Leila Diniz
Actor
Biography
Leila Roque Diniz (25 March 1945 – 14 June 1972) was a Brazilian television, movie and theatre actress, whose liberal ideas and attitudes about sex had raised the discontent of both the feminists and the Brazilian military government of the 1960s.
Born in a middle-class family and the daughter of a communist activist, Leila worked as a kindergarten teacher at age 15. At age 17, she met movie director Domingos de Oliveira, with whom she lived until age 21. Between 1962 and 1964 she had minor roles on stage. In 1965, Diniz started working in television, where she made several telenovelas and various commercials. In 1967, she also started to make movies.
She died on 14 June 1972, aged 27, at the peak of fame, coming back from a movie festival in Australia, where she won a Best Actress award for the movie Mãos Vazias ("Empty Hands"), in the Japan Airlines Flight 471 crash in India.
Filmography
Dangerous Game
as Servant (segment "Divertimento") 1967
Improvised and Purposeful: Cinema Novo
as Self (archive footage) 1967
Hunger for Love
as Ulla 1968
The Alienist
as Eudóxia 1970
A Public Opinion
1967
The Naked Man
as Mariana 1968
Os Paqueras
as Ela mesma 1969
Mãos Vazias
as Ida 1971
Love, Carnival and Dreams
as Pirata 1972
Leila Para Sempre Diniz
as Self (archive footage) 1976
Domingos
as (archive footage) 2009
A Madona de Cedro
as Marta 1968
Mulheres de Cinema
as Self (archive footage) 1978
Já que Ninguém me Tira Para Dançar
as Self (archive footage) 2021
Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
as Self 1997
Edu, Coração de Ouro
as Tatiana 1968