Benedito Ruy Barbosa: playwright known for true sagas, has iconic plots as a legacy

'Terra Nostra', 'Sinhá Moça': Benedito Ruy Barbosa's remarkable soap operas
"First of all, a soap opera needs to have a great love story", defined Benedito Ruy Barbosa in a statement to Memória Globo. The author and playwright died this Tuesday (7) in the capital of São Paulo due to complications from chronic kidney failure.
Known for true sagas, Benedito created stories that traverse the Brazilian rural universe, explore cultural diversity - with a special interest in Italian immigration - and present intense loves.
His legacy includes iconic plots such as "Meu Pedacinho de Chão" (1971), "Pantanal" (1990), "O Rei do Gado" (1996) and "Terra Nostra" (1999), marked by protagonists with "good character, determination to fight, belief in positive values" - as he himself determines.
The oldest among five brothers, Ruy Barbosa was born in Gália, in the interior of São Paulo, in 1931, and spent his childhood in neighboring Vera Cruz, a region of coffee plantations inhabited by Japanese and Italian immigrants.
Benedito Ruy Barbosa
TV Globo/collection
With the early death of his father, he had to work from an early age to help his family. Throughout his youth, he worked as an assistant at a commercial firm, a vegetable seller and a cleaner, until he got a job as a proofreader at the newspaper "Estado de S. Paulo".
The taste for writing led Benedito to create his first novel, "Fogo Frio", which was adapted for the theater and awarded by the São Paulo Association of Art Critics, the beginning of his career as a screenwriter.
His television debut took place in 1966, with "Somos Todos Irmãos", on TV Tupi. In the following years, he worked for stations such as Excelsior, Record and TV Cultura. In 1971, he wrote "Meu pedacinho solo", a soap opera produced by a partnership between Cultura and Globo and shown by both.
Five years later, he signed with Globo, where he began a successful streak in the 6pm slot. At that time, he adapted Ribeiro Couto's novel into "Cabocla" (1979).
In 1990, when moving to TV Manchete, Benedito wrote "Pantanal", which innovated by using external locations and exploring the culture and mysteries of the Brazilian biome.
Benedito Ruy Barbosa
João Miguel Junior/TV Globo
With success, he returned to Globo to write "Renascer" (1993), a plot set in the interior of Bahia and marked by the duel of generations of Colonel José Inocêncio.
Both would be remade decades later, written by his grandson, Bruno Luperi.
With "O Rei do Gado" (1996), Benedito addressed the rivalry between two families of Italian immigrants, while discussing topics such as land ownership and agrarian reform.
In "Terra Nostra" (1999), he portrayed the drama of Italians Matteo and Giuliana, separated when they arrived in Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century.
Ruy Barbosa also revisited his own works. In 2006 and 2014, he signed the remakes of "Sinhá Moça" and "Meu Pedacinho de Chão". In the full-color version of the second work, he declared that he had finally managed to put on air ideas that censorship had blocked in the first version, during the military dictatorship.
His last novel was "Velho Chico", in 2016, which he wrote with the help of Luperi and his daughter, Edmara Barbosa.
Set in the fictional city of Grotas do São Francisco, in the northeastern hinterland, the plot presented a clash of generations and the dispute for land and power in the interior of Brazil.
With the death of protagonist Domingos Montagner in the final stretch of recording, the creator and supervisor of the work had the challenge of deciding how to end the story without the actor and, at the same time, honor him with the character's conclusion.
Benedito Ruy Barbosa dies at age 95

Source: G1