Thereza Santos

Jaci dos Santos, better known as Thereza Santos, (July 7, 1930 – December 19, 2012) was a Brazilian writer, actor, playwright, professor, and activist for women's rights and for the Black Movement of Brazil for over five decades.

Biography Santos was born in the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood of Santa Teresa to Antonio Luiz dos Santos, a civil servant, and Marta Martins dos Santos, a nurse. Her career as an actress began early: She appeared in her first film, O Cortiço, at age 15, and later appeared in the Oscar-winning Black Orpheus. She joined the Teatro Experimental do Negro, a theater company founded in rejection of blackface performances, in Rio and later in São Paulo. In the late 1960s, she co-founded the Centro de Cultura e Arte Negra (Center of Black Culture and Art). In the 1970s, during the military dictatorship, she co-wrote and staged with the sociologist Eduardo de Oliveira the piece E agora falamos nós ("And Now We Speak"), which is considered to be one of the first pieces of Brazilian theater written for an exclusively black cast.

In the 1980s, she was the first black woman to be named to the State Council on the Female Condition in São Paulo. She was also an advisor on Afro-Brazilian culture to the secretary of culture for São Paulo state from 1986 until 2002.

Selected works

Malunga Thereza Santos: a história de vida de uma guerreira, autobiography (2008). . Mulher negra. Política governmental e a mulher, co-authored with Sueli Carneiro and Albertina de Oliveira Costa (1985). .

Filmography

Uma Aventura: Uma Aventura na Cidade (2000). O Dia do Músico (short, 1996). E As Pílulas Falharam (1976). Mulheres de Areia (soap opera, 1973). Signo da Esperança (soap opera, 1972). A Fábrica (TV series, 1971). Cleo e Daniel (1970). Nino, o Italianinho (soap opera, 1969) Orfeu negro (1959). Obrigado, Doutor (1948). O Cortiço (1945).