When the topic of your research is a flamboyant and well-known star like Carmen Miranda, you inevitably have conversations with a lot of people from all walks of life, many of whom may have interesting ideas they are willing to share, often in the most random circumstances. Over the past ten years—my son’s entire life, as he is prompt to remind me—I have been privileged to innumerable impromptu and informal conversations, and I am grateful to everyone who took the time to weigh in on Carmen Miranda’s stardom.
The writing of this book has been immensely facilitated by the generosity and assistance of family, friends, colleagues, institutions, and librarian professionals.
I owe a great debt of gratitude to the staff of several archives for their expertise, pertinent advice, and patience. In the Los Angeles area, I was fortunate to spend several months at the fabulous Margaret Herrick Library and benefited from the assistance of its knowledgeable staff, in particular Barbara Hall, Kristine Krueger, Sandra Archer, Stacey Enders, and my dear friend Lea Whittington. At the University of California, Los Angeles, I am grateful to Mark Gens at the Film and Television Archive, Lauren Buisson at the Department of Special Collections, and my dear colleague, Brazilianist, and film expert Randal Johnson. At the library of the University of Southern California, Ned Comstock’s assistance was extremely useful. I wholeheartedly thank David Miller at the Twentieth Century-Fox legal department for allowing me to work with the Carmen Miranda files at Fox.
I was fortunate to have access to collections at the New York Public Library in the Performing Arts, the Manuscripts and Archives Division, and the Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture. Mark Evan Swartz and Maryann Chach made my time at the Shubert Archive both productive and enjoyable, and I thank them for their insights and our many long conversations that greatly enriched my understanding of Miranda’s Broadway years.
In Brazil, I am grateful to have worked in the archives of FUNARTE-Rio de Janeiro, the National Library, the National Archives, and the Museum of Images and Sound (MIS). My warmest thanks to Cesar Soares Balbi, the director of the Carmen Miranda Museum, for opening its archive and many hidden treasures; his knowledge of Carmen Miranda is most humbling. At the filmothèque and archives of the Museum of Modern Art, I am especially thankful for the kindness and expertise of Hernani Heffner, who always took time to assist me. I am equally grateful to Alice Gonzaga, Adhemar Gonzaga’s daughter, for graciously welcoming me in the Cinédia Studio Archive. Enormous thanks are due Ruy Castro, who has not only written the most superb biography of Carmen Miranda, but is also generous with his knowledge and time, and although our schedules did not correspond and allow us to meet in person, he was gracious to promptly respond to my emails.
This project also received significant institutional support from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The Graduate School for Research in the Humanities provided much appreciated summer support and research funds over several years. I was awarded time off from teaching to concentrate on writing the manuscript at different points of this project through a sabbatical, a semester leave through a Feminist Scholarship Award from the Center for Research on Gender and Women, and a Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Fellowship at the Institute for Research in the Humanities (IRH). I would like to thank my cohort of fellows at the IRH during the academic year 2010–2011, who greatly enriched my thought process, in particular Jimmy Casas Klausen, Rob Nixon, Mary Lou Roberts, Aliko Songolo, Rachel Brenner, Teju Olaniyan, and (despite being on sabbatical) Susan S. Friedman for her vote of confidence.
Over the years, this project has benefited from the friendly, critical eye of colleagues and mentors at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, whose example and camaraderie I continue to value. I am particularly grateful to my colleagues Alicia Cerezo Paredes, Ellen Sapega, Fernando Tejedo, Glen Close, Ivy Corfis, Juan Egea, Kata Beilin, Ksenija Bilbija, Luís Madureira, Sarli Mercado, Steve Stern, and the late Ray Harris. Infinite thanks to my dearest friend and colleague Severino Albuquerque, whose encouragement, humor, and excellent suggestions over many late dinners proved priceless over the course of these years.
Thanks are due as well to many wonderful colleagues in the dynamic field of Brazilian studies. For their theoretical insights, keen interest, and tolerance in collectively listening to close to two dozen papers on Carmen Miranda, inviting me to give a talk, participating in conferences and panels, and sharing essential bibliographic references, I especially acknowledge my gratitude to Ana López, Ana Paula Ferreira, Anna Klobucka, Anna More, Camilo Gomides, Charles Perrone, Claire Williams, Dário Borim, Darlene Sadlier, David Frier, David Jackson, Emanuelle Oliveira-Monte, Fernando Luiz Lara, Fernando Rocha, Hilary Owen, Inês Dias, Jeremy Lehnen, Jim Green, Leila Lehnen, Luca Bacchini, Lúcia Sá, Luiz Fernando Valente, Marc Herzman, Maria José Barbosa, Paulo de Medeiros, Pedro Meira Monteiro, Peggy Sharpe, Rebecca Atencio, Rex Nielson, Robert Simon, Steven Butterman, and Victor Mendes.
The book has been much improved by the suggestions and corrections made by Bryan McCann and Christopher Dunn. Chris was also very generous with his time while in residence in Madison, and I appreciate our friendship and his willingness to share his vast knowledge of Brazilian music and culture, along with his New Orleans culinary talents. I am grateful to Antônio Carlos Secchin for finding and generously sending to me the absolutely priceless and long-out-of-print Cássio Emmanuel Barsante Carmen Miranda book. I am also extremely grateful to Carlos Reis for his kind support of a project that was clearly not “his cup of tea” at first, but for which he generously provided narratological insights and theoretical references, especially during the beginning and completion of this process.
I would like to thank my students at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who enabled me to rehearse my obsessions in courses on Brazilian culture, race, gender, and film and who frequently contributed brilliant points of view about these topics. Among these students and future colleagues, a special thanks to Djurdja Trajkovic, Israel Pechstein, Jaime Rhemrev, Juan Iso, Robin Peery, and Valerie Klorman. I am also grateful to my undergraduate research assistants, Elizabeth Toussaint, who worked with the Getúlio Vargas diaries, Sarah Kenney, for her work on memorabilia and newspaper film reviews, and Courtney Cottrell, who worked with fashion and magazines.
For their gracious hospitality during research trips and for fabulous cuisine, I remain indebted to Rita Leal and Luiz Eduardo Carvalho in Rio de Janeiro and Fernanda Venancio Filho in New York. A special thanks to my dear friend Regina Figueiredo-Brown, who was great company for unforgettable evenings of camp musical viewing. Thank you also to Leo Burger, my stylist, whose knowledge of popular culture and film made for many enlightening haircuts and whose expectations and encouragement kept me moving the project along.
I am extremely grateful to the staff at Vanderbilt University Press. I cannot thank my wonderful and wise editor Eli Bortz enough for his expert judgment, diligence, patience, and steadfast support throughout the process. My most sincere thanks also to Betsy Phillips, who showed enthusiasm for the project from the beginning, to Joell Smith-Borne, whose flexibility, dedication, and sage guidance helped bring the final product to completion, and to Laura Fry for the excellent copyediting.
My family has shown loving support throughout the writing of this book. My parents have continued to cheer their daughter’s success, despite research trips far from home and an erratic work schedule. I thank my husband, Pablo, who lived through this experience and who was crucial for my being able to take the necessary research trips. A special thanks to my two favorite research assistants, Giselle and Tiago, who have grown up with this project and who have humored me by watching innumerable cartoons (some, such as Futurama, that we realized too late were not exactly PG), musicals, and “boring black and white films”; they were the best “Carmen Miranda scouts” anyone could hope for. I dedicate Creating Carmen Miranda to my late sister Yvette, who accompanied me on my first research trip to Los Angeles at the early stages of this book and would have loved to have seen its completion.