Born in the neighborhood of
Vila Isabel, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, then federal capital of Brazil, Costinha came from an artistic family: his father was a circus clown, called Bocó, whom he would meet only as an adult when his father was in an retirement home. The childhood in circus would influence the trajectory of the comedian in a definitive way. However, the stable situation of the family changed when he turned thirteen, and his father left. In this radio station, after amusing his co-workers making imitations of homosexuals, he was given a chance to act, being a radio actor in important programs of the time like
Cadeira de Barbeiro,
Recruta 23, and even in the first radio version of
Escolinha do Professor Raimundo. He released various humor
vinyl records in the 1970s and 1980s, like
O Peru da Festa trilogy with the CID Entertainment label. They all came with a painted border with the sentence "Prohibited the public execution and sale for those under 21 years old", not only for the obscene jokes, but for the suggestive covers. In the first volume of
O Peru da Festa, Costinha seemed to be naked, with a table covering his private parts and a roasted turkey being served over it. At the movies, his participation has been intense since the 1950s. He began by participating in films like
Agüenta Firme, Izidoro, a comedy;
Anjo do Lôdo, an adaptation of the book
Lucíola written by
José de Alencar; and
O Rei do Samba, biography of the legendary samba composer Sinhô. He played secondary roles and cameos in
chanchadas with actors like Wilson Gray, Wilson Viana, Zé Trindade and so many others of that generation. Sometimes he was a bandit (
De Pernas pro Ar) or even a newspaper photographer (
É de Chuá!). With the arrival of more ambitious and supposedly intellectual cinematic movements of
Glauber Rocha and its pairs, the space of comedians originating from the chanchada went to the television. Comedians such as
Oscarito,
Grande Otelo, and Ankito were without the cinema and without the stardom of before. In the 1960s, very few comedies or popular films were made in Brazil compared to the previous decade. An exception is a cycle of
crime and
Nazi exploitation films. In the case of Costinha, he went to television premiering on
TV Excelsior. == Works ==