Anselmo Duarte

Anselmo Duarte Bento April 21 1920 November 7 2009 was a Brazilian actor screenwriter and film director Initially known as a leading man in popular musical comedies known in Brazil as chanchadas he debuted as filmmaker in 1957s Absolutamente Certo in which he also stars His next film O Pagador de Promessas 1962 adapted from a stage play by Dias Gomes won the Golden Palm at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival It is to date the only Brazilian feature film to be so distinguished and the first Cannes Southern Hemisphere Golden Palm for best feature film Duarte was awarded with the Order of The Cultural Merit Brazils highest cultural civilian honor and with the Order of Ipiranga which is the state of São Paulos highest civilian honor He was also awarded with titles of merit citizenship by numerous Brazilian municipalities including Rio de Janeiro São Paulo and Salto his birthplace In 2009 the municipality of Salto inaugurated a multimilliondollar cultural and educational center named Centro Cultural e Educacional Anselmo Duarte housing a 500 audience amphitheater for film and theatrical events The center also displays for public view the original Golden Palm awarded to Duarte at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival n 2008 at 88 Duarte founded a cultural organization Instituto Anselmo Duarte dedicated to restoring selected Brazilian films and creating special free of charge educational projects aimed at young filmmakers to improve their technical filmmaking skills After his death his son Ricardo Duarte 69 became the institutes president Upon being diagnosed by suffering Alzheimers dementia in 2002 Duarte spent his last 7 years of life under the care of his son Ricardo and his grandchild Daphne a preeminent Brazilian artist Anselmo had 4 children Reaching stage 6 on his Alzheimer illness condition a bladder cancer was detected which led to a severe blood hemorrhage precipitating a heart stroke Although both the bladder cancer and heart conditions had been successfully treated a sudden massive hemorrhagic brain stroke left the legendary Brazilian actor and filmmaker in a coma for 6 days which led to his passing on November 7 2009 Description above from the Wikipedia article Anselmo Duarte licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia