Julio Iglesias: the forgotten soccer star: 2,650 gold and platinum records and 77 albums with 260 million copies sold - Top Ten Latinos

Latino Leaders: The National Magazine of the Successful American Latino, Dec, 2003 by Charles Dews, David Everett

JULIO JOSE IGLESIAS DE LA CUEVA was born in Madrid on September 23, 1943, eldest son of Dr. Julio Iglesia Puga and Maria del Rosario de la Cueva y Perinan. He grew up to become an excellent athlete, and although he enrolled in law school at the Colegio de San Pablo with vague plans of becoming a career diplomat, his private plan was to play professional soccer, and he pursued that interest by playing goalie for the Real Madrid soccer team.

But that all changed in his 20th year. In 1963, he was driving with several friends from Majadahonda back to Madrid when a car wreck left him semi-paralyzed with a poor prognosis for ever walking again.

At night in the hospital, while listening to the radio, he began to write verse, sad romantic lyrics about life. One evening a nurse brought him a guitar to play around with, and soon he was strumming harmonies and picking out melodies to go with his lyrics.

Within two years he was walking again, but his dreams of a career in soccer were gone, mercifully replaced by a new dream of becoming a songwriter. He took his first song to a Madrid recording studio, hoping to find a singer to record it.

"Why don't you perform it yourself?" asked the studio manager.

The young man, who 20 years later would receive the only Diamond Record Award from the Guinness Book of World Records for selling more records in more languages than any other singer in musical history, replied simply, "Because I'm not a singer."

However, Julio took his song, "La vida sigue igual" (Life Goes On) and his voice to the Benidorm, Spain's top song festival, where he won the competition, launching what has been called "a serenade to the world that has never ended."

That serenade now includes 2,650 gold and platinum records and 77 albums, of which he has sold 260 million. His first recording in English, "1100 Bel Air Place," released in 1984, quickly went multiplatinum and became an important link between American and European music. Along with English and, of course, his native Spanish, he has recorded songs in Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Tagalog.

In the recording studio he is a meticulous artist, a sharp critic of himself, evaluating each note and word for its overall effect. The result of such vigilance is reflected in the fact that his most recent album, his 77th, may prove to be his most significant. He has co-written ten songs with Estefano and added songs by Ruben Blades, Robi Rosa, and Alejandro Sanz. Julio has never rested on his laurels.

Julio never became that professional soccer player or that career diplomat, but in 1989, he was appointed Special Representative for the Performing Arts for UNICEF, a position he cherishes, because it presents an opportunity to give something back to a world that has been so generous to him.