Elke Maravilha
Elke Maravilha ( Grünupp; 22 February 1945 – 16 August 2016) was a German actress, model and television personality. She lived in Brazil from her early childhood until her death. Biography. Maravilha was born in Leutkirch. When she was six, her family emigrated to Brazil and first settled at a farm in Itabira in the state of Minas Gerais. In 1955, her family leased lands in Atibaia in São Paulo State, dedicating itself to the cultivation of strawberries. Then, the family moved to Bragança Paulista, where they also cultivated the land. Back in Minas Gerais, she was chosen as Glamour  Girl in Belo Horizonte in 1962. It was during this period that she was naturalized Brazilian. At the age of 20, Maravilha left home to live alone in Rio de Janeiro, where she took up employment as a bilingual secretary, using her fluency in eight languages, many of them learned in her own home environment, as well as being the youngest teacher of French at Alliance Française and of English in the União Cultural Brasil- Estados Unidos. In the meantime, her father became director of Liquigás and was transferred to Porto Alegre. Elke then returned to live with her family  in Porto Alegre between 1966 and 1969, where she attended courses at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul faculties of philosophy, medicine and letters and she trained as a translator and interpreter of foreign languages. She began acting as a model at age 24, in 1969, in the same period in which she married the Greek writer Alexandros Evremidis, the first of her eight marriages. At the beginning of her career Elke met the fashion designer Zuzu Angel, of whom she became a friend. Personal life. During the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1971, Maravilha was arrested for contempt  at Santos Dumont Airport in Rio de Janeiro for tearing up posters of Stuart Angel Jones, her friend Zuzu's son, claiming that he had already been killed by the regime. She was framed in the National Security Law and lost the Brazilian citizenship, which left her stateless. She was only released after six days after the appeals of artist friends. Years later, she applied for German citizenship, the only one she got. The stylist story was told in theaters in 2006 in the feature film "Zuzu Angel". In the film, Maravilha was played by actress Luana Piovani and made  a special guest appearance. She was also portrayed by Gianne Albertoni in "Chacrinha: O velho guerreiro", a 2018 film biography about Chacrinha. Maravilha died in Rio de Janeiro on 16 August 2016 of multiple organ failure, from complications of a surgery to treat an ulcer. Work. Music. Maravilha recorded the song "Que vontade de comer goiaba", available in the compilation album "Dançando em duplo sentido".