Milton Gonçalves

Milton Gonçalves learned his trade in São Paulo theatre, moving from an amateur group into the politically charged Teatro de Arena, where he met Augusto Boal. He wrote plays as well as performing them. He became one of the most prominent Black actors in Brazil across a screen career running from 1970 to his death in 2022, most of it on television, where the telenovela gave him something no film industry was offering: leading-scale work, year after year, in front of an entire country.

The television list is enormous and it maps the history of the form: Irmãos Coragem in 1970, O Bem-Amado, Pecado Capital, Roque Santeiro, Mandala, Araponga, Anjo de Mim, A Grande Família, Snakes & Lizards, A Favorita. He directed for television as well as acting in it, and he was an activist in Brazil's Black movement throughout.

The international career was smaller and much odder. He worked twice with Héctor Babenco, including Kiss of the Spider Woman in 1985 alongside William Hurt and Raul Julia, and he appeared in Carandiru and Four Days in September, which between them are among the most serious Brazilian films of their era. He was also, because this is how an international career actually works, a sergeant in Kickboxer 3 and a supporting player in Wild Orchid.