Ferdinand Ramos: The tragic actor who inspired a classic Nick Cave record
While every artist will know how they want to be perceived before they make it big, how their career unfolds often goes in a different direction. Life events get in the way, and personalities can clash with public perception to the point that what an artist envisages might end up being worlds away from what they become. It could be argued that this happened with Nick Cave.
Nick Cave has had a life full of grief, and his work, particularly in recent years, has been a reaction to that grief. Albums like Skeleton Key and Ghosteen are expert representations of the grieving process and remain some of the most poignant pieces of art ever produced. The humanity in their lyricism and production is unlike anything that has come before and anything that will come after.
They aren’t the first of his records with grief embedded in the centre of them, though. His 1988 album Tender Prey is dedicated to Ferdinand Ramos, a talented actor who met a tragic end in 1987 when he was shot and killed by police in Sao Paulo. Granted, the subsequent mourning on Cave’s album isn’t as raw as that which he wrote about in the 2010s, but it is still worth discussing the connection Cave felt with Ramos and how he might have influenced the album.
Ferdinand Ramos was an actor in Sao Paulo who found fame thanks to his role in Pixote. Audiences were blown away by his portrayal of a homeless boy fighting to survive with a group of kids on the street. Ramos could likely connect with the role so easily because it wasn’t far removed from his upbringing. He had ten siblings, and his mother’s pension barely brought in any money, so they had to sell lottery tickets to get by.
Ramos found fame following his role in Pixote, but his career started going downhill shortly after. He was fired from the sitcom he was hired on because he failed to turn up to shoots, and then when he enlisted in acting school, he dropped out after two years. He eventually wound up back on the street, not far from the character who initially made him famous, doing whatever he could to survive.
He was shot and killed by police after a mugging. The police officers, when questioned, said that Ramos was armed, and so they shot for their own protection and the protection of others; however, some eyewitness reports state that Ramos was unarmed. What actually happened that night remains unknown.
Nick Cave was a massive fan of Pixote, as he said on multiple occasions that it was one of his favourite films. In the liner notes for the Tender Prey album, he dedicated the album to Ramos. “This album is dedicated to Ferdinand Ramos, better known as ‘PIXOTE,’” he wrote, “Remembered for his brilliant performance in the film of the same name. Killed by Sao Paulo police in November 1987, age 19.”
It’s unclear why Cave felt the need to dedicate the album to Ramos. He was a fan of the film and the actor’s work, granted, not to mention he passed away before his time, but it still doesn’t go on to explain how he inspired the record. It could well be that Nick Cave was saddened by the loss of an actor he admired and simply wanted to dedicate some of his work to them. Or, it might be that the chaotic way Cave wrote the album he found oddly reminiscent of the group depicted in Pixote.
Cave has discussed before how difficult the writing process for the album was. “It was a nightmare, that record. It is reflective of a group – particularly myself – who was just writing songs and there was no larger idea behind it,” he said. “Sometimes some of the group was there, sometimes they weren’t.”
Cave also admitted that his life was “spiralling out of control in a lot of areas,” and that also contributed to the haphazard nature of the album.
Cave might have seen parallels between himself and the group in Pixote. There was no direction in either; they just knew they had to do what they were doing to survive. For Pixote, it was to live a life on the streets shrouded in crime. For Cave, it was to finish a record even if his heart wasn’t in it. That subconscious link could have been enough for Ramos to be at the forefront of Cave’s mind when writing the liner notes for the record. Alternatively, it may just be a sweet tribute to a talented actor who had his life taken from him.
