Actress. A pretty brunette, she is remembered for her long career on the Brazilian stage and screen. Born Gentile Maria Marchioro Della Costa to Italian immigrant parents, she was attractive from a young age and had a significant modeling career by the time she was 14. Drawn to the stage, she made her 1944 theatrical bow in “The Brunette”, then was first seen on the silver screen in 1946’s “O Cavalo 13”. Following the end of her teenage first marriage she wed producer Sandro Polloni and in 1948 the pair founded Rio de Janeiro’s Theater of Popular Art which, along with the later Teatro Maria Della Costa in Sao Paulo, presented the works of Bertolt Brecht, Emile Zola, Tennessee Williams, Eugene Ionesco, Arthur Miller, Eugene O’Neill, and numerous lesser-known authors, often daring to stage pieces thought ‘indecent’ at the time. While starring in countless stage productions, Maria was also seen in “Caminhos do Sul” and “Inocencia” (both 1949), the 1952 “Areiao”, 1959’s “Moral em Concordata”, the mid-1950s television series “Grand Teatro Tupi”, and other screen fare of the day. She saw her image captured by several well known artists, had a hit with a recurring role in the 1969 “Beto Rockefeller”, gradually cut back on her stage appearances, and in 1990 earned her final small screen credit on “Brasilerias e Brasilerios”. In retirement, Maria helped her husband run a resort hotel in Paraty; she was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit in 2002, lived out her days in the Rio de Janeiro suburbs, and died of congestive heart failure. (bio by: Bob Hufford)