Brazilian Actor Rogério Fróes Dies at 92, Daughter Confirms

The Brazilian actor Rogério Fróes died on Friday, June 13, at the age of 92. His daughter, the actress Gisele Fróes, confirmed the death in a post on Instagram. No cause of death has been disclosed.

Fróes was born in Santos Dumont, Minas Gerais, on September 21, 1934. He moved to Rio de Janeiro as a teenager and trained at the Drama Art School of the Teatro Duse, founded by the theatre pioneer Paschoal Carlos Magno. He made his stage debut in Rio in 1953.

What defined his career?

Theatre came first and stayed longest. Fróes performed in plays by Arthur Miller and Eugène Ionesco, along with dozens of other works that took him to stages across Brazil. Television brought him his widest public recognition. From 1968 onward, he joined the casts of telenovelas including Passo dos Ventos, Rosa Rebelde, Selva de Pedra and O Espigão.

One role stood above the rest. In 1973, Fróes played the priest Vigário in O Bem-Amado, the celebrated serial written by Dias Gomes. The part became one of the most memorable of his television career.

Fróes worked across several broadcasters, including the now-defunct TV Manchete and TV Record, where he filmed Vidas em Jogo in 2011. His small-screen credits also include the series Caso Especial and Malu Mulher.

In an interview with Pedro Bial, Fróes recounted his friendship with the author Dias Gomes and recalled an improvised kiss with the actress Tônia Carrero during a scene.

What did his film work add up to?

His cinema career began in 1967 with Perpétuo Contra o Esquadrão da Morte. He went on to appear in more than twenty film productions, among them Menino do Rio and Vai que Cola – O Filme. His final cited screen role came in Três Verões (2020), in which he played the father-in-law of the character portrayed by his own daughter, Gisele Fróes.

The family collaboration ran deeper than film. In 1991, father and daughter shared the stage in O Tiro que Mudou a História, a play in which Rogério Fróes portrayed the former Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas.

Rogério Fróes is survived by two daughters, both actresses: Gisele Fróes and Luciana Fróes. What does his passing change for Brazilian performing arts? It closes a chapter that ran from the Rio stage of 1953 to a film set in 2020 — a working life of nearly seven decades that connected the theatre of Miller and Ionesco to the golden age of Brazilian telenovelas.