FIRST RIO CARNIVAL QUEEN - ELVIRA OLIVIERI COZZOLINO FIRST WOMAN WORE BIKINI IN PUBLIC BORN 1920 SEPTEMBER 6
FIRST RIO CARNIVAL QUEEN - ELVIRA OLIVIERI COZZOLINO FIRST WOMAN WORE BIKINI IN PUBLIC BORN 1920 SEPTEMBER 6 Elvira Olivieri Cozzolino, better known by her stage name Elvira Pagã (1920–2003), was a Brazilian vedette and actress, singer, writer and painter. She was the first Rio Carnival Queen, the first woman to wear a bikini in public, and one of the first women to have cosmetic surgery in Brazil. Talented and controversial, she broke the status-quo and faced the reigning "machismo" with fearless audacity during the Brazilian military dictatorship and the revolutionary 1960s, where she lived with determination and courage. Pagã retired from public life, wrote and painted in her later years, dying a recluse. Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Elvira Olivieri Cozzolino was born on 6 September 1920 in Itararé, São Paulo, Brazil. She moved as a child with her family to Rio de Janeiro and attended the convent school Immaculate ...