(Bloomberg) -- Brazilian businessman and television host Silvio Santos has died, according to a social media note from SBT, the TV network he founded. He was 93.
Santos created one of the most-watched television channels in the country while also investing in businesses, including a mid-sized bank and a cosmetics company.
He was also a TV personality, known as the host of Sunday evening variety shows. Every week, Santos would repeat a gesture that became one of the most iconic in Brazilian television: throwing paper airplanes made of money bills to the audience. While doing so, he would deliver his signature line: “Who wants money?”
“He lived to bring happiness and love to all Brazilians,” SBT said Saturday in the statement. “The family is very grateful to Brazil for the more than 65 years of joyful coexistence.”
The cause of death was bronchopneumonia, the result of complications from an influenza infection, according to Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo, where Santos was being treated.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in a social media post that Santos’ death “leaves a void in Brazilian television and marks the end of an era in the country’s media.”
While Silvio Santos was the name he chose as a public figure, his birth name was Senor Abravanel. His life story inspired books, a movie and even a samba parade during Brazil’s Carnival.
Before building a business empire, Santos worked as a street vendor. He went from selling wallets, pens and toys in the streets of Rio de Janeiro to a career in radio in the 1940s, newspaper Folha de S.Paulo wrote. His radio success led to television. The businessman was also involved in the country’s politics, having gone through a failed attempt to run for the presidency in 1989.
(Updates with details on Santos’ career starting at third paragraph)
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