Lírio Mário da Costa (Rio de Janeiro, 24 March 1923 — Rio de Janeiro, 15 September 1995), better known as Costinha, was a Brazilian comedian and actor. Biography Born in the neighborhood of Vila Isabel, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, then federal capital of Brazil, Costinha came from an artistic family: his father was a circus clown, called Bocó, whom he would meet only as an adult when his father was in an retirement home. The childhood in circus would influence the trajectory of the comedian in a definitive way. However, the stable situation of the family changed when he turned thirteen, and his father left. Being still a minor, even though he had learned some secrets of the clown business from his father, Costinha had to give up his artistic vocation and find a job. He worked as a courier, botequim's waiter, shoeshiner, and Jogo do Bicho announcer. This conviviality alongside urban and often marginal Rio de Janeiro people of the 1940s would be very important in the characters later portrayed by the comedian. In 1942, he was employed as a janitor of Rádio Tamoio. In this radio station, after amusing his co-workers making imitations of homosexuals, he was given a chance to act, being a radio actor in important programs of the time like Cadeira de Barbeiro, Recruta 23, and even in the first radio version of Escolinha do Professor Raimundo. He was part of the cast of major radio stations such as Record and Rádio Mayrink Veiga. He was also a comedian at the Teatro de Revista, both in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Then he would become a national star by his obscene jokes and famous "faggot" imitations. Costinha participated in several advertisements, including those of the Lottery of the State of Rio de Janeiro (where he came to be directed by Cacá Diegues from the Cinema Novo). He released various humor vinyl records in the 1970s and 1980s, like O Peru da Festa trilogy with the CID Entertainment label. They all came with a painted border with the sentence "Prohibited the public execution and sale for those under 21 years old", not only for the obscene jokes, but for the suggestive covers. In the first volume of O Peru da Festa, Costinha seemed to be naked, with a table covering his private parts and a roasted turkey being served over it. At