[1] At age 9, Lucélia heard actress Cacilda Becker on the radio calling children to do an audition for a role in one of her plays, but her mother did not allow her to perform.

[3] She made her stage debut at the age of 14, in the children's play Dom Chicote Mula Manca e seu fiel companheiro Zé Chupança, replacing actress Débora Duarte, which had moved to Rio de Janeiro in order to star in the Rede Globo telenovela Bicho do Mato.

The telenovela, based on the novel of the same name by 19th century abolitionist writer Bernardo Guimarães, is the most dubbed program in the history of world television, according to a research conducted by Good Morning America.

[4] Prior to being invited for the leading role by writer Gilberto Braga and director Herval Rossano, Lucélia had been turned down by Globo several times.

[2] It was the first show starred by a non-Chinese leading actress broadcast in the People's Republic of China, in addition to being the first telenovela shown in the former Soviet Union, where it had a broad appeal.

[2] In 1980, in an attempt to break with the image of "Brazil's sweetheart", acquired with her role in the telenovela, she posed nude for the Brazilian version of Playboy.

[4] In 1981, Lucélia posed naked for Playboy again, in order to promote the film Luz del Fuego, which tells the story of the eponymous ballerina which shocked the Brazilian society of the early 1950s by founding the a naturist political party and creating the first clothes-free area in Brazil at an island in Baía de Guanabara.

[4] After the success of Escrava Isaura, Lucélia continued making popular Rede Globo telenovelas, such as Locomotivas (1977), Dancin' Days (1978), Água Viva (1980), Ciranda de Pedra (1981), Guerra dos Sexos (1986), Vereda Tropical (1984), and Sinhá Moça (1986).

In 1996 she decided to take the lead role in SBT's controversial telenovela Dona Anja, about a brothel owner in a small Rio Grande do Sul town during the military dictatorship.

[4] In August 2007, Lucélia started playing Suzana Mayer in Donas de Casa Desesperadas, the Brazilian version of the Desperate Housewives, broadcast by RedeTV!.

Her involvement with the Workers' Party emerged in the late 1970s, when some outlawed from the military regime began to return to Brazil and continues until the present day.