Glicínia Quartin (1924 2006) was a Portuguese stage, film and television actor who received several awards for her performances.

Early life and training

Glicínia Vieira Quartin was born on 19 December 1924, in the Portuguese capital of

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

. She was the daughter of the radical teacher, freemason and feminist

Deolinda Lopes Vieira Deolinda Lopes Vieira (18881993), a primary school teacher, was an anarcho-syndicalist activist and a feminist, who played an important role in Portugal's ''Conselho Nacional das Mulheres Portuguesas'' (National Council of Portuguese Women - CNM ...

and of the anarchist intellectual, António Pinto Quartin. At home, she was exposed to the friends of her parents who were journalists, writers, teachers and members of the feminist movement, such as

Maria Lamas Maria Lamas (6 October 1893 – 6 December 1983) was a Portuguese writer, translator, journalist, and feminist political activist. Early life Maria da Conceição Vassalo e Silva da Cunha Lamas was born on 6 October 1893 in Torres Novas in the Sa ...

and

Ana de Castro Osório Ana de Castro Osório (18 June 1872 – 23 March 1935) was a Portuguese feminist, active in the field of children's literature and political Republicanism. Early life Osório was born into a well-off family on 18 June 1872, her mother being Mari ...

. Quartin married at the age of 21, against her parents' wishes. Initially studying agronomy for a year, she then transferred to the Faculty of Sciences of the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

, graduating in 1954 in biological sciences, while also studying nutrition. She then worked as a marine biologist for 7 years, investigating, in part, the overfishing of

cod Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...

. This took her to Norway, Greenland and

Lowestoft Lowestoft ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer Map OL40: The Broads: (1:25 000) : . As the most easterly UK settlement, it is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and sou ...

in England to work as an intern. At the same time as she was developing her scientific skills, Quartin began to perform on the stage, making her debut in 1951 with an experimental theatre group. After her film debut, in ''

Dom Roberto ''Dom Roberto'' is a 1962 Portuguese film directed by Ernesto de Sousa and starring Raul Solnado, Glicínia Quartin and Nicolau Breyner. It was released on 30 May 1962. Cast *Raul Solnado * Glicínia Quartin *Nicolau Breyner João Nicolau de ...

'' directed by Ernesto de Sousa, she decided to become a professional actor. After attending a theatre course at the school of

Alessandro Fersen Alessandro Fersen (5 December 1911 – 3 October 2001) was a Polish-born Italian dramatist, actor, theater director, author and drama teacher. Born Aleksander Fajrajzen in Łódź to a Jewish family, Fersen he moved to Genoa with his family in 1 ...

in Rome, Italy, which followed

Stanislavski's system Stanislavski's system is a systematic approach to training actors that the Russian theatre practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski developed in the first half of the twentieth century. His system cultivates what he calls the "art of experiencing" ...

, she made her professional debut at the Teatro Experimental do

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

in 1965. She had had several roles in the theatre and on television while still studying, with her first television performance being in 1952. Quartin later worked with the ''Teatro Moderno de Lisboa'', ''Teatro Experimental de

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Portugal, tourist de ...

'', the

D. Maria II National Theatre The Queen Maria II National Theatre ( pt, Teatro Nacional D. Maria II) is a theatre in Lisbon, Portugal. The historic theatre is one of the most prestigious Portuguese venues and is located in the Rossio square, in the centre of the city. Histo ...

in Lisbon, at the invitation of

Amélia Rey Colaço Amélia Lafourcade Schmidt Rey Colaço de Robles Monteiro (2 March 1898–8 July 1990) was one of the leading Portuguese actors of the first half of the 20th century. She was also an important impresario. Early years Amélia Rey Colaço was born ...

, and the ''

Teatro da Cornucópia Teatro da Cornucópia is a theatre company in Portugal founded in 1973 by Jorge Silva Melo and Luís Miguel Cintra with the staging of the play ''The Misanthrope'' by Molière. The theatre is located at the Teatro do Bairro Alto, Rua Tenente Raul ...

''. She performed in plays by a wide range of authors, such as

Jean Genet Jean Genet (; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels ''The Thief's ...

Pier Paolo Pasolini Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, filmmaker, writer and intellectual who also distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, translator, playwright, visual artist and actor. He is considered one of ...

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter.Lane (1998), 1040. A prolific writer who often drew directly on his personal experience, Strindberg wrote more than sixty p ...

Maxim Gorki Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and sociali ...

, Eça de Queirós, and

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

. At the end of 1967, Amélia Rey Colaço, whose company was operating at the ''

Teatro Capitólio The Teatro Capitólio, officially called Cineteatro Capitólio - Teatro Raul Solnado, is located in Parque Mayer, in Lisbon, Portugal. It was opened in 1931. Because of its early modernist design it has been recognized as the first building of ...

'', invited her to replace actress

Lourdes Norberto Lourdes (, also , ; oc, Lorda ) is a market town situated in the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region in southwestern France. Prior to the mid-19th century, the town was best known for the Château f ...

in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. This proved to be the beginning of a three-year stay with Colaço's company. Following the

Carnation Revolution The Carnation Revolution ( pt, Revolução dos Cravos), also known as the 25 April ( pt, 25 de Abril, links=no), was a military coup by left-leaning military officers that overthrew the authoritarian Estado Novo regime on 25 April 1974 in Lisbo ...

in April 1974, which overthrew the authoritarian '' Estado Novo'' regime in Portugal, censorship came to an end. Quartin performed in

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

'’s Fear and Misery of the Third Reich in July 1974, the first Brecht play to be performed professionally in Portugal. She continued to act in the theatre until close to her death, having started to rehearse a play in 2005 but then withdrawn due to doctor's orders. She also took part in over 20 films and in television soap operas, including ''Chuva na Areia'' (Rain in the sand - 1983) on the national television station RTP, and ''O Jogo'' (The game - 2003), on the SIC channel. In the early 1970s she took a course at the National Conservatory of Lisbon, where she ended up being a teacher for many years. She took a course for the preparation of actors at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. She also collaborated with the Ministry of Education, directing plays for children and giving seminars for teachers on educational drama and movement and drama. On the occasion of her 80th birthday, in 2004, a documentary was broadcast, called ''Conversations with Glicínia'', directed by Jorge Silva Melo. Glicínia Quartin died on 27 April 2006, in Lisbon, aged 81.

Awards and honours

*1966. Quartin received the Bordalo Prize, as "Actress Revelation" in the Theatre category. *1968. For her performance in '' Happy Days'' by

, Quartin was awarded the Lucinda Simões Prize by the Secretary of State for Information and Tourism (SEIT) for "the best female interpreter of the theatre". *1972. For her performance in '' The Maids'' by

, she was again awarded the Lucinda Simões Prize. *2004. She was awarded the Grand Cross of the

Order of Prince Henry The Order of Prince Henry ( pt, Ordem do Infante Dom Henrique) is a Portuguese order of knighthood created on 2 June 1960, to commemorate the quincentenary of the death of the Portuguese prince Henry the Navigator, one of the main initiators of ...

, a Portuguese national award. *Since 2012, Quartin has been remembered in the toponymy of Lisbon, with "Avenida Glicínia Quartin", located in the Santa Clara parish. *A plaque with her name is displayed in the D. Maria II National Theatre. *A room is named after her in the

Belém Cultural Center The Belém Cultural Center ( pt, Centro Cultural de Belém), is a complex of artistic venues located in Belém in the city of Lisbon. It is the largest building with cultural facilities in Portugal, with over of usable space. The centre was ini ...

near Lisbon.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quartin, Glicínia Portuguese stage actresses Portuguese film actresses Portuguese people of Italian descent Portuguese television actresses 1924 births 2006 deaths