Death of 3 children and 1st wife: at 91 years old and with an incurable illness, Manoel Carlos experienced a ‘soap opera’ drama in his personal life

At 91 years old, retired from TV and diagnosed with an incurable disease, Manuel Carlos accumulates several dramas in his personal life. And he is the author of soap opera classics such as “Felicidade” (1991), “Por Amor” (1997) and “Laços de Família” (2000) and is honored this Friday (3) in Globo’s “Tributo” at 11:15 pm. The series has already edited Lima Duarte and Laura Cardoso, whose only child died days after giving birth.

Retired since the end of “Em Família” (2014), therefore 10 years ago, and with stints at Manchete, Record, Band, TV Tupi and TV Rio (the latter two now extinct), Maneco, as he is known, worked in production programs such as those by Hebe Camargo (1929-2012) and Chico Anysio (1930-2012), in addition to “Fantástico”.

Manoel Carlos’ youngest son died at age 22 in 2014

In his personal life, the author, novelist, director and editor suffered with the tragic death of his first wife and the death of three children – including the youngest, Pedro Almeida, on October 5, 2014 in the USA, aged 22 and whose ashes were thrown into the sea by sister Julia Almeida.

“My heart still aches with sadness/and secret tears still flow./What it meant to love you/no one will ever know./But now I know that you want/for me to stop suffering./Just remember the happy moments/and everything that life still holds./Since you will never be forgotten,/I promise you”, stated Manoel Carlos in his column for the magazine ” Veja Rio ” a week after Pedro’s death.

“We are devastated, my wife and I. This is my third child and I never thought I would experience this. It’s a trial by fire that I’m facing”, he said to the publication in the same month.

Manoel Carlos’ wife died prematurely in an accident

At that point, the author had already experienced the death of two other children and his first wife, Maria de Lourdes. “In 1972, I lost my first wife – mother of my first two children – in an accident (she fell down a ladder). She was only 36 years old. It was a very hard blow. In 1988, I lost one of these two sons (Ricardo Almeida, playwright and actor). I overcame these losses and after them I got married again, had two more children and am still living”, he told “Jornal do Brasil” in 2010.

Ricardo died as a result of complications from HIV. “Because he was an artist and poet, he never suffered any discrimination, but I fight for prejudice – any prejudice – to be completely exterminated”, Maneco had said seven years earlier to the magazine “Época”.

The other son of Manoel and Maria, Manoel Carlos Junior died in 2012 at the age of 59 after a heart attack. The novelist’s second wife was radio broadcaster Cidinha Campos, mother of Maria Carolina, his daughter and Julia Almeida’s sister, the result of Maneco’s marriage to Elisabety Gonçalves de Almeida.