Ilva Niño

Ilva Niño Mendonça (November 15, 1933 – June 12, 2024) was a Brazilian actress, director, and theater teacher. Throughout an artistic career that spanned eight decades, she was particularly notable in television and theater, immortalizing numerous characters, many of whom represented women from the Northeast or domestic workers.

In 1957, she won the Best Actress award at the National Amateur Festival for her performance in the play O Auto da Compadecida by Ariano Suassuna as the ‘Baker's Wife’. From then on, she continued to act in a series of plays, founding the Luiz Mendonça Ninõ Theater of Arts, a tribute to her husband, actor and director Luiz Mendonça (who died in 1995), where she taught art classes for many years.

From the 1970s onwards, she became a regular feature in various soap operas and programs on TV Globo, playing maids, housewives, and women from the Northeast, helpful women with strong personalities, such as the long-suffering Alzira in Pecado Capital, the dreamer Cotinha in Sem Lenço, sem Documento (No Handkerchief, No ID, 1978), the grumpy Iara in Partido Alto (1984), the religious Sister Teresa in Terra Nostra (1999), the cangaceira Cândida in Cordel Encantado (2011), and Epifânia from Piauí in Cheias de Charme (2012). However, in 1985, she experienced one of the most memorable moments of her career, playing the submissive Mina in Roque Santeiro, a maid who suffered at the hands of her boss, Viúva Porcina, played by Regina Duarte, who yelled the catchphrase “Minaaaa!” every time she called the maid.