Elke Maravilha


Elke Maravilha was a German-born Brazilian actress, model and television presenter.

Biography

Born in a little town in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, when she was six when 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, she left home to live alone in Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 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 friend.

Personal life

During the Brazilian military dictatorship in 1971, she 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, Elke was played by actress Luana Piovani and made a special guest appearance.
She died in Rio de Janeiro on 16 August 2016 of multiple organ failure, from complications of a surgery to treat an ulcer.

Filmography

Television

Film

Stage