Vida Alves was born on April 15, 1928, in Itanhandu, a mining city in Minas Gerais.[1][2] She moved to the city of São Paulo to pursue acting.[1] She began her career in radio before transitioning to film and early television roles.[2] Her film roles included Paixão Tempestuosa in 1954 and A Pequena Órfã in 1973.[2]
Alves was cast in Sua Vida Me Pertence, Brazil's first telenovela and a pioneer of the television genre, which debuted on TV Tupi in 1951.[1] She co-starred in the series with Walter Forster, an actor who was also TV Tupi's director.[1] In 1951, Alves and Forster shared the first on-screen kiss ever broadcast on Brazilian television.[1] Alves and Forster rehearsed their scene in her living room under the watch of her husband, Gianni Gasparinetti, who gave his permission.[1] Alves and Gasparinetti were newlyweds at the time and Forster was a close friend of the couple.[1] According to Alves, who spoke of the scene in a December 2016 interview, "We [She and Forster] lived very close, a block away...It was a technical kiss. Walter Foster showed up at my house and said, 'Let's rehearse.' My husband thought it was kind of weird, but he agreed."[1] Alves historic kiss was performed live on television and not taped, so no copy of Brazil's first on-screen kiss exists.[1]
Alves called the early telenovelas aired in the 1950s "simpler" than today's series, since the shows were only broadcast two or three times per week, rather than airing daily episodes.[1]
During the 1950s and 1960s, TV Tupi also aired a teleteatro show called TV de Vanguarda, which broadcast television adaptations of literary novels and plays.[1] Teleteatro were a type of Brazilian television show that featured a complete story arc with a beginning, middle and ending broadcast in a single, two-hour episode.[1] In 1963, Alves appeared in an episode of the series called A Calúnia in which she and actress Geórgia Gomide shared a kiss, marking the first gay kiss ever broadcast on Brazilian television in the country's history.[1][2] The plot of A Calúnia featured two staff members of an all-girls boarding school, played by Alves and Gomide, who become the subjects of rumors that they were gay.[1][4] Alves plays the director of the school, while Gomide portrays her colleague.[4] Upon hearing the rumors, outraged parents complain and the school is forced to closed.[1] On the day the school closes, Alves and Gomide look at each other, kiss and realize they are actually in love.[1] In a 2011 interview with Época magazine, Alves called the landmark kiss "tender", since their characters had not realized their feelings for each other until that moment.[1]
In 1995, Alves and several television co-founded the Associação dos Pioneiros Profissionais e Incentivadores da Televisão Brasileira (Pró-TV), a professional organization.[2][4] She also operated the Museu da Televisão Brasileira, including special exhibitions, at her own home in São Paulo for thirteen years.[2]
Alves released two books focusing on her career during her later life.[2] A biography titled Vida Alves - Sem medo de viver, authored by Nelson Natalino, was published by Editora Imprensa Oficial in 2013.[1] Alves also wrote a second book, Televisão brasileira: O primeiro beijo e outras curiosidades (Brazilian television: The first kiss and other curiosities), which she released in 2014.[2]
Alves was interviewed by BBC Brasil in December 2016, just weeks before her death.[1]
Alves began suffering from declining health in 2016.[2] She was hospitalized in Sancta Maggiore hospital in São Paulo on December 28, 2016, just weeks after her BBC Brasil interview.[1][2][4] She died at the same hospital from multiple organ failure on January 3, 2017, at the age of 88.[1][2] She was survived by two children, three grandchildren, including singer Tiê,[4] and three great-grandchildren.[2] Alves was buried in the Cemitério do Araçá in São Paulo.[2]
