Remember the controversial fight between Zé Celso and Silvio Santos

A long battle of more than 40 years. This is how we can say that the legal battle was between the late actor, director and playwright José Celso Martinez Corrêa, who was 86 years oldand the presenter and owner of SBT, Silvio Santos92 years old.

The legal dispute between them was that, on Zé Celso’s side, the director and playwright wanted to continue Lina Bo Bardi’s project, and wanted to build a public cultural park around the theater.

On the side of Silvio Santos, the businessman owns the land near the theater, located in the Bixiga neighborhood, and had plans to build a building for the Silvio Santos Group in the area.

Due to the imbroglio, Zé Celso took the case to court, arguing that the project would harm Teatro Oficina and, since the 1980s, the dispute has been in court without a verdict.

Eight years ago, in August 2017, there was almost an agreement. Silvio Santos, José Celso Martinez, the then mayor of São Paulo at the time, João Dória, and councilor Eduardo Suplicy tried to find consensus. However, Teatro Oficina released images of the meeting and the owner of SBT became irritated, preferring to resolve everything in court and without intermediary third parties.

Since the meeting, Silvio Santos has managed to reverse Condephaat’s decision on the ban on building on the land, and the imbroglio has continued to be disputed in court.

GREEK’S GIFT

On the day she married Marcelo Drummond, on June 6th of this year, they received an Ipê as a gift from Fernanda Montenegro It is Fernanda Torres, which he would plant in the land next to the theater. However, the site has been the subject of a legal dispute since the 1980s between Zé Celso and Silvio Santos and the owner of SBT even sent a subpoena to the playwright on the wedding day.

According to information in the column by journalist Mônica Bergamo, from Folha de São Paulo, the company Residencial Bela Vista, which the Silvio Santos Group owns, filed a request for an injunction to prevent any type of action on the land and determined a fine of BRL 200,000 in case of non-compliance.

Zé Celso said he was not surprised by what happened and regretted Silvio Santos’ lack of generosity in this situation.

“It is life as it is. We live in capitalism. It’s much easier to do what they did than to have an attitude of greatness and generosity and donate the land”.

In the early afternoon of this Thursday, July 6th, SBT issued a statement regarding the death of Ze Celso. The broadcaster regretted what happened.

SBT REGRETS

“SBT expresses deep regret at the passing of José Celso Martinez, undoubtedly one of the most important names in Brazilian dramaturgy. Martinez left a unique mark on the national theater. At this time of sadness, the broadcaster wishes to convey its most sincere condolences to the director’s family and friends, ”he says.

Zé Celso died after being admitted to the Hospital das Clínicas, in São Paulo, with burns over 53% of his body, caused by a fire in his apartment in the Paraíso neighborhood, in the South Zone of São Paulo, caused by a failure in the home’s heater.