Laura Cardoso

Laurinda de Jesus Cardoso Balleroni, known professionally as Laura Cardoso (13 September 1927 to 17 August 2026), was a Brazilian actress regarded as a grande dame of national drama and one of the pioneers who built television acting from the medium's Brazilian launch. Across more than eight decades she worked in radio, live teleteatro, telenovelas, theatre, and cinema, accumulating well over one hundred productions and, by many counts, more than sixty novelas, a total often cited as a Brazilian record.

She was born in Sao Paulo's Bixiga neighbourhood to Portuguese immigrant market traders Adriano Cardoso and Carolina de Jesus. As a child she staged sidewalk "theatre" for her grandmother and read stories aloud at a nuns' school, discovering that performance gave her a voice. At fifteen, against parental resistance in a decade that still frowned on actresses, she entered radionovelas at Radio Cosmos (1942) and took the professional name Laura. Circus and children's theatre followed alongside radio Culture and Tupi.

Television arrived with her generation. She appeared on early TV Tupi teleteatro around 1950 and in Vida Alves's Tribunal do Coracao (1952), then in literary adaptations such as Os Miseraveis (Cosette, 1958). Through the 1960s she moved among Tupi, Excelsior, Record, Band, and Rio stations, winning early Trofeu Imprensa recognition (including for Moulin Rouge - A Vida de Toulouse-Lautrec). She also dubbed Betty Rubble into Portuguese for The Flintstones. Adult stage debut came later, in 1959, under Antunes Filho in Plantao 21.

The 1970s cemented her as a novela force: Idolo de Pano, APCA-winning Os Apostolos de Judas, and Tupi titles until that network collapsed. After theatre concentration she joined Globo for Gilberto Braga's Brilhante (1981), briefly worked Band, then returned under Walther Negrao with Pao Pao, Beijo Beijo (1983) and stayed closely tied to Globo thereafter. Popular 1990s roles included Candida in Manoel Carlos's Felicidade, Isaura in the Mulheres de Areia remake, Guiomar in A Viagem, Sinhana in Irmaos Coragem (another APCA), and gypsy matriarch Soraya in Explode Coracao. She also played Dona Lila in TV Cultura's children's series Mundo da Lua.

Cinema brought further prizes: lead acclaim in Tata Amaral's Atraves da Janela (2000) and Grande Otelo supporting wins for Copacabana, O Outro Lado da Rua (The Other Side of the Street), and later De Onde Eu Te Vejo. On stage she took two Shell Awards for Best Actress (Vem Buscar-me que Ainda Sou Teu, 1990; Vereda da Salvacao, 1993). In 2006 President Lula presented her the Ordem do Merito Cultural. Globo audiences later embraced Carmem in Chocolate com Pimenta, blind Portuguese Francisquinha in Como uma Onda, Indian matriarch Laksmi in Caminho das Indias, and, at eighty-five, the false moralist Doroteia in the Gabriela remake. She was still working into her nineties as Caetana in O Outro Lado do Paraiso and Matilde in A Dona do Pedaco (2019). Globoplay dedicated a Tributo episode in 2024; in 2025 she inaugurated the Estudios Globo Walk of Fame and starred in the short Dona Rosinha on elder abandonment.

She married actor-director Fernando Balleroni in 1949; he died in 1980. They had three children: Fatima, Fernanda, and Jose, who died at three days old. She never remarried. In interviews she admitted the career sometimes pulled her from daily motherhood and credited her own mother with helping raise the girls, while insisting she did not regret the stage. Late life centred on family in Sao Paulo, reading, and a still-curious appetite for work. Great-grandson Fernando Faria managed her public Instagram and accompanied her to late honours, including the 2025 Globo year-end vignette with Tony Ramos and Susana Vieira.

Critics and historians place her among the builders who carried Brazilian acting from live radio and black-and-white teleteatro into colour novela factories and streaming tributes. Colleagues praised her accent work, comic timing, and willingness to play unsympathetic women without softening them. Younger audiences discovered her through internet clips of Doroteia's cruelty in Gabriela and through reruns of A Viagem and Mulheres de Areia.

On the night of 17 August 2026 she felt unwell at home in Sumare and died around 23:24 of natural causes while sleeping, age 98, twenty-seven days short of her ninety-ninth birthday. Family announced the death on her Instagram. A private wake was held 18 August 2026 at Funeral Home, Bela Vista; she was buried in Sao Paulo the same day (exact cemetery not made public). Within the same news cycle Brazil also mourned Gloria Menezes; President Lula decreed three days of official mourning for both. Globo re-aired Tributo. Colleagues and more than a million Instagram followers recalled an "operaria" of the craft who refused retirement and said she wanted to die sleeping, "santo, de Deus."