Fernanda Montenegro

Arlette Pinheiro Monteiro Torres, known by her stage name Fernanda Montenegro, is a Brazilian actress. Considered by many as the greatest Brazilian actress of all time, she is often referred to as the grande dame of Brazilian theater, cinema, and performing arts. For her work in Central Station, she became the first Brazilian and first Latin American to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, as well as the first actress nominated for an Academy Award for a performance in a Portuguese language film. Her daughter, actress Fernanda Torres, was also nominated in 2025. Additionally, she became the first Brazilian to win the Emmy Award for Best Actress, for her performance in Sweet Mother. Among the various national and international awards she has received in a career spanning more than sixty years, she was awarded in 1999 her country's highest civilian honor, the National Order of Merit, "in recognition of her outstanding work in the Brazilian performing arts," delivered by then-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)