On March 4, Brazil lost the cartoonist and caricaturist Paulo Caruso, one of the most important names in his field in the country's history. The Italian-Brazilian Caruso, who was descendant of sicilians on his father's side, he died at the age of 73 due to complications from colon cancer.
Paulo José Hespanha Caruso was born in São Paulo on the day December 6, 1949 and was the twin brother of Chico Caruso, also a cartoonist, father of filmmaker Paulinho Caruso and uncle of comedian Fernando Caruso. On his mother's side, Caruso also had Portuguese and Spanish ancestry.
The brothers Paulo and Chico Caruso, identical twins, were born five minutes apart. Both stood out in his work for their virtuosity in personal caricature.
Paulo Caruso and the Dictatorship
Paulo Caruso began his professional career in popular newspaper, at the end of the 1960s, and also contributed to the newspapers Folha de São Paulo and Movimento. At that time, he already stood out in the art of personal caricature.
Until the arrival of the AI-5, in December 1968, he created cartoons and illustrations. From the oppressive institutional act of Military Dictatorship, and during its validity, it only made illustrations. At the time, he secured his space for expression with the strip Pô, published in the newspaper Afternoon Sheet.
Between 1969 and 1976, attended architecture at the University of São Paulo (USP). He was a hippie and lived with 24 other people in a community. “It was a luxury slum,” he described in one of his interviews.
The life of an architect did not attract him and Paulo Caruso began to dedicate himself exclusively to cartoons and cartoon.
Press career
In the 1970s, he went to work at the newspaper The Quibbler, alongside names like Jaguar and Ivan Lessa. In the 1980s, he returned to the mainstream press and worked in outlets such as Veja, Isto É, Careta and Sir.
In the magazine This is, he signed the cartoon of the week with the title Brazil Avenue, always published on the last page. The cartoons mainly dealt with aspects of Brazilian politics. His works also appear in specialized publications such as Circo, gum with banana and Gerald.
Paulo Caruso also published his cartoons in Época magazine and made live illustrations of the interviewees in the Roda Viva program, on TV Cultura.
music and theater
He dedicated many years to musical composition and the production of music and theater shows. In 1985, during the Piracicaba International Humor Exhibition, Paulo formed the “Muda Brasil Tancredo Jazz Band” with Chico and other cartoonists. Luis Fernando Veríssimo, Claudio Paiva and Mariano later joined the group.
In 1998, he released the CD “Pra Seu Governador”, a musical selection of his compositions, performed by the “National Ensemble”, his new band, where he played piano alongside mastic e Luis Fernando Veríssimo on saxophones and Chico Caruso on vocals.
The death of Paulo Caruso
Paulo Caruso died on March 4, 2023, at the age of 73. He was admitted to the XNUMXth of July Hospital, in the capital of São Paulo, for about a month, to treat complications arising from bowel cancer.
The family asked that the cartoonist was untubed to receive friends on Saturday morning, but he didn't survive.
The surname Caruso
The cartoonist's family name derives from the term Caruso, from Sicilian dialect, which means “boy” or “boy”.
In Sicily, the “carusi” were the young land workers or sulfur mines.
Caruso is a very common surname throughout Italy, but with a large concentration in the regions of Calabria and Campania.
Variants
the variant Carusi it has lineages between Pisa, Florence and Arezzo, but the main nucleus is in Abruzzo and the nearby Roman area. The surname Carusillo is specific to the Foggia area and Carusotto It is typical of the province of Agrigento.
There are approximately 15.283 Caruso families in Italy, with the highest concentration in Sicilia (5.972), in Campania (1924) and in Calabria (1.723).
The name Caruso is the 3rd most popular in the Sicily region and the most popular in the province of Syracuse and also in the city of Avola, located in Syracuse.
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