1963 - Coccinelle - Nico Fidenco - Dalida

1963

Coccinelle                            March 26 to 29
Duke Hazlett ***                  March 31st at 12 pm
Rosanna Picchi (puppeteer)  April 18 to 28
Josephine Baker                  May 28 to 31
Vittorio Gassman*               May 29 to June 1st
Opera Chinesa*                   June 2 to 6
Karmon Israeli Dancers      June 18 to 23
Nouvelle Eve**                     June 28 to July 14
Romeira                                July 3 to 21
Maurice Chevalier                August 12 & 14
Roy Hamilton                       September 2 to 8
Shoshana Damari                September 2 to 8
Antonio Prieto                      September 9 to 15
Raul Solnado                       September 9 to 15
Nico Fidenco                        September 16 to 22
Norma Herrera                     September 16 to 22
Dalida                                    September 23 to 29

Sara Montiel                         November 23rd (only)
Emilio Pericoli                      December 3 to 9

(*) Vittorio Gassman and Opera Chinesa performed at Theatro Municipal

(**) Nouvelle Eve was performed at Theatro Paramount

(***) Duke Hazlett entered the stage of Teatro Record dressed as Frank Sinatra at exactly 12:00 pm which qualified it as a prank of April Fool's Day. The audience had paid to hopefully see Frank Sinatra but it only saw a vulgar imitation of Old Bue Eyes.

Coccinelle was a sensation in São Paulo in March 1963 when trans-sexuals were not as common as today. She even had the nerve to say she'd become pregnant and people believed the articles published in the popular press.

I had a class-mate at school called Amândio who told me he had watched Coccinelle's show late at night on Channel 7 - TV Record. He was so aroused about Coccinelle's performance he could not help but  jerk-off in front of the TV set.

Coccinelle performs in São Paulo in March 1963.

Coccinelle on the cover of Manchete 30 March 1963. 

Coccinelle was born Jacques Dufresnoy on 23rd August 1931, in Paris but moved to Marseille in 1946, when he was 15 years old.

In 1958, when he was 27 he had a sex-change operation in Casablanca, Morocco. Coccinelle wasn't the first to have a this surgery but but she was the most famous due to be an entertainer.  

At first she changed her name to Jacqueline-Charlotte Dufresnoy, but soon adopted Coccinelle as her name. 

Cantora, estreou em 1953 em 'Chez Madame Arthur', célebre cabaret parisiense com uma canção de Danielle Darrieux extraída do filme 'Premier rendez-vous'.

Coccinelle chegou a atuar no famoso Olympia e no El Casino. Depois de aparecer no filme 'Europa di notte' ficou famosa no mundo inteiro.

Na Argentina, em 1962, participou do filme 'Los viciosos', de Enrique Carreras, onde aparecia brincando com bonecas. Aí alguém lhe perguntava: 'Mas v. não acha que é muito grande para brincar com bonecas?' Coccinelle respondia: 'É que faz pouco tempo que me tornei menina'.

Além desses dois filmes, ainda participou de 'Interpol Attaque' e 'Les Don Juans sur la Côte d'Azur', além de gravar muitos discos.

Casou-se em 1960, 1963 e em 1996.

Coccinelle morreu em Marsella em 9 Outubro 2006, aos 75 anos, depois de passar vários meses hospitalizada devido a um Acidente Cerebro-Vascular, popularmente conhecido como 'derrame'.

Quatro livros sobre o famoso trans-sexual: 'Coccinelle es él', de Mario A. Costa [1963], 'Los Travestis', por Jacques-Louis Delpal [1974]; "Coccinelle por Coccinelle' (sua autobiografía), e em 2001, 'Montmartre Beaux jours... et belle de Nuit', de Jacqueline Strahm.

Coccinelle, famous for having a sex-change operation.

Duke Hazlett (a Sinatra impersonator) on the cusp of 31st of March 1963 to 1st of April 1963 - Fool's Day. 

TV Record brass in the person of Paulinho Machado de Carvalho - his father Paulo had built TV Record from scratch - shot themselves in the foot when they devised a prank to play on the public at large.

As a certain Brazilian middle-class yearned for a Frank Sinatra visit which never eventuated because Sinatra's price was too high - Paulinho thought he'd play a joke on the public's fantasies. They advertised at most newspapers ads showing a silhouette of an artist wearing a hat that could easily pass as a Frank Sinatra image saying: 'He's finally coming'; 'He'll be here on 31st of March at the mid-night hour!'. Most people stayed up watching their TV waiting eagerly for Frank Sinatra to appear and probably sing 'Brazil'.

At the stroke of mid-night TV Record showed it was not a serious enterprise. It had misled everyone. It had laughed at people's gullibility and introduced Duke Hazlett, a second-rate Frank Sinatra impersonator Paulinho had signed in the USA through agent Eddie Elkort who worked with the General Artist Corporation of New York. It was just a Fool Day's prank on the credulous idiots that watched Channel 7.

P.S.  Essa lista foi apresentada pela própria TV Record por ocasião das comemorações de seu 10º aniversario de fundação em 1963.

8 September 1963 - TV Record's ad at TV Guide 'Intervalo' shows Channel 7 was still intent in signing the best international acts possible. Mr. Paulinho Machado de Carvalho spared no money & expenses and went as far as Israel (Shoshana Damari), Portugal (Raul Solnado), France (Dalida), USA (Roy Hamilton), Mexico (Norma Herrera), Chile (Antonio Prieto) or Italy (Nico Fidenco) to bring the best in the intertainement to Sao Paulo's audience.

Maurice Chevalier on the stage of Teatro Record on 12 & 14 August 1963.

22 September 1963 - Norma Herrera from Mexico and Antonio Prieto from Chile were the Spanish-language performers who appeared at Teatro Record in 1963. 

29 September 1963 - France, with 4 performers tied with Italy... both countries with four attractions. It started the year with Coccinelle, a trans-sexual famous world-wide... Nouvelle Eve, the theatre troupe at Teatro Paramount in July; movie star & chansonier Maurice Chevalier in August and finally, Dalida in September.

1st December 1963 - as the last international attraction, Emilio Pericoli who had a Number One hit with 'Al di là' from the sound-track of 'Rome adventure' (Candelabro Italiano) was the 4th Italian in the year which started with Rosanna Picchi & her puppets, Vittorio Gassmann reciting in the Italian language, Nico Fidenco who had a # 1 hit with 'Legata a un granello di sabbia'... This was just a sample of what 1964 would bring... a total invasion of the Brazilian charts by Italian hits...