[1] She died on 14 June 1972, aged 27, at the peak of fame, in an aircraft accident near New Delhi, India.

Born in a middle-class family and the daughter of a communist activist,[2] Leila worked as a kindergarten teacher at age 15.

"[3] Due to statements like that and the many profanities (albeit replaced with asterisks) that she said during the interview, the article angered the military, and Alfredo Buzaid, Minister of Justice of President Emílio Garrastazu Médici's government, used it as a pretext to decree censorship to all newspapers and magazines in Brazil.

In the same year,[citation needed] she married movie director Ruy Guerra, father of her only daughter.

[5] She offended the conservative members of society by going to the beach in bikini when six months pregnant, but expressed surprise at the reaction, saying that the doctor just had recommended the sun as beneficial to her pregnancy and her unborn child.