In learning to play, he discovered his musical talent.
While he was in hospital after the accident, a nurse named Eladio Magdaleno gave him a guitar so that he could recover the dexterity of his hands. He has said of those years, "I had more courage and attitude than talent". The accident smashed his lower spine and left his legs permanently weakened and requiring therapy for several years.
#JULIO IGLESIAS ALBUM COUNT PROFESSIONAL#
His professional football career was ruined when he was involved in a serious automobile accident in 1963 that left him unable to walk for two years. In his youth, he was a goalkeeper for Real Madrid Castilla in the Segunda División. He alternated playing professional football with studying law at the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. He has proclaimed himself Jewish "from the waist up". He has said that his mother's family name, " de la Cueva", meaning literally "of the cave" and referring to Jewish people in hiding, is a common Jewish name. The name " Iglesias" translates as "churches", although Iglesias claims to be of Jewish ancestry on his maternal side. His maternal grandparents were José de la Cueva y Orejuela (1887–1955) and Dolores de Perignat y Ruiz de Benavides, who was a native of Guayama, Puerto Rico. His paternal grandparents, Manuela Puga Noguerol and Ulpiano Iglesias Sarria, were of Galician ancestry. Iglesias was born in Madrid to Julio Iglesias Sr., a medical doctor from Ourense who became one of the youngest gynecologists in the country, and María del Rosario de la Cueva y Perignat. He has had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 1985. UNICEF named him Special Ambassador for the Performing Arts in 1989.
He has been awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in the Fine Arts of Spain and the Legion of Honour of France. In Brazil, France, Italy and elsewhere, Iglesias is the most successful foreign record seller, while in his home country, Spain, he has sold the most records in history, with 23 million records.ĭuring his career, Iglesias has won many awards in the music industry, including the Grammy, Latin Grammy, World Music Award, Billboard Music Award, American Music Award and Lo Nuestro Award.
In April 2013 in Beijing, he was honoured as the most popular international artist in China. In 1983, Iglesias was celebrated as having recorded songs in the most languages in the world, and in 2013 for being the artist in Latin music with the most records sold in history. In April 2013, Iglesias was inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. It is estimated that during his career he has performed in more than 5000 concerts, for over 60 million people in five continents. Iglesias is recognized as the most commercially successful continental European singer in the world and one of the top record sellers in music history, having sold more than 100 million records worldwide in 14 languages. Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva ( Spanish: born 23 September 1943) is a Spanish singer, songwriter and former professional footballer. Last week, Julio’s tongue-in-cheek statistic popped up again, when a 43-year-old man finally won recognition as the star’s son - the product of a brief affair in the 1970s.* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only The majority of women swooned at the mere thought of a sacred moment in their seductive gaze, while young men felt both inspired and intimidated by such a dizzyingly high number of sexual conquests.īut now? Thanks to the #metoo and #timesup campaigns, men with more notches on their bedposts than the rest of us have had hot dinners are regarded with certain distaste. Like Mick Jagger, who is said to have bedded around 4,000 women, the Spanish crooner joined the ranks of Warren Beatty, Errol Flynn, Jack Nicholson and the notorious lover Casanova as one of history’s great seducers.īack then, such, ahem, swordsmanship was admired. I respect women very much.” SEX ADDICTION Julio, who is charm personified, made no complaint when his legendary Lothario-ism went stratospheric, though many years later he mitigated to another interviewer who broached the subject: “Me, I don’t have numbers.