologue performance, with which she toured Brazil. It is considered to have been the first theatrical performance to ban the entry of men.

In the state assembly Campos became known as one of the most combative deputies. The author of more than 40 laws, she authored the law that requires every public hospital in Rio de Janeiro state to be able to perform mammographies and bone density exams, as well as a law that prohibits people being searched on entering banks. She denounced numerous acts of corruption, including in areas such as private pension provision and advertising expenditure by the state government, and in some cases was successful in having people removed from office and convicted.

Campos chaired the Assembly's Consumer Defence Commission for 10 years, which, among other things, created "consumer buses", that provided a mobile service to listen to the population's complaints. Under her tenure, the Commission resolved more than 130,000 cases. In 2013, she was asked by the then governor, Sérgio Cabral Filho, to run the State Department for Consumer Protection and Defence (Seprocon). In 2014 she was successful in passing legislation to increase penalties against companies that broke the law. In 2016, she was an unsuccessful candidate to be deputy mayor in Rio de Janeiro. She failed to be re-elected to the state assembly in 2019, receiving many fewer votes than in previous elections and in 2020 resumed her broadcasting career on Super Rádio Tupi.

Personal life Campos married the novelist and screenwriter, Manoel Carlos. Their daughter, Maria Carolina, is also a well-known screenwriter. Since 1973, Campos has been married to Ricardo Straus, and they have a son.