Aurora Miranda

Aurora Miranda, the Brazilian singer and actor, who has died aged 90, was perhaps always destined to play second fiddle to her superstar elder sister Carmen, the queen of Brazilian carnival, whose startling fruit-adorned outfits dazzled the world. But, during 30 years in the music and film business, Aurora carved out her own niche, first as a pioneering singer and later as the first human being to interact with cartoons in a Walt Disney production.

The daughter of a Portuguese family in Rio de Janeiro, Aurora was, unlike Carmen, a born-and-bred Brazilian. She began singing young, accompanied by her sisters Carmen and Cecilia, and not long after, her career within the burgeoning Brazilian music industry began.

In 1932, aged 18, she was asked to perform on the Mayrink Veiga radio station by Josué de Barros, the same composer who had launched her sister's career 10 years earlier. Soon she was snapped up by a rival station and within 12 months she had released her first record, Cai, Cai, Balao (Drop, Drop Balloon) alongside the crooner then considered Brazil's rei da voz or "king of the voice", Francisco Alves. Alves was known for supporting up-and-coming artists and there was none more promising than Aurora, who many still believe had a more beautiful voice than Carmen.

The sleeve notes of Aurora's first LP described her as a "new enchantment in Brazil's studios" and the pick of Brazil's composers seemed to agree. In the following years she worked with the best Brazilian musicians, among them Orestes Barbosa, Custodio Mesquita, Assis Valente, Ary Barroso and Silvio Caldas.

But perhaps her greatest legacy was the first recording of Rio de Janeiro's unofficial anthem, Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvellous City), in 1934. The track, which painted Rio de Janeiro as the "marvellous city, full of a thousand enchantments" and "the heart of my Brazil", captured perfectly Aurora's passion for the city in which she would spend most of her life.

In 1940 she married Gabriel Richaid clad in a gold-embroidered wedding dress shipped from the US by Carmen. It was a gesture she would remember for the rest of her life. "She always spoke so much of Carmen and of the golden dress that she had brought her," said Marcelo Bonavides de Castros, who is collecting material for a biography of Aurora.

Both as singers and sisters, Carmen and Aurora often seemed inseparable. In Argentina they even earned the nickname "Las Hermanas Miranda" because of their frequent performances together. In the world of cinema the pair also worked closely, appearing together in several box-office hits, after Aurora's screen debut in 1935. Later, after Aurora's honeymoon in Los Angeles followed by 10 years living in the US, she carved out an acting career of her own in films like 1944's Phantom Lady. In the same year she appeared in the film Voce Ja Foi a Bahia? (The Three Caballeros), a mix of cinema and animation in which Aurora starred alongside Donald Duck.

In 1951, not long before Carmen's premature death in 1955, she returned to Brazil to raise her family, and in 1958 retired to her home in Leblon, a borough in Rio's up-market south zone. And, although 1989 saw her taking part in the film Dias Melhores Virao (Better Days Ahead), it was clear that the best days of her working life were behind her.

Aurora continued to dedicate her life to her sister, recording documentaries such as Bananas is my Business (1995). Her fans will remember a singer who helped launch some of Brazil's top composers and who recorded the definitive tribute to the "marvellous" South American city.

She is survived by a son and a daughter.

· Aurora Miranda da Cunha, singer, born April 20 1915; died December 22 2005.

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