Although Pelé scored almost 1,300 goals in his professional football career, all biographers agree that the three-time World Cup winner wrote more than 100 songs and sold more than 100,000 copies of one of his albums.
He is also in movies, especially in the World War II movie “Victory,” and is one of the stars of Brazilian comedy that brought more than 3.6 million people to the cinemas of the South American country.
Pelé, whose full name is Edson Arantes do Nascimento, died Thursday of cancer at a hospital in Sao Paulo. He is 82 years old.
Pelé’s success on the football field made him a sports icon, but he also made many appearances as an actor and singer.
Puppet
“King Pelé” (O Rei Pelé, 1962)
Pelé’s first big screen moment came in a film directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen the same year he won his second World Cup title. The narrative begins in Pelé’s hometown of Tres Coracoes, tells of his move to the rural Sao Paulo town of Bauru and then to Santos, where he became a global star.
“Victory” (1981)
Directed by John Huston, it’s a film Pelé says he likes a lot. He plays Cpl. Luis Fernandes, a soldier from Trinidad.
The plot involves prisoners of war preparing to confront a team of Germans in Nazi-occupied Paris in the midst of their attempts to escape. During his time with the New York Cosmos, Pelé had the opportunity to play with very different friends – actors Sylvester Stallone and Michael Caine.
“If I had to give a grade as an actor, it would be 10,” Pelé joked in several interviews after “Victory.”
He also told friends that the original script had Stallone in position to score the winning goal with a bicycle kick, but the American actor lacked the skills, so he was cast as the goalkeeper. Former England captain Bobby Moore is also in the film, along with several other professional footballers.
“Victory,” known as “Escape to Victory” in many places, brought in nearly $28 million at the box office.
“The Clumsies and the King of Soccer” (Os Trapalhões eo Rei do Futebol, 1986)
It was an association between the two most popular brands in Brazil at the time – the recently retired Pelé and a group of comedians like the Three Stooges who were very popular in the TV program Os Trapalhões (The Clumsies). The film opens three days before the 1986 World Cup final when Argentina, led by Diego Maradona, beat Germany 3-2. It took millions for cinemas in Brazil that year.
Pelé plays a sports journalist named Nascimento who replaces the injured goalkeeper of a team called Independência Futebol Clube and scores the winning goal in the match with a goal kick.
Pelé also participated in documentaries, including “This is Pelé” (1974), “Pelé Eterno” (2004) and “Cine Pelé” (2011).
Television
Brazilians are almost as obsessed with soap operas as they are with football, and Pelé has many cameos. Most of his appearances are in TV Globo soap operas, which are often exported to the rest of the world.
Author Ivani Ribeiro was the first to bring him to a TV soap opera. He plays Pelé in a show called “Os Estranhos” (The Strangers), where he plays a famous writer who lives on an island and has extraterrestrial friends.
Pelé’s last appearance in a soap opera was in 2002 in “O Clone” (The Clone), which was popular in dozens of other countries. He played himself and sang the song “Em Busca do Penta” (Seeking the Fifth). The lyrics are about Brazil winning the World Cup again. Three months later, Brazil won their fifth World Cup.
Music
“Péléginga” was his biggest hit. Recorded with choir and orchestra, the samba album includes 12 songs written by Pelé and was released in 2006.
Three years later, the Brazilian star wanted to record another album for an international audience and invited U2 singer Bono to share vocals on one of the tracks. The Irishman was on tour with his band, however, and the project was abandoned.
Pelé also recorded with Brazilian diva Elis Regina and released an album produced by Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sergio Mendes.
Comics
Pelé has also become a character in a popular comic book in Brazil. Cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa and Pelé, who played for the New York Cosmos at the time, reached a deal in 1976 to publish children’s stories in comic book format.
Initially, Pelé disliked Pelezinho’s childlike features. Sousa said that in several interviews, the player wanted to be portrayed as a strong child athlete. The cartoonist then suggests that he ask his children what they think. The two boys liked it.
Sousa uses several stories from Pelé’s childhood in the plot of Pelezinho. The comic books were published regularly from 1977-86, and after that in special events. The most recent was in 2013 when Brazil hosted the Confederations Cup, a warm-up tournament for next year’s World Cup in the country.
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