Thursday, March 07, 2024
The Lady in the Tutti Frutti hat
After becoming a musical star in Brazil, singer and actress Carmen Miranda cam to the U.S. to make movies in the 1940s. She cultivated an exotic style and became known for her fanciful headgear, which often included fruit. The 1943 musical The Gang’s All Here was written around her style, particularly the number “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat.” Busby Berkeley choreographed the song with a banana xylophone and scantily-clad dancers wielding giant bananas. Miranda’s schtick was not popular among Brazilians, who saw her as making a mockery of their culture. In her later life, Miranda tried to distance herself from the stereotype she helped to create.
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3 comments:
This movie is actually pretty scary. A bunch of eerie smiling, potentially massmurder-ladies run towards you like hermit crabs in heat...*Brrr...*
That's pretty amazing, made in the heat of the WWII build up. I know the War Resources Board wanted Hollywood to keep producing entertainment for the masses to keep the isolationists from convincing folks we shouldn't be in the European war.
But no CGI meant they had to build all those bananas...and everything else. I wonder what became of all those, probably a few in some janitors grandsons attic.
Oh, and where did they find all those dancers with no blisters or calluses on their feet? LoL
Why yes, I'm weird.
xoxoxoBruce
She didn't have much of a later life to regret things. I read that she died at 46 of a heart attack.
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