Ana Zanatti

Ana Zanatti (born 1949) is a Portuguese theatre, film and television actor, television presenter, novelist, children's book writer, poet and a women's- and LGBT-rights campaigner. Early life Ana Maria Zanatti Olival was born in the Portuguese capital of Lisbon on 26 June 1949. She attended a Catholic school and, later, the historic Pedro Nunes High School, which counts two Portuguese presidents amongst its alumni. She then joined an undergraduate course in Romance philology at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon, but left this in 1968 to join the theatre course at the National Conservatory in Lisbon. In the same year she made her theatrical debut at Lisbon's Teatro da Trindade with the Companhia Nacional de Teatro, directed by Ribeirinho. Also in 1968, she began her film career in the film Estrada da Vida, directed by Henrique Campos. Career At the end of the 1960s, Zanatti was invited to be a presenter at RTP, the Portuguese national broadcaster, where she did voice-overs for documentaries, presented TV news, hosted competitions, presented programmes about arts and presented five editions of RTP's flagship programme Festival da Canção (Festival of Song), leading to her winning an award for "Most Popular Presenter" on television. She inaugurated lunchtime broadcasts on RTP in 1970. For 12 years, she was also the institutional voice of Canal Odisseia, a documentary channel. She also participated in the first Portuguese soap opera, Vila Faia, which began in 1982. Zanatti has made 17 films for the cinema and television, including Cântico Final (1976), Jesus Franco's controversial Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (1977), and O Lugar do Morto (1984). Her greatest film success was in O Lugar do Morto (Dead Man's Seat), directed by António-Pedro Vasconcelos, one of the most popular films ever made in Portugal. Following a break of six years after her theatrical debut she returned to the theatre in 1975, playing in Equus by Peter Shaffer at the Teatro Variedades in Lisbon. She then translated the play The True Story of Jack the Ripper, and produced it together with actress Zita Duarte. In all, she performed in 11 plays in Lisbon theatres. In 1984, Zanatti was invited to represent Portugal in a show commemorating the entry of Portugal and Spain into the EEC, held in the European Parliament in Strasbourg. In the same year she was one of 25 women chosen to represent Portugal at the EEC's Commission on the Status of Women.