(Marcus Vinicius da Cruz de Melo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, October the 19th of 1913- Rio de Janeiro, 9th of July in 1980).
 Has he got the name of one of the main characters at “Quo Vadis” novel? Maybe because it was one of his grandma’s favourites. He graduated in law at the Rio de Janeiro’s University, practised the legal profession and worked as a journalist and film critic becoming in 1966 a jury member of the International cinema festival at Cannes.
In addition to law, he studies English literature at Oxford and enters the diplomatic career making consular functions in Los Angeles, Paris and Montevideo till his cease because of the military dictatorship in 1969. In addition to all these occupations, he is a poet and a dramatist. We can distinguish two stages in his poetry: one, of a totally adherence to Christianity with a spiritualistic, mystic and religious conception, and other, of closeness to the material world and of rebuff to the previous idealism. From the first stage, the books Forma y exegese (1935), Ariana, a mulher (1936), Novos poemas (1938) and Cinco elegías (1939) appear. From the second stage are the poems: Sonetos e Baladas (1946) and Patria Minha (1948). This evolution causes him a lot of criticism, which accuses him to worsen his poetical work because the themes talked about, are understood as frivolous, these critics will be even bigger when he begins to write song letters.
As a dramatist, it stands out his work called Orfeu da Conceicao (Tragedia Caioca, 1956). Thanks to this, he meets Antonio Carlos Jobim and he writes with him a number or musicals to stage them, starting this way a very fruitful relationship from where we can stand out songs like Agua de beber, Amor em paz, Brigas nunca mais, Cancao do amor demais, Chega de saudade, Ela e Carioca, E preciso dizer adeus, Eu sei que vou te amar, A gelicidade, Insensatez, O morro nao tem vez, O nosso amor, Se todos fossem iguais a você, Só daco samba and, of course, Garota de Ipanema. One day, Oscar Ornstein, after the work Orfeu da Conceicao success and performed for the first time at Rio`s municipal theatre the 25 th of September in 1956 with Oscar Niemeyer´s scenery, he makes an appointment with the couple of artists to write and compose a musical which would tell the story of a martian playboy who visits the earth. This idea was reduced to a unique music: Garota de Ipanema, a whole agreement of tropical sensuality directed to a creature from outer space. A delicious silly thing that became an unforgettable success. On the contrary of what we normally think, Garota de Ipanema is not Astrud Gilberto, singer who this song is associated to since the LP “Getz/Gilberto” publication. Garota was actually Heloísa Eneida, who was 15 years old and who normally went to the pub “Veloso”, meeting place for Jobim and Vinicius that it is on the junction of Montenegro and Prudente de Moraes streets. She used to go there to buy cigarettes for her mother.
 To meet Antonio Carlos Jobim was a very important fact for Vinicius, as it also was important for Jobim. If Jobim obtains from this relationship recognition as a musician that it was denied when he worked from club to club, for Vinicius supposes to get free of the narrowness he had in his diplomatic career. Vinicius never fitted into the embassy’s world or even into the poets` one. Some didn’t accept his eccentricities, and some others didn’t understand his passion for what he considered a minor art or even his opinions about the poetic power of musicians like Pixinguinha or Noel Rosa.
One day, his wife Lila Bôscoli discovered there was a dyer who fixed old clothes sewing them up from the other side of the cloth. She considered this a great solution for the poet’s refusals to buy new clothes even the ones he used were very worn. Without Vinicius knowing it, she sent the dyer one of his suits that was bought in London, and a few days later the suit was back completely restored and Vinicius didn’t notice anything at all. Though, due to the restoration, the pockets reversed their position. Some days later, the poet met another diplomatic in the street and this asked him why he had the pockets reversed. Vinicius answered to this: Of course, this is an English suit. Don’t you know that in England everything is reversed?
In 1964, eight years after the Orfeo da Conceicao premiere, or four years after the president Juscelino Kubistcheck asked him and Jobim to make the Sinfonia da Alvorada, he also was performing his show with Dorival Caymmi at the Zum-Zum club. Pio Correia, General secretary of Itamarati, sent a complaint to his superiors talking about the annoyance he had because of seeing this diplomatic in company of certain people. The chancellor Juracy Magalhaes was neither satisfied with the poet’s behaviour, which made the president Costa e Silva order “that tramp” to work. From that moment, there was no place any more in the diplomatic world for him.
 Apart from his collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius worked with other musicians like Antonio Maria, Ary Barroso, Chico Buarque, Edu Lobo, Francis Hime, Pixinguinha or Maria Medalha. In addition to the named ones, we have to emphasize specially Baden Powell, Carlos Lyra and subsequently Toquinho, not only because of the quality of compositions but also because of the length of that collaboration. Vinicius goes back with Baden Powell to African roots both in rhythms and in letters and they will compose afrosambas together like Beri mbao or Canto de Osanha. The musical relationship with Carlos Lyra would turn into a criminal complicity: Vinicius had met a 19 years old girl called Nelita and, in spite of his purposes and requests to her family, they denied their relationship. One day, when Vinicius and Lyra were together, this last one suggested the poet to kidnap the girl without really thinking what he was saying. That night they planned the kidnapping. During the next days, Nelita was carrying Lyra’s house personal use items without her parents knowing it. Vinicius bought 2 flight tickets to Paris and Antonio Carlos Jobim took them to the airport. One day after the couple was in Paris, the family of Nelita published on the newspapers the following notice: “Mr. And Mrs. Rocha Tem announce the marriage of their daughter Nelita with the poet Vinicius de Moraes”. Behaviours such as this one were not strange for Vinicius. He married a few times. Nelita was his 5 th wife. When Antonio Carlos Jobim used to ask him how many times was he going to get married he answered the times he considered necessary.
After the collaboration with Carlos Lyra and when he was 59 years old, he starts to compose with a boy of 23 years old that he meets through Chico Buarque de Hollanda. With Toquinho it also starts the most difficult stage of Vinicius de Moraes: he gets married with Gessy Gesse by the “cigane” ceremony and he initiates into the “candomblé” rites, he puts up the cultural and institutional apathy of Brasil that considers him a decadent artist. He starts a tour with Toquinho through the country universities, he gets married with Gilda Queirós Mattoso, he drinks more whisky each time and he gets more conscious of the end of his life. In spite of all this, from this collaboration will come up marvellous songs such as Acuarela (De Moraes/ Toquinho/ G. Morra/ M. Fabrizio), Chorando pra Pixinginha, Cotidiano nº 2, Maria vai com as outras, Para viver um grande amor, Sei la..a vide tem sempre razao, Tarde em Itapua, Tatamirô or A tonga da mironga de katulete.
Regarding this last song, his wife Gessy Gesse is who makes him think about the African expression “Songa da mironga do kabuletê” after she listened to it some day in Bahía. After changing the word Songa for Tonga because of a tonal matter, he will expose in this song what he feels for the people who criticize him and generally for the people who disturb the cohabitation and the life of the others.
The night before his death he was in his apartment in Rio de Janeiro composing with Toquinho. Towards 3 o’clock in the morning, he went to have a bath and, as a maximum expression of his friendship, he invited his friends to have the bath with him and chat. During the bath he got in coma and the morning later he died. Although he wanted to be incinerated because he was frightened to be buried alive, he was entombed in Rio de Janeiro in a ceremony with thousands of assistants. Poet, diplomatic, singer, initiated to “candomblé”…. The person of Vinicius de Moraes is not easy to explain. As Stanislaw Ponte Preta said to Tia Zulmira: “Of course he is a plural person, he is Vinicius de Moraes. If not, he would have been Vinicio de Morae.”
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