Tarcísio Meira

Tarcísio Pereira de Magalhães Sobrinho (5 October 1935 – 12 August 2021), known professionally as Tarcísio Meira, was a Brazilian actor.

He was one of the first actors to work for TV Globo. He was born in São Paulo and was the longtime owner of Fazenda São Marcos, a 5000 ha cattle ranch in the eastern Amazonian state of Pará. Fazenda São Marcos is located approximately 20 km east of Aurora do Pará, off the Belém-Brasília highway.

Life and career

Meira was a descendant of the Portuguese-born landowning family de Magalhães, who had lived in Brazil since the early 18th century; he aspired to a career as a diplomat, but after being rejected by the Rio Branco Institute, he devoted himself entirely to acting, for which he chose his mother's maiden name, Meira, as his stage name. From 1957 on, he appeared regularly on the theater stage. His first television role was in 1961 in the telenovela Maria Antonieta, and his first appearance in a feature film was in 1963 in Casinha Pequenina. Also in 1963, Meira played a leading role in the first daily broadcast telenovela in Brazil, 2-5499 Ocupado.

Meira was married to actress Glória Menezes since 1962. Their son together (b. 1964) also became a well-known actor under the stage name Tarcísio Filho. In 1968, Meira and Menezes were signed by TV Globo as permanent cast members for telenovelas. Their first telenovela produced by TV Globo, Sangue e Areia (1968), based on Vicente Blasco Ibáñez's novel Blood and Sand, enjoyed great public success. Afterwards, Meira and Menezes were also frequently cast as married couples or lovers. In the 1980s, Meira increasingly appeared in feature films and television miniseries, but kept working in telenovelas and stage as well.