Assis Chateaubriand country of citizenship Brazil
Early life
Chateaubriand was born in Umbuzeiro, state of Paraíba, in the Northeast of Brazil, on October 4, 1892, the son of Francisco José Bandeira de Melo and his wife, Maria Carmem Guedes Gondim.
Chateaubriand married only once, with Maria Henriqueta Barroso do Amaral, daughter of an attorney named Judge Zózimo Barroso do Amaral, with whom he had Fernando, their first son.Career
From a troublesome youth in the northeast of Brazil, Chateaubriand followed the trail of a self-made man into a well-off position in the Brazilian press.
Chateaubriand began as a journalist at the age of 15, working for the newspaper Gazeta do Norte. He also wrote for Jornal Pequeno and Diário de Pernambuco. In 1917, having moved to Rio de Janeiro, he worked for Correio da Manhã. In this newspaper, he would publish his impressions about his trip to Europe, in 1920.
In the state of Pernambuco, as a young lawyer, he rapidly grew to fame through a series of verbal clashes, or polemics, with political and literary figures. At this time, he managed, still in his twenties, to become Professor of Roman Law at the Law Faculty of Recife, after a hard-fought examination, being formally appointed for the post only after various clashes with the state's politicos, among them General Dantas Barreto and Dr. Manuel Borba. What finally settled the battle was a telegram from the president of the republic, Venceslau Brás, on December 8, 1915. His victory in attaining the position as professor further became a platform for his next goal; to own a newspaper of his own by the age of thirty.
In 1924, Chatô became the director of O Jornal. In the following year, a newspaper from São Paulo was added to his press conglomerate: Diário da Noite. In 1929, Chateaubriand added to Diários Associados another newspaper: Estado de Minas.
After moving to Rio, Chateaubriand worked as a journalist and lawyer, and it was in the latter capacity that he made friends with influential people, among them the public utilities trust Light & Co's CEO Alexander McKenzie and the American mining magnate Percival Farquhar.Chateaubriand was a media mogul in Brazil between the late 1930s and the early 1960s and the owner of Diários Associados, a conglomerate that counted at its peak more than a hundred newspapers, radio and TV stations, magazines and a telegraphic agency. He is also known as the co-creator and founder, in 1947, of the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), together with Pietro Maria Bardi.
On September 25, 1935, Chateaubriand inaugurated Rádio Tupi (pt) in a ceremony attended by the inventor of radio Guglielmo Marconi, who, ten days earlier, had broadcast the first musical program with a 120-voice orchestra performing the Brazilian National Anthem and was conducted by conductor Villa-Lobos. In its beginning, the station was known as "Cacique do Ar", also being called by its prefix PRG-3 or, simply, G-3.
Chateaubriand also founded the first television network of Latin America and the fifth in the world (Tupi TV). He was Senator of the Republic between 1952 and 1957.After becoming a press tycoon, his main tool for money making the most extensive use of libel and blackmail, directed against magnates and authorities. in the promotion of his pet projects – as in his campaign for the building of airports and training of pilots across Brazil – he would resort to any means whatsoever, having even ordered his subordinates to shoot a German businessman who refused to be blackmailed by him Later in life, he would refurbish his São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) with a whole collection of old European masters' works purchased at bargain prices in impoverished post-WWII Europe, by using funds extorted through blackmail from various Brazilian businessmen. Chateaubriand never made a great secret about his peculiar business strategies: "excellency in business means buying without money" he once allegedly said.He died on April 4, 1968, in São Paulo, after fighting the results of a stroke for a number of years.
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