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Julio Iglesias
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Julio Iglesias De la Cueva (born September 23, 1943 in Madrid) is a Spanish singer who has sold over 300 million albums in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music he is one of the top 10 best selling music artists ever. While Iglesias rose to international prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a performer of romantic ballads and as an iconically suave Spaniard gentleman, his success has continued as he entered new musical endeavors.
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Encyclopedia
Julio Iglesias De la Cueva (born September 23, 1943 in Madrid) is a Spanish singer who has sold over 300 million albums in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music he is one of the top 10 best selling music artists ever. While Iglesias rose to international prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a performer of romantic ballads and as an iconically suave Spaniard gentleman, his success has continued as he entered new musical endeavors. Thus far, he has performed approximately 5,000 concerts.
Background
Julio Iglesias is the eldest son of Dr. Julio Iglesias Puga (from Galicia) and Maria del Rosario de la Cueva y Perignat; Carlos is his younger brother. When the singer was 61 years old, his 89-year-old father sired more children: half brother Jaime (18 May 2004), half-sister Ruth (26 July 2006). Julio's siblings were born of Dr. Iglesias's second marriage to Ronna Keitt.
In the early sixties, when he was a law student in Madrid, he briefly was goalkeeper for one of Real Madrid's youth soccer teams; however, a 22 September 1963 car crash truncated his footballer's career: I had a car accident; [a] very, very strange car accident . . . I lost control of the car, and rolled it, resulting in what they call 'paraparexia', which is not a paraplegi[a]. It's a compression in the [spinal] cord, in the sense of the neck . . . my spinal cord; and I was very, very ill for three years.
His doctors thought he would never walk again, but slowly, he began recovering his health. To develop and increase the dexterity of his hands, he began playing guitar. When recovered of health, he resumed academic studies, and travelled to England to study English language, first in Ramsgate, then at Bell Educational Trust's Language School in Cambridge. See the interview with Julio Iglesias at http://www.thefirst90minutes.com/football-interviews/tf90m-exclusive-interview-with-music-superstar-julio-iglesias.html where he talks about these incidents.
Musical career
Early career to 1978
In 1968, he won the Benidorm International Song Festival, a songwriter's contest in Spain, and signed a contract with Discos Columbia, the Latin music label of the Columbia Records company. He represented Spain in the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest, earning fourth place, after Northern Irish singer Dana Scallon, and the Welsh singer Mary Hopkin. His entry was the song 'Gwendolyne', his first recording. Notable albums from this decade are A Flor de Piel (1974, with the European hit 'Manuela'), El Amor (1975), and Soy (1978). He also sang in French. One of his popular song is Je n'ai pas changé
The Peak, 1978 – 1990
In 1978, he signed a contract for CBS International, adding English, French, Portuguese, and German to his languages repertoire. Iglesias released the album De Niña a Mujer (1981), from it came the first English-language hit, a Spanish cover of "Begin the Beguine" (N. 1 in the U.K.); he also released a collection, Julio (1983).
In 1984, he released 1100 Bel Air Place, the hit album which gave him great fame in English-speaking markets. It sold three million copies in the U.S., with the first single "To All the Girls I've Loved Before", a duet with Willie Nelson, earning fifth place in the Billboard Hot 100; it also featured "All of You", with Diana Ross.
In 1985, Julio Iglesias, Sr, was kidnapped, but found alive two weeks later, prompting Julio (divorced from Isabel Preysler) to move his family to Miami, Florida. That year he recorded duets with Diana Ross and Willie Nelson. In 1986, it was rumoured that Julio, seeking a day's solace from fame, was found walking the streets of Cayey, Puerto Rico, after a seven-days'-disappearance. After visiting the Dominican Republic. In which he became a citizen of in 2005.
Iglesias won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album in the 1988 Grammy Awards for the album Un Hombre Solo ("A Man Alone"). He recorded a duet with Stevie Wonder on "My Love", in his Non Stop album, a crossover success in 1988.
The 1990s
In the 1990s, Julio Iglesias returned to his original Spanish melody in Tango (1996), nominated for Best Latin Pop Album at the 1998 Grammy Awards, losing to the Romances album by Luis Miguel . Also that year, his youngest son, Enrique Iglesias, also was nominated for the Vivir album.
With him continually touring and recording, to ensure his music reaches the world, Julio Iglesias has said, that singing, as an admirable activity, is something he can't picture not in his life. He is thrilled being a singer, and always wants to be a singer, loving the life so much, he would rather die on stage than in bed. He is proud of his achievements, and proud of Enrique's achievements, and of how much his music has enhanced peoples' lives. Julio Iglesias is amenable to signing autographs, though he can be difficult to reach, because of the security guards they have hired since 1985, after the kidnapping.
Since 2000
Iglesias returned to the headlines in October, 2003, when he went to Argentina and kissed show host Susana Giménez three times during a live telecast of her show.
2003 saw the release of the Spanish album "Divorcio." (Divorce) In its first day of sales, "Divorcio" sold a record 350,000 copies in Spain; and quickly reached the #1 spot on the charts in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and Russia.
The remainder of 2003 and early 2004 featured a mega 10 month world tour; which took Iglesias, fueled with the success of "Divorcio" from Europe and Asia to The United States, South America, and Africa. More than half the shows on the tour sold out within days of going on sale, showing that fans still adore Julio.
In December 2004, Miranda and Julio recorded a duet of the Christmas song Silent Night. The song, which was not officially released, also included a voice message from Julio, Miranda, and their 4 young children. The song was released online through the singer's web page, and a CD was included in their Christmas card as a holiday gift from the Iglesias family to their friends and to fans around the world.
Julio has made important investments in the Dominican Republic's eastern town of Punta Cana, a major tourist destination, where he spends most of the year when he is not on tour.
The singer's south Florida mansion on the exclusive, security obsessed, private Indian Creek Island is currently on the market for $28 million dollars making it one of "Ten Most Expensive Homes in the South" in 2006 according to Forbes Magazine.
In September 2006 a new English album titled "Romantic Classics" was released. "I've chosen songs from the '60s, '70s and 80s that I believe will come to be regarded as the new standards," Iglesias says in the album's sleeve notes. The album features the hits "I Want To Know What Love Is", "Careless Whisper", and "Right Here Waiting".
Romantic Classics was Julio's highest debut on the BILLBOARD charts entering at number 31 in the USA, 21 in Canada, 10 in Australia, and top spots across Europe and Asia.
In late September, Julio returned to the studio to record songs in Indonesian and in Filipino for the Asian releases of "Romantic Classics"- which helped propel sales in the Asian Markets.
Julio promoted "Romantic Classics" very heavily in the remainder of 2006, and was seen all over the world on popular TV shows, and in the USA, he appeared on Dancing With The Stars where he sang his hit "I Want To know what Love Is," "Good Morning America," "The View," "Fox and Friends," and "Martha Stewart."
Personal life
During the 1970s he met the Filipina socialite and Hola! magazine journalist Isabel Preysler, and 7 months later they married. Together they have 3 children:
Chabeli Iglesias is now a news reporter in Washington DC. Enrique Iglesias followed in his father's footsteps and is a world-famous singer. Julio José Iglesias is a model who has released two CDs. It was during the 1970s that the Iglesias family's private life became very public, with Julio and the rest of the family frequently featured on the covers of various international magazines. The couple divorced in 1978.
Since 1990 Iglesias has been with Dutch former model Miranda Johanna Maria Rijnsburger born on October 5, 1965. He revealed that Miranda accepted his marriage proposal and they will marry in the future so that their twin daughters will be bridemaids. Together they have 5 children:
- Son: Miguel Alejandro (born September 7, 1997)
- Son: Rodrigo (born April 3, 1999)
- Twin daughters: Victoria and Cristina (born May 1, 2001).
- Son: Guillermo (born May 5, 2007).
In June 2001 he finished his law degree at Madrid Spain's Complutense University, fulfilling the promise he made to his then 84-year-old father that he would eventually graduate after dropping out 35 years ago to pursue his music career..
On May 5th, two weeks before the start of the European leg of his 2009 world tour, Guillermo, the eighth child of Julio Iglesias (fifth with wife Miranda Rijnsburger) was born at 6:57pm in Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach, FL.
Maxim magazine has Iglesias at number 4 on its top ten "Living Sex Legends" list, as he is reputed to have slept with over 3,000 women.
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