There was a time when Brazil was silviodependent: if Silvio Santos got something between his eyebrows, he succeeded. A time that spanned decades, because the presenter, owner, creator, inspirer and soul of one of the most valid programs in the history of world television was not that, he was not the presenter of a television program. He was a friend, a relative, part of the household furniture. And all that at the same time.

Silvio Santos was born on December 12, 1930 in the bohemian neighborhood of Lapa, in Rio de Janeiro. His real name, Senor Abravanel, son of Sephardic Jews, father from Thessaloniki (Greece) and mother from Smyrna (Turkey). And the son, a few decades later, emperor of a country that was an empire and in which many things are done in a big way, even though The Silvio Santos Show, which could last 12 hours on a Sunday, was actually a very cheap program. : rested on the charisma and work of the presenter, on his connection with the spectators in the stands in the studios and on the business platform that was from beginning to end.

“There is no comparable phenomenon in the world. Nobody was so influential, powerful and valid for so long. The last word was always his,” describes a man who worked with Santos for many years and who promises to tell many intimacies of the program and the presenter, but he puts one condition first: remain anonymous. Accepted condition, because what tells of the program that began broadcasting in 1963 is fascinating.

A data? Within its business conglomerate, Jequiti Cosmetics stands out, producer of dozens of perfumes and fragrances. “But he was allergic to perfume!” the source points out.

Other? “Everything on the show was made to sell. That’s what it was about, to sell. The show was a business platform.”

Anything else? “Santos’s ideology was to be close to power.”

This data is related to the origin of the empire, in 1963, when Santos bought half an hour on a Sao Paulo television channel. Always with the idea of ​​selling, because his whole life consisted of selling. And in doing what is necessary to be able to sell, something his parents instilled in him, immigrants who crossed the Atlantic to carve out a new life in a young and vigorous country.

“Silvio was a very good announcer in Rio de Janeiro, he worked at Radio Nacional with Manuel de Nóbrega, one of the most important announcers in Brazil. He was an announcer for commercials and was already doing very good business. After creating El baúl de la felicidad in In the 1950s and buying the space on the São Paulo channel, the number of hours grew until Rede Globo bought the Sao Paulo channel in 1965 and placed Silvio on the Sunday programming”.

It would not stop growing, to the point that in 1968 he lent a very large amount of money to Roberto Marinho to pay off his debts. Who was Marino? The owner of Rede Globo, who thus became dependent on his employee.

“Marinho paid the debt monthly. It served Silvio well, he was always a close friend of the powerful, at the time of the dictatorship (1964-1985) he gave the military rulers a lot of visibility on the screen. There was a space called La hora del president. He always flattered whoever was in power. Lula, the military, Bolsonaro, whoever it was…”.

“The most striking thing about Silvio was his ability to perceive. There is a phrase that circulates among the employees of his channel, the Brazilian Television System (SBT): ‘Silvio Santos is very wrong, but he is much more right'”.

“Before starting the program, he talked to all the spectators in the auditorium. ‘What do you like, what would you like to change?’, he asked them. His audience was similar to Bolsonaro’s, people who wanted to have fun no matter what. They are simple programs His great success was always being very close to his audience. He always said: talk to your audience.” He was the man who even proposed an orgy live to one of his daughters. He always knew what the public wanted.

That public, in its years of greatest splendor, was an entire country, it was Brazil in its entirety.

“Silvio ran for president of Brazil in 1989, and the polls showed him winning, but a regional electoral court annulled his candidacy. He had great charisma and great vanity. Also a certain naivety. He could have been president like Berlusconi.”

Silvio Santos’ program continues to exist today, but at 92 its creator no longer presents it. “Today Silvio is at home. To record a one-hour program, he arrives at 10 in the morning and stays until three in the afternoon, he is very meticulous, and that, for a 92-year-old man, is very exhausting.”

“After the Covid, which he had twice, there is a very big concern for the family, he has skin cancer, a melanoma. Silvio goes to the program when he wants. Today Patricia, one of his six daughters, presents it.”

There is another parallel with Bolsonaro. Like the former president, Santos identifies his children by numerical succession. And that’s a lot of numbers, since he has six daughters.

Cynthia took control of the Silvio Santos theater; Silvia is the presenter of a children’s program; Daniela is director of the SBT; Patricia presents the Silvio Santos program every Sunday; Renata is the director of the Silvio Santos group; and Rebeca is a presenter. Rebeca’s husband is the soccer player Alexandre Pato, who was married to a daughter of… Berlusconi. He not in vain he played six seasons in Milan.

“Silvio is in the imagination of many people, yes, but today he is a meme. The pandemic put an end to his era,” says the former Santos collaborator. From his house, the veteran presenter is still aware of his business, although a new generation is shaping something to the astonishment in Brazil: they are young people who no longer know who he is, who Silvio Santos was.