Former showgirl Virgínia Lane dies at age 93.

Former showgirl Virginia Lane died this afternoon (10) in the city of Volta Redonda, in the south of Rio de Janeiro state. She had been hospitalized since the 2nd in the ICU of Hospital São Camilo due to a serious urinary infection. According to initial information, she died from multiple organ failure. 

The city hall of Piraí, where the former showgirl lived since the beginning of the 1970s, is already arranging the funeral service. The body will be embalmed in Volta Redonda, from where it will go to Piraí. In Piraí, it will receive a tribute for two hours, at the local City Council. From there, it will be taken to the João Caetano Theater, in Rio de Janeiro, before going to the Caju Cemetery, also in the state capital, where it will be buried tomorrow (11) in the family tomb.

The coordinator of the Piraí House of Culture, Hudson Valle, told... Agency Brazil  that the mayor of Piraí, Luiz Antonio da Silva Neves, decreed three days of official mourning.

Virginia Lane, stage name of Virginia Giaccone, born in Rio de Janeiro on February 28, 1920, reached the peak of her career in the early 1950s. For four consecutive years, she starred in musical revues produced by Walter Pinto at theaters in Praça Tiradentes, in downtown Rio.

One of these shows, entitled Your Gege [A reference to then-President Getúlio Vargas] earned the actress the title of "The Star of Brazil," bestowed upon her by the president himself. Years later, Virginia Lane revealed in several interviews with the press that she had a romantic relationship with Getúlio Vargas for ten years.

Virginia's career, however, began much earlier, in 1935, at Rádio Mayrink Veiga, on the program Bibelô Girl, presented by César Ladeira. In 1943, she worked as a chorus girl at the Cassino da Urca, where she was also crooner (lead singer of a popular orchestra) and dancer, performing with the orchestras of Carlos Machado, Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman.

Famous as a star of revue theater, Virginia Lane recorded the marchinha in 1951 for Carnival. sassaricando, by Luis Antonio. The song was so successful that it ended up changing the name of the magazine. Jabaculê de Penacho, which she was starring in at the time, and gave rise to the mischievous expression "sassaricar".

The song is still sung by revelers during Carnival. Since 2007, the musical has been playing in Rio's theaters. sassaricando, by Sergio Cabral and Rosa Maria Araújo, which highlights the importance of marchinhas (traditional carnival songs) for the Rio de Janeiro carnival. 

Virginia Lane also acted in 37 films, mainly musicals and comedies produced by the Cinédia and Atlântida film companies in the 1940s and 1950s. On television, she participated in programs on TV Tupi, during the same period as her work in revue theater, and more recently, in 2005, she was part of the cast, alongside other former vedettes, of the telenovela... Wonderful, from TV Globo.