Born in a favela of Rio de Janeiro, even as an infant, little Marcel must learn to be canny and inventive to survive in this dangerous and inhospitable environment. When the members of a prowling toddler group brutally destroy his only rattle, he immediately shapes eight new rattles from a single broken chicken’s egg.

Rattle rascals

Until entering school, he feeds his family of twenty by working as a percussionist for the samba band MACELINHO AND THE SAMBA KINGS. There is evidence that at the age of eight he was offered the role of Oskar Matzerath in the later Oscar-winning film “The Tin Drum,” but that Marcel was forced to turn it down because his high-paying advertising contracts demand that he only play on Brazilian drums. This may be the reason that he withdraws into the South American rain forest in disappointment. He is long considered missing until many years later he returns to the public spotlight as a twofold double to triple agent.

Area of expertise:

Marcel is able to mend and build just about anything asked of him. Whether it’s a torn shoelace, a broken-down car, a crashed computer or a collapsing building, Marcel can fix it!

There are rumours that in 1970 Marcel was flown in a secret mission by NASA and the CIA to the defective space capsule Apollo 13 where he mended its defective oxygen tank with a bass drumhead.