Julio Iglesias Sr.

Julio Iglesias-Puga (July 25, 1915 – December 19, 2005) was a Spanish gynecologist. He was the father of singer Julio Iglesias^[1] and grandfather to the singers Enrique Iglesias and Julio Iglesias Jr. and socialite Chabeli Iglesias. He was nicknamed Papuchi, "Daddy".^[2]

He helped to found the Madrid Maternity Clinic and became the head of its sterility, infertility and family planning unit.

Life and career

Iglesias was born in Ourense. During the Spanish Civil War, Iglesias fought for the Nationalists led by General Franco. In 1943, he married María del Rosario de la Cueva y Perignat and the couple had two sons Julio Iglesias and Carlos. They divorced in 1983.

In December 1981 he was kidnapped by Basque terrorist organisation ETA and held for two weeks, eventually being found unharmed.^[3] He became a fixture of gossip magazines, always ready to chat with journalists revealing information about his famous descendants.

In the early 1990s, he met US citizen Ronna Keith. The couple married in 2001 in a secret ceremony witnessed by close family and photographers from a magazine.

On May 18, 2004, Keith gave birth to a boy, Jaime Iglesias, when Julio Sr. was 88 and Ronna was 40. Jaime's half-brother, Julio, was 60 years old. Jaime's nephews were 31-year-old Julio Jr. and 29-year-old Enrique and niece was 32-year-old Chabeli. After Jaime was born in 2004, Iglesias rejected suggestions Ronna was the driving force behind their decision to start a family. "At my age, a child is marvellous...I felt just like Abraham," he declared. "If people say I just did it for my wife, I don't take it as an insult, but the truth is I wanted to do it just as much as she did...My wife wanted to do it and we did it...It was an act of generosity towards her. I leave her part of my blood, of my life. I need her so much that I said to her, 'Here, this is what you wanted for when I am gone.'"

Barely after announcing the arrival of her first baby, Ronna underwent fertility treatment in order to conceive again. IV treatment is speculated to have been used for their second child. Iglesias died suddenly in Madrid the morning of December 19, 2005, at the age of 90. Ruth Iglesias was born on July 26, 2006, 7 months after her father died.

In the music of his son

In his 1972 hit "Un canto a Galicia" (a song to Galicia), Julio Iglesias sings about his parents, with the words "Un canto a Galicia, Terra do meu pai. Un canto a Galicia, miña terra mai" (a song to Galicia, land of my father, a song to Galicia, my motherland). The song is sung in Galician, the regional language of Galicia.

References

External links

• Obituary in The Times, 20 December 2005