Julio Iglesias

Julio Iglesias (born September 23, 1943, Madrid, Spain) is a Spanish singer and songwriter whose romantic image, magnetic stage presence, and expressive music made him one of the best-selling artists of all time. By the early 21st century, he had sold hundreds of millions of albums in more than a dozen languages.

Iglesias was born and raised in Madrid, where his family lived in an upper-middle-class neighbourhood. After finishing his secondary education, Iglesias went on to study law at the urging of his father. At the same time he played on the junior reserve squad of the popular Real Madrid professional football (soccer) club. However, his aspirations of becoming a professional football player ended when he became partially paralyzed in his early twenties because of a benign spinal tumour. During his lengthy recovery, Iglesias was given a guitar by one of his nurses, and he taught himself to play by accompanying songs on the radio. After he had sufficiently recovered mobility, Iglesias was sent to study English in the United Kingdom. During that time he penned his first single, “La vida sigue igual” (“Life Goes on as Usual”), with which he won a Spanish song competition in 1968.

After the competition Iglesias continued to write and perform music, releasing his first album, Yo canto, in 1969. This marked the beginning of a steady stream of albums and LPs over the following decades. In 1970 he won the honour of representing Spain in the Eurovision Song Contest with his song “Gwendolyne.” Though Iglesias did not win that competition, his song became a major hit in Europe and rocketed him to stardom. By 1973 he had sold 10 million albums, including albums in German, Portuguese, French, and Italian. In 1981 Iglesias’s Spanish version of “Begin the Beguine” by Cole Porter became the first all-Spanish song to reach number one on the British music charts.

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His English-speaking audience grew over the next few years, and in 1984 he released his breakout hit English-language album, 1100 Bel Air Place. The album, which went on to sell some four million copies in the U.S. alone, was an eclectic mix of styles that included duets with popular American artists such as Willie Nelson and Diana Ross. His song with Nelson, “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” reached the top 10 on the Billboard charts. Subsequent collaborations included duets with Dolly Parton, Art Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Luciano Pavarotti, and Frank Sinatra. Though his touring schedule slowed during the 1990s, Iglesias remained popular into the 21st century, performing at sold-out stadiums around the world. He also continued to record, and by the late 2010s he had released more than 80 albums.

Iglesias was the recipient of numerous honours and awards, including Grammy Awards for best Latin pop performance for Un hombre solo (1987; “A Single Man”) and for lifetime achievement (2019). In 2001 he completed his law degree at Complutense University in Madrid. His autobiography, Entre el cielo y el infierno (“Between Heaven and Hell”), was published in 1981. Two of Iglesias’s sons, Julio, Jr., and Enrique, followed their father into pop music stardom.