Maysa Matarazzo

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"Maysa" redirects here. This article is about the Brazilian bossa nova artist. For the American jazz singer who is also often known by the one name "Maysa", see Maysa Leak.

Maysa Figueira Monjardim (June 6, 1936, São Paulo, São Paulo – January 22, 1977, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro), better known as Maysa Matarazzo or simply Maysa, daughter of Alcibíades Guaraná Monjardim, born in Brazil on March 19, 1905, and wife Inah Figueira and paternal granddaughter of Manuel Silvino Monjardim and wife Ursulina Guaraná, was a singer, composer, and actress from Brazil. She is associated with fossa and Bossa nova music.

Maysa showed talent at a young age and by twelve had written a samba, which later became a hit from her first album. She married a member of an old-money family at 18 and two years later had a son, Jayme Monjardim. Jayme would later be known as a television director. In the late 1950s she formed a successful bossa nova group and also did television work. In the 1970s she acted on a few telenovelas in Brazil and also composed the soundtrack for a telenova. She died in a road accident in 1977.^[1] After her death a miniseries about her life appeared on Brazilian television.

Maysa's style influenced many Brazilian female singers, such as Ângela Rô Rô, Simone, Fafá de Belém, Leila Pinheiro.

She married in 1954 to André Matarazzo Filho, Conte Matarazzo (1919 – 1960), by whom she had an only child, director Jayme Monjardim.

She died in a car crash.

Her paternal grandfather was a son of Alfeu Adolfo Monjardim de Andrade e Almeida, 1st Barão de Monjardim, and wife Laurinda Luísa Pinto Pereira.