Norma Bengell

Who was Norma Bengell?

Norma Aparecida Almeida Pinto Guimarães D'Áurea Bengell, was a Brazilian film and television actress, screenwriter and director.

The Rio de Janeiro-born Bengell was active in the film industry from 1959. She appeared in numerous international productions, including an extended period during the mid-1960s co-starring in Italian productions, in which she was usually cast as the protagonist's romantic interest. She is possibly best known for starring with Barry Sullivan in Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires and in Sergio Corbucci's spaghetti western The Hellbenders. She had a major role as a prostitute in Anselmo Duarte's Keeper of Promises, a Brazilian drama that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1963 and won the Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival in 1962. Earlier that same year, she caused major controversy after appearing nude in a scene of the Ruy Guerra film Os Cafajestes.

In 1987, she directed her first film, Eternamente Pagu, a biography of Patrícia Galvão. In 1996, she directed an adaptation of José de Alencar's novel The Guarani called also The Guarani.