António Calvário da Paz (born 17 October 1938) is a Portuguese singer, actor, and writer. A five-time winner of the national title of King of Radio, he is best known for winning the first edition of the Festival da Canção and representing Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1964 with the song "Oração", which was the country's debut entry in the contest. The artist has also made a significant contribution to the local revue scene.
Calvário was born in Lourenço Marques, Portuguese Mozambique (now Maputo, Mozambique), on 17 October 1938. His parents were António da Paz (29 January 1890 – TBA), who was a mechanic from Estômbar, Portugal, and Adelaide Nunes Calvário (1912, 1913 or 1914 – 2004). He has a younger brother, Rui (born October 1942).
His father worked in Portimão and Setúbal, until he decided to sneak into the hold of the ship that brought him to Portuguese Mozambique, where he owned a small truck that transported goods between Lourenço Marques and Catembe and managed two sawmills in the interior of Marracuene. He eventually returned to Portugal, where he met and fell in love with Nunes Calvário. However, her family opposed their future marriage due to differences in social status, so the couple fled to Africa.
After moving to Vila Luísa at the age of five, Calvário began his studies at the Roque de Aguiar School (Portuguese: Escola Roque de Aguiar). There, he performed two songs, one from The Merry Widow and "Maria Helena", with his classmate, after the institution's headmaster asked him to participate in the final concert.
When Calvário was eight years old, he moved to Portugal with his family. After a month-long voyage aboard the Pátria, acquired by the National Navigation Company (Portuguese: Companhia Nacional de Navegação), which ended on 10 April 1949, they disembarked in Lisbon and then traveled to and stopped in Portimão, where the household reunited with the rest of its members.
Calvário completed his primary education with his aunt Rudolfa, then went on to the municipal high school and a college in Portimão. According to the singer, he had to perform at a party, because the school principal mistook him for another student, but he was supported by his piano teacher, Elisa Dutra, who appreciated his voice. As a result, he began studying singing at the age of fifteen, although his initial priority was the piano. In his fifth year of high school, the artist attended the Academic College (Portuguese: Colégio Académico) in Lisbon. There, the artist continued his music studies under the guidance of his grandmother's first cousin, Corina Freire, although his parents were originally opposed, as they planned for him to complete his studies, study law, and become a lawyer. The defining moment in his career was "a coin toss" that resulted in his musical ambitions prevailing.
1957–1963: Debut in show business, Emissora Nacional, and first releases
In 1957, a group of Calvário's friends signed him up for an audition at the Emissora Nacional. He was eventually chosen, beating out more than 30 competitors with his performance of the song "Canta Brasil", earning him an exemption from training at the Centre for the Preparation of Artists for Radio (Portuguese: Centro de Preparação de Artistas para a Rádio). The singer started working the following year.
Having performed with the Tavares Belo Orchestra and participated in various shows since joining the Centre, in 1960, Calvário competed in the second edition of the Festival da Canção Portuguesa in Porto with the song "Regresso", written by Resende Dias and Maria Almira. In the end, he won the competition. The artist's victory was so overwhelming that he ended up going on tour both in Portugal and beyond. That same year, he signed a contract with the Portuguese record label Valentim de Carvalho, which was an obligation under the rules of the contest.
Calvário's first fee was 50 (escudos) for singing with Os Franceses on the radio programme Vozes de Portugal in Barreiro, and later each performance at the show Serões para Trabalhadores on the Emissora Nacional brought him 500 (escudos).
In 1961, Calvário won the title of King of Radio (Portuguese: Rei da Rádio) at the Coliseu dos Recreios in Lisbon. He repeated it in 1963, 1965, 1966, and 1972.
1963 was a breakthrough year for Calvário, as he acted in the revue Chapéu alto, staged at the Teatro ABC in Lisbon, marking his debut in this industry.
1964–1977: Eurovision Song Contest, Festival da Canção, and expulsion from the stage
In 1964, Calvário was one of the six singers chosen by the Rádio e Televisão de Portugal (RTP) to take part in the inaugural edition of the Festival da Canção, the Grande Prémio TV da Canção Portuguesa 1964. Competing with two songs, "Oração", written by Rogério Bracinha, Francisco Nicholson, and João Nobre, and "Para cantar Portugal", by Tavares Belo, Jaime Filipe, and Artur Ribeiro, in the final on 2 February at the Estúdios do Lumiar in Lisbon, the former was declared the winner of the competition with a total of 79 points, while the latter scored only 11 points and finished sixth. Consequently, the artist earned the opportunity to represent Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 in Tivolis Koncertsal in Copenhagen, Denmark, with "Oração". It was the country's debut in the contest. However, his entire journey was difficult, as the participation of Spain and Portugal had been criticised due to the dictatorships of Franco and Salazar; students had been demonstrating outside their embassies in Copenhagen as soon as the nations were announced to compete. As a result, only the singer himself went on behalf of the country's delegation. He was received in the host city by the Portuguese consul. The entry's conductor was Kai Mortensen, who approved of Nobre's arrangement, although there was a report from 7 March indicating that Belo would perform the role. On 21 March, the day of the contest itself, the organisers received alarming phone calls threatening anti-Franco strikes if Spain and Portugal appeared on stage. The panic reached its peak an hour before the broadcast began at 22:00 CET, when a report of a hidden time bomb was received, prompting the Copenhagen police chief to immediately mobilise an army of officers and firefighters to find it. The alarm turned out to be false, but a decision was made to deploy police during the festival; most of the officers were ordered to wear disguises to blend in with the crowd. In the Eurovision live show, Calvário performed eleventh and finished in thirteenth, last, place with "nul points", alongside entrants from Germany, Switzerland, and Yugoslavia. The boycotters still managed to make their mark during the event: a man trespassed onto the stage after the Swiss contestant's performance holding a banner that read "Boycot [sic] Franco & Salazar". At that moment, viewers were shown a shot of the scoreboard, and once the protester was removed by a television technician, the programme went on. The intruder was later arrested. Calvário also attended the aftershow party at the restaurant Ambassadeur and was awarded a silver trophy, along with the other fifteen competing acts. The Eurovision Song Contest 1964 is infamous for the fact that no complete video recording is known to have survived due, according to host broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR), to the lack of tape machines at the studio, leaving the artist's performance available only in audio format. At the same time, a French record company showed interest in recording "Oração" and some of his songs in French, but Valentim de Carvalho did not give permission.
Despite his unsuccessful participation in Eurovision the previous year, Calvário decided to enter the national selection Grande Prémio TV da Canção Portuguesa again in 1965. This time, he was the main performer of a total of three songs during the final on 6 February at the Estúdios do Lumiar in Lisbon, including "Por causa do mar" by Manuela de Moura Sá Teles Santos and José Pereira Mesquita, "Você não vê" by João Andrade Santos and Moura Sá Teles Santos, and "Bom dia" by Moura Sá Teles Santos and Pereira Mesquita. After the results sequence, none of them escaped the bottom three of the evening, while his workmate Simone de Oliveira emerged victorious and became the Portuguese entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest 1965 in Naples, Italy, at a later date.