“Fame,” explains Julio Iglesias, “is the greatest of all the gifts life bestows on you. It's a gift from God.” It is a sentiment he has obviously passed to his sons, who share his choice of career. He resists, however, attempts to compare them professionally, saying only: “I'm close to my sons, but as a father, not a singer.”
The Latin crooner's first love was football, and he was already a successful goal-keeper for top Spanish team Real Madrid when a horrific car injury ended his sporting aspirations when he was 19. Semi-paralyzed, he feared he might never walk again. To lift Julio's spirits, one of his nurses gave him a guitar, prompting the teenager to set his own poems to music. Two years later, against all odds, he was walking again.
Julio then embarked upon a career in law with an eye on diplomacy, and travelled to England to improve his languages. Encouraged by friends, he gave his first performances in London pubs during the “swinging Sixties”.
In 1968, he won a Benidorm singing competition, and went on to represent Spain at the 1970 Eurovision song contest, garnering a Spanish number one on the way. The following year he married 19-year-old Isabel Preysler and sold his first million discs. The couple had three children, Maria Isabel, Julio “Jos”, and Enrique, but divorced in 1979.
In the Eighties, Julio became the highest selling artist of all time. “He was the pioneer,” said Latin president of EMI Jose Behar – “before Julio, there was no international Latin superstar.” By 1990, the year he met and settled down with Dutch model Miranda Rijnsburger, his international album sales were so extensive Julio joked he would have to “sell records on the moon” next. He and Miranda have two sons - Miguel Alejandro, born in 1997, and Rodrigo two years later – and twin daughters, Victoria and Cristina, in 2001.
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