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American Tryg Sletteland, for one, fell under the song's spell from the moment he first heard it while in college in the early
'60s, he said during a recent walk along Ipanema beach. In fact, "The Girl from Ipanema" primed him for romance, Sletteland said amid the beach's bustle. When he met Sonia Madeira de Ley, who'd gone from Rio to Vermont to study English, he felt like he'd found his own "Girl from Ipanema." "She was the embodiment of the song: long dark hair to the middle of her
back, big dark eyes, and this 'morena' skin," he said. "And she was so graceful ... She was exotic and beautiful. I'd never met anyone like that." Their whirlwind romance ended when she returned to Rio. More than 30 years later, with help from the Internet, the two reconnected. Now they're finally together, and split their time between Rio and California. "He still calls me his Girl From Ipanema," said Sonia, who now goes by her married name, Sletteland. The "Getz/Gilberto" album eventually won the 1965 Grammy for best album of the year, and suddenly, everyone was talking about "The Girl." Except the girl herself. Because there was a girl: Heloisa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto, then 17 years old, known among her friends as Helo. The teenager's days were spent between home, school and the beach, a path that often took her by the bar where de Moraes and Jobim spent long hours nursing their drinks. Their eyes would follow Helo when she passed, entranced with her glowing skin and long dark hair. Helo had no idea. When she first heard the hit on the radio, she liked it. She'd whistle it sometimes. But she never suspected she'd inspired the lyrics. There were rumors from the guys at the bar, but she wouldn't believe them. Finally, in 1965, Moraes offered the definitive proof, writing in a magazine that Helo was the beauty behind the song, "the golden girl, mix of flower and mermaid, full of light and grace, but whose sight is also sad because it carries within it, on the way to the sea, the sense of youth that passes, of beauty that doesn't belong only to us." In spite of the stir she created, Helo had a traditional upbringing, and the song did little to change that, she said. Between her strict parents and her fiance, then husband, she turned down invitations to do films and shows on TV. "I was flattered, of course. But it left me wondering, do I really deserve all this?" she said. "It was a weight, trying to please everyone, to show these characteristics that the song called for." Her fiance, who had been her high-school boyfriend, pushed for a quick wedding, and she spent the next decade as a housewife. Now, at 68, she's far more comfortable with her notoriety, doing two TV shows and planning to launch a book in English about her past. "Back then, I never thought I'd get old," she said. "But youth passes. We have to live each moment."
[Associated
Press;
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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