Cláudia Celeste

Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Cláudia Celeste (Rio de Janeiro, 1952 - Rio de Janeiro, May 13, 2018) was a Brazilian actress and dancer. She was the first trans woman to act in a Brazilian soap opera. Born in the Vila Isabel neighborhood, she received the artistic name of Cláudia Celeste when Carlos Imperial watched her show “Once upon a time in Carnival”, at Teatro Rival, in 1973.

She started her dancing career at the nightclub "Beco das Garrafas". In 1976, she was elected "Miss Brasil Trans" (at the time Miss Brasil Gay) and with the title, she caught the attention of producers who invited her to act in the 1975 film Motel. In 1977, Daniel Filho invited Cláudia to participate in the soap opera Espelho Mágico, alongside Sônia Braga, performing as a chorus girl in the nucleus where the characters worked in a theater. Her participation made headlines in newspapers of the time such as "The first transvestite on TV" and it was through the press that Daniel Filho learned that the dancer was a transsexual. Cláudia had filmed other scenes, but with the repercussion of the first one that was aired, the direction of Globo decided not to broadcast the other scenes, thus ending her first performance in soap operas.

In 1982, she acted in two Brazilian films: Beijo na Boca, by Paulo Sérgio de Almeida, and "Punk's, Os Filhos da Noite", by Levi Salgado.

In 1988, she acted, from beginning to end, in the telenovela Olho por Olho, on Rede Manchete, in the role of the transvestite Dinorá. At this moment, she entered the history of Brazilian television as the first transvestite working with a fixed character in a soap opera.

In theater, she acted in hundreds of shows such as Gay Fantasy, from 1982, under the direction of Bibi Ferreira, Bonecas com Tudo em Cima and Febre.