At the age of six she moved from Pelotas, a city in Brazil's extreme south, to São Paulo with her family. In 1950, she attended the University of São Paulo's (USP) 'School of Dramatic Art' and set up a theater group called 'Jovens Independentes' (Young Independents). She married for the first time at age of eighteen.Her professional career began at São Paulo's TV Tupi (Brazil's first television station) in 1959, in the soap opera "Um Lugar ao Sol (1959)", directed by Dionísio Azevedo.In 1962 she starred in the classic film La parole donnée (1962) ('O Pagador de Promessas'), the only Brazilian film to win the 'Palme d'Or' at the Cannes Film Festival in France, and the first South American film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.In 1963, alongside Tarcísio Meira, she had her first starring role in Brazil's first daily live television soap opera, 2-5499 Ocupado (1963), broadcast by TV Excelsior, now extinct. From this soap opera on, the two actors began appearing together as a successful working and married couple in over fifteen TV productions.She is considered one of the main Brazilian actresses, as she has played several outstanding characters during her career on TV, films, and in theater, including the role of 'Doris' in the Brazilian production of Bernard Slade's romantic comedy play 'Same Time, Next Year'.