In 1942, when introduced to Walt Disney in the United States, musician José do Patrocínio Oliveira quickly engaged in conversation using his heavily accented English. Upon hearing him, the animator advised, “Don’t try to be American, we already have enough Americans here. Be Brazilian.” This was something Oliveira knew how to do very well. Inspired by him, Disney created his Brazilian character: Zé Carioca (“Joe Carioca” in the original). However, the man behind the parrot was… paulista!
Born in the city of Jundiaí in 1904, the guitarist and cavaquinho player Oliveira, affectionately called Zézinho by friends, had quite a few quirks. “He was all quick, never stopped moving or talking,” recalls TV director José Amâncio.
“It’s not that Zézinho resembled the character. He simply was Zé Carioca!” In Brazil, the debut of the green and yellow parrot would come later in 1942, with Alô, Amigos (bizarrely titled “Saludos Amigos” in English), a pioneering mix of film and animated cartoon. In it, Zé Carioca – voiced by Zézinho himself – welcomes Donald Duck to Brazilian lands.
Besides being a box office success, Alô, Amigos also pleased American authorities. After all, the Disney Studios film fit perfectly into the Good Neighbor Policy, launched in the 1930s by American President Franklin Roosevelt to keep all of America aligned with the United States – and away from the influence of communists and fascists. The doctrine was overseen by the OCIAA (Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs), which commissioned Disney – a sort of “unofficial ambassador” of the Good Neighbor Policy – to create characters that would win the sympathy of Latin America.
To please the Mexicans, Disney created the rooster Panchito. When it came time to honor Brazil, the animator decided to use a parrot. There are different versions of how this happened. The most accepted one is told by writer Ezequiel de Azevedo in O Tico-Tico: Cem Anos de Revista.
According to him, during a visit to our country in 1941, Disney received from cartoonist J. Carlos the drawing of a parrot hugging Donald Duck. There it was, the chosen animal – all that was left was to give it personality. Then, the following year, Disney was introduced to Zézinho. And his parrot got a rogue’s hat, a bow tie, an umbrella to use as a cane, and a speech flavored with ginga and cunning.
“Many people think that Zézinho created that voice of Zé Carioca especially for the cartoons. He didn’t, it was his real voice,” says José Bonifácio de Oliveira Sobrinho, known as Boni, director of TV Vanguarda. In 1957, at 22 years old, Boni reconnected with the musician and maintained a friendship with him that lasted 30 years – filled with stories about what life was like as a cartoon character. “Disney said that Zézinho even had a parrot’s nose. And he would take him to the studio, put a hat on him, give him an umbrella, and ask him to walk, samba, shake his hips… The animators would watch to make the parrot move the same way. And Zézinho would say: ‘But I don’t know how to shake my hips, I’m paulista!’
Before and above being Zé Carioca, Zézinho was a great musician. Since the 1930s, he accompanied singers Aurora and Carmen Miranda when the two had pre-carnival schedules. The musician, for example, was a former employee of the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, known for studying venomous animals. “When he got excited, he would talk about snakes by their Latin names,” writes Ruy Castro. Friend José Amâncio recalls that another thing that occupied Zézinho’s mind was all the train stops in São Paulo. “He had a habit of naming each one, in the correct order.”
Zézinho’s incredible memory allowed him to memorize practically all the Carnival songs ever made up to that point. “We would mention the year, and he would then list every marchinha and samba. If we asked, he would sing,” says Boni. Besides guitar and cavaquinho, Zézinho was a whiz on the mandolin and more than ten other instruments. He went to the United States in the late 1930s, following Carmen Miranda’s success. There, he recorded three albums with Aurora and, in 1942, became part of the Bando da Lua, the group of musicians that usually accompanied the two sisters.
In 1942, Zézinho made his film debut playing with the Bando da Lua in the movie Minha Secretária Brasileira, starring Carmen Miranda. Shortly after, in Alô, Amigos, he did more than just voice Zé Carioca: he appeared playing “Na Baixa do Sapateiro” and “Os Quindins de Iaiá,” by Ary Barroso. In 1944, he returned to voice Zé Carioca and act in another combination of film and animated cartoon produced by Disney Studios: the classic Você já Foi à Bahia?. There, alongside Aurora, he played “Aquarela do Brasil,” also by Ary Barroso, and “Tico-Tico no Fubá,” by Zequinha de Abreu.
Brazilian music, which had already won over the United States with Carmen Miranda, gained even more space with the boost given by Disney in cinema. After the premiere of Você já foi à Bahia?, Zézinho played with Aurora in Mexico. According to Ruy Castro, despite the singer’s fame, her name was second on the show posters. It came right below “Joe Carioca” – Zézinho had taken on the name of the parrot due to its popularity. The musician played samba until he was 75 years old, in various American states and even at Disneyland in California. His first appearance there was at the theme park’s inauguration in 1955 – he took the stage announced by Disney himself. Just like Zé Carioca in Alô, Amigos, Zézinho was a warm host: he made a point of keeping the doors of his home in the United States always open, turning it into a sort of informal embassy of Brazil. “Friends wanted to know more about Hollywood, see how things were done there. I would arrange with Zézinho, and he would take us to all the studios. Everyone there knew him,” says Boni.
In the early 1980s, friend José Amâncio visited Disneyland for the first time, accompanied by Zézinho. As soon as he arrived at the park, he was astonished to see all the employees greeting the musician and saying: “Hey, Joe Carioca.”
“I discovered that day how he was loved,” he says. Zézinho was almost 80 years old when this happened – and the character’s debut film was already over 40 years old.
In 1987, Zézinho passed away. And he exited the scene in the best Zé Carioca style. “On his tombstone, it says: ‘Demais!’ Because for him, everything was ‘demais’,” says businessman José do Patrocínio Oliveira Júnior, the parrot’s son. Or rather, the musician.