Dircinha Batista

Dirce Grandino de Oliveira (April 7, 1922 – June 18, 1999), known as Dircinha Batista, was a Brazilian actress and singer. Biography Daughter of the singer/composer/ventriloquist Batista Júnior and sister of Linda Batista, Dircinha Batista was a very successful Brazilian singer. In a career of more than forty years she recorded over three hundred 78RPM discs with many big hits, especially Carnaval songs. She worked in sixteen Brazilian movies and was a child prodigy. Dircinha began performing at festivals at age six. She began to participate in her father's shows in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo beginning in 1928. Dircinha and her sister Linda Batista became famous while still young and soon won the admiration of the then-president Getúlio Vargas, who considered the Batista sisters a "national heritage". She became RCA Victor's leading seller over the 1940s and 1950s. In the '60s at the height of her career, Dircinha was already struggling with depression and was hospitalized in clinics and sanatoriums. At age 13, Dircinha made the film Hello, Hello Brazil! directed by Wallace Downey and the following year in Hello, Hello, Carnival! produced by Adhemar Gonzaga, another great success at the time of chanchadas. Her singing career took off after Francisco Alves presented her on his program on Radio Cajuti as "the girl with the throat of a bird". She was named "Queen of Radio" in 1948.