NEW YORK, NY.- Silvio Santos, a Brazilian media mogul and television personality who built one of the country’s biggest entertainment empires, died Saturday in São Paulo. He was 93.

His death, in a hospital, was caused by bronchopneumonia related to a case of H1N1 flu, according to a statement by SBT, the television channel he owned.

Santos spent more than six decades in front of the camera. He created and hosted several popular variety shows, including Brazil’s homegrown version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” His best-known show, “Programa Silvio Santos,” has been on the air since 1963. (His daughter Patrícia became the host in 2021, although he continued to appear occasionally.)

Every Sunday night, viewers watched Santos shimmy with dancers, hand out prizes to a mostly female audience, and showcase a range of performers, including circus acrobats, drag queens and hypnotists.

“It wasn’t Sunday without Silvio Santos on the television screen,” said Geraldo Alckmin, Brazil’s vice president, who knew Santos personally. “He would become part of every Brazilian family in this fun, relaxed way.”

A natural showman, Santos came to be known for his 100-kilowatt smile and his playful interaction with audiences. Dressed sharply in a custom-made suit, he would walk onstage to the tune of a catchy jingle, posing a question to the audience: “Who wants money?” In one of his signature gimmicks, he fashioned paper planes out of cash and launched them into a cheering crowd.

Santos wasn’t without his critics. Some complained that his programs put too much emphasis on sex or were otherwise inappropriate for younger viewers. More than once, he told female guests that hugging them might get him “excited.” In one notorious case, he asked a child in the audience whether she preferred “sex, power or money”; He was later sued by the child’s family for the comment and ordered to pay damages.

Santos often expressed disdain for highbrow media. He scoffed at accusations that his provocative stunts were intended to draw viewers and profits away from the Globo network, the market leader, at any cost. He insisted that he was simply giving audiences the programming they wanted.

“I will continue to be tacky,” he said in an interview with the Brazilian newspaper Folha de São Paulo in 1991. “This stigma actually makes me proud; it doesn’t get me down.”

Santos was born Senor Abravanel on Dec. 12, 1930, in the Lapa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. He was one of six children of Alberto Abravanel and Rebecca Caro, Sephardic Jewish immigrants who moved to Brazil in 1924. His father was from a region that is now part of Greece, his mother from a region that is now part of Turkey.

As a teenager, Senor sold pens and plastic ID covers on the street to earn extra income for his family, performing coin and card tricks to draw people’s attention. One of those people brought him to a radio station, where he was soon hired as an announcer. By the early 1960s, he had switched to television and was hosting shows on local channels in São Paulo.

He began building his media empire in the 1980s with the creation of SBT, which would grow into one of the country’s most-watched television channels. He eventually expanded his business into hotels, real estate, financial services and a cosmetics brand, amassing a fortune that Forbes recently estimated at about $300 million.

Santos forged close ties with politicians across the spectrum, even during eras of political turmoil, controversially claiming that he would “respect the president, whatever the regime.” He was criticized for cozying up to the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, which granted Santos his first television concessions.

He considered making his own foray into politics and launched a presidential bid in 1989. But electoral authorities blocked him from running because he owned a television channel, which they argued would give him an unfair advantage.

In 2001, Santos was famously held hostage in his own home by a man who had previously kidnapped his daughter Patrícia and held her for ransom. The standoff between the assailant and police, which lasted for hours, was broadcast live on SBT. Eventually, Santos sweet-talked his way out of captivity.

“He was the king of persuasion,” Alckmin, who was governor of São Paulo at the time, said in an interview. “He convinced the kidnapper to turn himself in.”

In 1962, Santos married Maria Aparecida Vieira; she died of cancer in 1977. He is survived by his wife, Iris Abravanel, whom he married in 1981; their daughters, Daniela Beyruti, Patrícia Abravanel Faria, Rebeca Abravanel and Renata Abravanel; two daughters from his first marriage, Cíntia and Silvia Abravanel; 14 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Known for his carefully coifed hair, which he dyed brown into his 90s, Santos was vocal about his quest for youth. He dieted, worked out regularly and underwent cosmetic procedures over the years.

“I’m young, aren’t I? It’s Our Lady of Plastic Surgery,” he once told reporters.

Since his last television appearance, in 2023, Santos had mostly kept out of the spotlight, although he never formally retired.

As he grew older, he found his youthful spirit frustratingly at odds with his aching body, and he struggled with leaving television, his daughter Cintia told the podcast “Christina Podtudo” this year.

“Silvio always loved what he did,” she said. “So it’s hard for him not to be that person anymore.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.