Olivera Katarina

Olivera Katarina, born Olivera Petrović on 5 March 1940 in Belgrade, was a Serbian singer, actress and writer. She took her stage name from her mother, Katarina, whom she lost early. Her music ranged from Serbian folk songs and starogradska music to Romani romances and chansons.

As a girl she went to ballet school, and later to the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium. After about a year in Paris she studied at the Belgrade Academy of Dramatic Arts, and in 1962 she joined the National Theatre in Belgrade with the play Koštana. She made her film debut in Dobra kob (1964) and became famous as Lenče in Aleksandar Petrović's Skupljači perja (1967), which won the Grand Prix at Cannes and was nominated for an Oscar. She also worked in foreign films, and in Goja (1971) she played the Duchess of Alba.

Her singing career ran alongside the films. "Đelem, đelem" came out as a single in 1967, and in 1969 she came third at the Yugoslav selection for Eurovision in Zagreb with "Poigraj, poigraj devojče". She gave 72 concerts in a row at the Olympia in Paris, recorded songs by Charles Dumont and Voki Kostić, and in 1973 sang "Wakamono wa kaeranakatta" at the Tokyo music festival. Her LPs include Olivera Katarina (1974), Ciganske pesme (1977), Osvetnica (1979) and Retka zverka (1984), after which she withdrew from public life. Her best-known songs also include "Bida", "Alaj mi je večeras po volji", "Pariski lokal", "Verka kaluđerka", "Tam deka ima" and "Šu šu".

She came back in 2005 in Marina Abramović's Balkan Epic at the Guggenheim in New York, and in 2008 with a solo concert at Sava Centar and a role in Uroš Stojanović's Čarlston za Ognjenku. She wrote the memoir Aristokratsko stopalo and the songbook Beli badnjaci. In 2017 she returned to Cannes for the fiftieth anniversary of Skupljači perja and sang "Đelem, đelem", and that year she received the Zlatni pečat of the Yugoslav Film Archive. She gave her last concert in Belgrade on 11 May 2018, and in 2020 she received the Nušić Award for lifetime achievement in acting.

Olivera Katarina died on 21 July 2026, aged 86, and was buried in the Alley of Distinguished Citizens at Belgrade's New Cemetery. Her son, Mane Šakić, is a painter.