A plastic surgeon, Ivo Pitanguy died on Saturday, one day after passing the Olympic torch for the Rio Games 2016. He was 90 years old. Ivo Pitanguy whose skill with the scalpel drew celebrities to his operating table from around the world and made him a cultural icon in beauty-obsessed Brazil.
A spokesman said that on Saturday, Pitanguy died of a cardiac arrest in his Rio home. She said that He had been suffering from a kidney illness since last year.
In his last public appearance, Pitanguy who seated in a wheelchair held the Olympic torch in the Rio neighborhood of Gavea where his clinic is located on the final leg of the relay to opening of the Games on Friday.
Pitanguy, the son of a doctor, reportedly fainted the first time he saw surgery as a boy but went on to become a revered dispenser of beauty at his Rio de Janeiro clinic and to cement Brazil as one of the plastic-surgery capitals of the world.
Pitanguy took his training in Paris and London on plastic surgery. He became a pioneer of plastic surgery in Brazil and the toast of high society in the beach-side city.Pitanguy still offered his services and staff free of charge to less well-off patients one day in a week.
Interim President of Brazil Michel Temer said in a statement that Ivo Pitanguy dedicated his whole life to helping people live better. The president told that he was a scientist and an intellectual. He will be missed.
Pitanguy attracted the wealthy and celebrities worldwide through foreign magazine features and TV shows about “The man with the golden touch”.
The friend of Pitanguy, Salvador Dali painted him. In 1999, he received one of the highest honors in the Carnival city when a samba school used him as their theme: “The Universe of Beauty – Master Pitanguy.”
Brazil has become one of the biggest markets for plastic surgery of the world, with the bulging middle class of country able to pay for a face-lift in installments and a growing industry in plastic surgery vacation packages for foreign visitors.
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