Up Close and Personal

 Roberta Close was the first transgender model to pose for Playboy Brazil, was voted “the most beautiful model in Brazil,” and joined the ranks of ‘90s supermodels Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista on the runway in 1991. 

She walked for designers such as Thierry Mugler, Guy Laroche, and Jean Paul Gaultier, and published an autobiography in 1998.

Roberta Close

Roberta Close was born in Rio de Janeiro on 7 December 1964 and is a Brazilian model.  she was the first pre-operative transsexual model to have posed for the Brazilian edition of Playboy and  is probably Brazil's most famous transsexual woman. From Wickipedia:

"Roberta Close was born under the name of Luiz Roberto Gambine Moreira, and as an adolescent, began to adopt feminine attire and secretly began taking female hormone injections. By the age of seventeen, Close's career as a model and actress was beginning to take off. Close won the "Miss Gay Brazil" beauty pageant at the age of twenty. That same year, she made headlines and was dubbed "The world's most beautiful model". She has played a cabaret singer on a popular soap opera, starred in the 1986 movie Si tu vas a Rio... tu meurs, hosted a late night talk show, and was the inspiration for a hit song by Roberto and Erasmo Carlos.

In 1989, Close underwent sex reassignment surgery at Charing Cross Clinic in London, England. Afterwards, she appeared in an extensive photo spread in the Brazilian men's magazine Sexy, and was subsequently voted the "Most Beautiful Woman in Brazil."

This Cyrsti's Condo big screen video will give you an idea why!   ** Warning parts of this video have a dose of Brazilian "spice" and get the kids out of the room!

Transphobic Brazil?

Ironically, just after I ran a feature on Brazilian transsexual model and star Roberta Close here in Cyrsti's Condo, up pops this story from the Toronto Star in Canada about a transgender woman fearing deportation to her native Brazil. "Silvani Marques, 37, an engineer, has been taking hormone treatments and dresses as a woman. He shows a photo shoot of himself wearing different women’s dresses as part of an online gallery. Marques claims Brazilians “do not tolerate transgender or homosexuals” and he faces a life of intimidation and discrimination on his return to Sao Paulo. “I am really worried about my personal safety and the discrimination I face,” Marques said on Thursday. “Transgender people are not widely accepted in Brazil.” He has been packing his goods and selling belongings since he’s only allowed to return with one suitcase. Marques claims a homosexual person is killed in Brazil every 26-hours"

Roberta Close

Back in the day, (1980's) Brazilian Transsexual model Roberta Close's career started to take-off at the age of 17 and she increasingly became a media darling - appearing in magazines, periodicals and advertising. At age 18 she was called up for compulsory military service. She reported to the interview office wearing a white dress and looking as feminine as possible in appearance, she recalls that the affect was unintentionally but provocatively enhanced by the dress becoming wet from rain! Upon her arrival, a very confused guard asked her to tell her brother to report the next day.

She went on to win the Miss Gay Brazil contest and during a subsequent guest appearance at the Miss Brazil contest embarrassingly over shadowed many of the contestants in looks and beauty. She also became the first transsexual to appear nude in a Brazilian Playboy. In 1984 the periodical Weekly Word News had a front page headline declaring that "The world's most beautiful model is really a man" Good call!!!!