Ball artist, Pelé, who died Thursday at the age of 82, also took advantage of his immense notoriety to embrace several parallel careers outside the football fields, as an actor, singer or even a pub man.
Praising the merits of Viagra or pushing the song with Elis Regina, legendary voice of Brazilian song, the "King" left no one indifferent.
Surrounded by champions like Garrincha, Rivelino or Jairzinho in the Seleçao jersey, Pelé was also well surrounded in the recording studio.
The star once teamed up with the best of partners, Elis Regina, one of the greatest Brazilian singers of all time.
The unlikely duo gave birth in 1969 to a CD, a compact with the very appropriate title:
Tabelinha
, a term used in Portuguese to designate the one-two, the exchange of quick passes between two players.
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Pelé was not content to push the song: he was also the author-composer of the two titles,
Vexamão
and
Perdão, não tem
, accompanying himself on the guitar.
The first begins with a hilarious dialogue between the two sacred monsters, Elis Regina asking the "King" to sing, to which he responds at first
"I don't have the voice for that"
, before giving in, on a Bossa Nova rhythm.
The following year, Pelé also recorded a Christmas carol, a few months after giving Brazil a third world championship title.
In 1987, the refrain
"ABC, ABC, all children must read and write"
was sung by the eternal number 10, in a song recorded with the group Trem da Alegria, formed by four children, and subsequently used for a Ministry of Education Literacy Campaign.
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Pelé had already made a foray into show business through his romance with presenter Xuxa, a sexy blonde whose shows were watched by millions of young viewers.
In 2006, Pelé will again offer himself
PeléGinga
, an album which includes a duet with Gilberto Gil and also a first version of
Acredita no véio,
which he will sing again in 2020, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, accompanied by the guitars from the Mexican duo Rodrigo and Gabriela.
Incursion on the screens
The time of a film, Pelé was also called Luis Fernandez, but without any relation to the former midfielder of the Blues.
It was at the time when the "King" gave the reply to Sylvester Stallone in a film by John Huston,
Victory is ours
, in 1981. Pelé plays a soldier from Trinidad and Tobago, confined in a camp of prisoners, in 1943, in the middle of World War II.
Trained by Michael Caine, he must play a match against a selection of German soldiers at the Colombes stadium, near Paris.
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Pelé also starred in Brazilian films, including
Os trapalhões eo Rei do Futebol
(1986), with a famous comedy trio of the time.
About fifteen years later, another appearance on the big screen brings tears to the Brazilian public.
In 2002, at the age of 62, Pelé appeared in the middle of the Maracana, the stadium where he had scored his thousandth goal 33 years earlier.
But it's not about football.
In voice-over, he evokes the taboo of erectile dysfunction, in an advertisement for Viagra which caused a lot of ink to flow.
“Talk to your doctor.
Me, I would talk about it, ”
he announces.
“
I never took it, I never needed
it,” said Pelé a few years later, at the age of 70.
Pub man, Pelé has also lent his image to brands of drinks, clothing, mobile phones, but also video games.
At the start of the 1980s, he was found alongside pilot Mario Andretti and basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and even a controller in hand, to extol the merits of the Atari 2600 game console. An all-terrain star.
