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Edivaldo Souza (10 January 1938 – 24 April 2025), better known by his artistic names Edy, Edy Souza (at the beginning of his career) and Edy Star, was a Brazilian singer, composer, actor, dancer, theatre producer, television presenter and artist. Having started working in entertainment as a child, he worked in various fields and in various genres, primarily with Brazilian burlesque (called chanchada), cabarets and revue theatre. Born and raised in the state of Bahia, in the Northeast of Brazil, he would move to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in the late 1960s, both of which by that point became the major entertainment centres of Brazil.
Star would go on, during the 70s, to become involved in avant-garde works, including the album Sociedade da Grã-Ordem Kavernista Apresenta Sessão das 10 with Raul Seixas, Sérgio Sampaio, and Miriam Batucada. He became known later on for his vulgar performances that challenged the limits of societal attitudes towards sexuality at the time. After having initially begun his performances in the then-rundown Praça Mauá in Rio de Janeiro, and, afterwards, continuing on to perform in locations often frequented by the upper class, such as the night clubs Number One and Up's. He later became known for his performances of The Rocky Horror Show, by Richard O'Brien. His success with his performances in Brazil led to the recording of his first album, Sweet Edy. He also worked in theatre and in television for the rest of that decade and into the 1980s. In the 1990s, Edy Star moved to Spain, where he continued to work at theatres and as a producer at night clubs. After living there for 20 years, he returned to Brazil and began singing again, relaunching his first album, as well as a new album, titled Cabaré Star, in 2017.
He was also known for his shows that mixed various styles of theatre and challenged the social conventions on sexuality at the time, being one of the first artists in Brazil to come out as gay.
With his siblings, he had a happy childhood in Salvador, living in a large house with a garden replete with banana, coconut, and mango trees. One of his childhood passions was reading. He read comics and magazines such as O Tico-Tico, Captain Marvel, Classics Illustrated, Almanac Vida Infantil, Revista da Semana, O Cruzeiro, and Revista do Globo. By 17, he also read many authors such as Alexandre Dumas, Erico Verissimo, Monteiro Lobato, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, and Jorge Amado.
Another passion of his in childhood was music. At home, he mainly listened to radio stations Nacional and Mayrink Veiga, along with local programs with Rádio Sociedade da Bahia — mainly A Hora da Criança. His father also used to take him to the studios which were led by teacher and journalist Adroaldo Ribeiro Costa. As he arrived home, he would improvise a microphone and stage in the garden and sing with his brothers. His first stage performance was when he was 13. His father observed the improvised sessions and signed him on to play at A Hora da Criança. During rehearsals done at Passeio Público de Salvador, he took theatre classes and participated in operetta montages based on works by Monteiro Lobato.
Along with his passions, Star always very much liked to design, which led him to become a plastic artist as well.
At 20 years old, he took courses at Petrobras and became a specialist in petroleum, working with the business as support and a production technician until 1961.
At the beginning of the 1960s, Star received the nickname Bofélia as a reference to the character Ofélia, played by actress Sônia Mamede on Balança Mas Não Cai, broadcast by Rádio Nacional at that time.
Afterwards, he entered the Companhia Baiana de Comédias, presenting theatrical pieces in rural parts of various states in the northeast. This eventually took him to Pernambuco where, beginning in 1966, he established himself in the city of Olinda. Meanwhile, he also attempted a career as an artistic producer with TV Jornal in Recife. His career took a turn when he starred in, together with Teca Calazans, the trendy musical Memórias de Dois Cantadores, which they performed in Recife in August 1967 and was accompanied by musicians Marcelo Melo and Geraldo Azevedo (guitars), Generino (flute), and Naná Vasconcelos (percussions). The play received numerous awards at the Festival de Teatro de Pernambuco in 1968, including for best musical, best figure, and best group. The musicals success opened the door for Edy Star to be invited, along with Naná Vasconcelos, to go to Rio de Janeiro to defend the song "Dia Cheio De Ogum", by composer Capiba, at the O Brasil Canta no Rio festival in December 1968. Though the song was not billed for the festival, it reached the final. There was later the release of an album with the 12 finalists through CID, a subsidiary of record label Itamaraty, Edy Stars record debut.
At the end of 1967, Edy Star returned to Bahia and became an artistic producer and presenter on TV Itapoan in Salvador. While there, producing and presenting the program Poder Jovem, he saw the arrival of new names such as Pepeu Gomes and Moraes Moreira, at a time before they formed the Novos Baianos, Rosa Passos, Maria Creuza, and Antônio Carlos e Jocáfi. Along with these, he appeared while singing on a program by Serrão on Rádio Cultura. It was on this program he met Seixas, who at that point lead the group Raul Seixas, a rock band that was widely known in Bahia for their performances while accompanying other artists, especially those connected to the Jovem Guarda en vogue in the state at that time. Star went on to have radio hits by singing from the repertoires of Jerry Adriani, Wanderley Cardoso, José Feliciano, and Trini Lopez, having as his most well known song a cover of the song La Bamba, where some sections of the audience did not like as much the more effeminate mannerisms that Star had. Meanwhile, after a difficult start, they soon became good friends. In 1968, Seixas went to Rio de Janeiro at the invite of Adriano to record an album for their group, but were not successful in creating any hits. However, after briefly to Bahia, he returned to Rio to become a producer at Sony Music, again for works by Adriani. Star continued dividing his time between radio and TV and, during this time period, participating in various festivals with many different artists, including having personally met Ravi Shankar, Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, and Marianne Faithfull.
Seixas had decided to create a conceptual album, in the image of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles; Freak Out! by The Mothers of Invention; and Tropicalia ou Panis et Circencis by Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, Nara Leão, Os Mutantes, and Tom Zé. As such, he would see in Sampaio an ideal partner to go through with a Brazilian conceptual album, that would mix together influences from music both in Brazil and abroad. As they had decided to unite a diverse group to undertake the effort, they soon called on Star. Difficulties began to emerge when they wanted a female voice to add. They initially thought about Diana, the then girlfriend of Odair José, and Lílian, at that point in a duo with Leno, but they were both taken out of consideration due to their relationships. Another singer that was considered was Lena Rios, a singer from the state of Piauí who began her career by singing a song composed by Seixas at the 1972 International Festival of Song. After also being taken out of consideration, Star remembered a well-humored singer he had seen when he performed at a nightclub in Rio, Boate Drink, by Djalma Ferreira. When they called Miriam Batucada, she soon gained among them the nickname Dr. Silvana, due to the large pair of glasses she had used and reminded them of the Doctor Sivana.
The recordings of Sociedade da Grã-Ordem Kavernista Apresenta Sessão das 10 began in the last week of June 1971 and ended on the first week of the following month. The four produced a lot of material for the album, but various songs were cut due to censorship. In the end, they recorded 12 tracks where they divided the vocals, which were accompanied by members of the bands Renato e Seus Blue Caps and Lafayette e seu Conjunto, all interspersed by humorous vignettes. The production was done by Seixas and Mauro Motta, with arrangements by Ian Guest. The launch of the album occurred on 21 July and the album came to receive positive reviews from major figures of the Brazilian counterculture at the time: Torquato Neto, in his column at Última Hora; and philosopher Luiz Carlos Maciel, who wrote for the weekly newspaper O Pasquim. They also did interviews and were subject to a cartoon by Henfil. Nonetheless, Edy Star had his career interrupted by a unilateral decision from the label's president, Evandro Ribeiro, to take him out of stores, less than two months after the album's launch. The sales of the album at the time were hard to estimate due to his short career, but some of his songs began to be played on radio and had an impact on the counterculture scene in Rio de Janeiro.
There were many rumors around the album, spread mainly by Seixas and Sampaio: they said that the album had been the most expensive album produced in Brazil up to that point; or that an Egyptian harp had been sent to be brought to São Paulo to play only one chord; or even that the group had recorded the album while hidden, at night, so that nobody at CBS would know and that, for this reason, Seixas, who was a successful producer for the label, would have been fired for. All of these rumors were considered a marketing tactic by Seixas and Sampaio, and were summarily disproven by Edy Star in interviews after their deaths.
That same year, he also took part in revues at Teatro Rival, considered a place of "resistance" against generic theatre that had changed its name to Café Concerto, at the time, due to the work of its new owner, Américo Leal. In one of its shows, they made a satirical piece that imitated Maria Alcina, which was seen by the singer and her business partner, Mauro Furtado. It gave such a good impression that the performance gave way for Edy Star to perform at the Number One nightclub, a gathering place for the elite in the Zona Sul. The reduto da alta sociedade na zona sul carioca. The businessman helped Edy to create an instrumental trio and, whats more, got two vocalists to accompany him: Áurea Martins and Djavan, whom had already worked as crooners at the nightclub. The high point of the show was the performance of a bolero called "Hipócrita" where he would sit on the laps of people in the audience and slap them in the face. One night, one of those whose faces was slapped was the son of the then chief minister of the Military Cabinet, João Figueiredo, who would become the last president of the military dictatorship. Even still, various people from the upper class would go to see his show, including, among others, Yolanda Costa e Silva, the widow of former president Costa e Silva.
While at Number One in 1973, the president of the label Som Livre, João Araújo, watched a performance of his and offered a contract to Edy to record an album. As such, Sweet Edy, his debut album, was released in 1974. The album, produced by Guto Graça Mello, contains songs by many of the great composers from the period, made specially for Star, including: Renato Piau, Sérgio Natureza, Roberto and Erasmo Carlos, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Moraes Moreira and Luiz Galvão, Jorge Mautner, Getúlio Côrtes, Leno, and Raul Seixas. Unreleased songs included those by Luiz Melodia, Zé Rodrix and Gonzaguinha. The album had low sales, but it had been well received by critics, who focused on the artistic persona of Star and on the all-star cast of composers that wrote music for him. With the passage of time, he would gain a cult following that represented, along with the debut album of Secos & Molhados, the influence of glam rock musicians such as David Bowie, Alice Cooper, and Marc Bolan (of T. Rex) on Brazilian music.
After Star rejected the offer, as did other musicians, they decided to go with professional actors. The piece made its debut on 14 February 1975 at Teatro da Praia, and the cast participated in the recording of an album by Som Livre. Released the same month, it was titled Rock Horror Show with composition by Eduardo Conde. The cast included Zé Rodrix, Kao Rossman, Diana Strella, Wolf Maya, Acácio Gonçalves, Vera Setta, Betina Viany, Lucélia Santos, and Nildo Parente. As predicted by Star, though the performances received good reviews by the public, the audiences would be silent, not showing much enthusiasm for what should have been a comedic piece. As such, when Conde found it would be impossible to continue due to suffering from hepatitis, Star was asked by Araújo to substitute him. Along with the main actor, the play also lost their director. As a result, Araújo and Rossman gave a blank slate to Star for him to make changes to the musical to make it more comedic. He added a comedic (or chanchada) character to the piece, based on his experiences with cabaret and revue theatre. From the beginning, the cast resisted his changes, asking that he be replaced. However, with the large public success that they would garner later own, they would later embrace the changes.
With the success of the musical, Star would go on to participate in musical programs at TV Globo and Rede Tupi, along with his work in theatres and nightclubs. At the end of the 1970s, due to the rise of the disco era, he created a group called Zaza Big Circus which included Eduardo Rossler, Ernesto Grandelli, Gilberto Costa, Renato Castello, and Sydnei Beker. The idea was created as a mixture of Dzi Croquettes and As Frenéticas to produce something that resembled cabaret, chanchada, and revue theatre, but with the usage of disco rhythms. An album was to be released by CBS and produced by Rodrix and Gabriel O'Meara, but due to delays, the idea ultimately did not go forward.
The life and career of Edy Star are depicted in the 2024 documentary film Antes que me esqueçam, meu nome é Edy Star, directed by Fernando Moraes.
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