Julio Iglesias was born in Madrid, on September 23rd, 1943.

He was a remarkable athlete, and he played goalkeeper for the junior Real Madrid soccer team.

He wanted to be a professional soccer player, but he continued his studies.

He was in a severe auto accident on Sept 22nd, 1963, while he was returning from Majadahonda to Madrid about two o'clock in the morning. he suffered a very severe auto accident which left him semi-paralyzed more than a year and a half.

He studied Law in the Complutense University of Madrid, before he had a serious accident.

He was partially paralyzed for a year and a half and had three years of recovery

There was a very slim probability that he would walk again

The nurse who took care of him gave him a guitar.

He listened to the radio and wrote poems. They were sad, romantic verses that questioned man's mission in life. Never did he think of becoming a singer

He had great support from his family to help him through this difficult time. His father took off a whole year from work to help him.

Julio began to walk again

He went to England to study English, first in Ramsgate and then at Bell's Language School in Cambridge.

Some weekends he would sing in a pub, the "Airport Pub", songs that were popular at that time ? songs of Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, The Beatle

In Cambridge, he met Gwendolyne Bollore, who became his girlfriend, and inspired one of his most famous songs: Gwendolyne.

He continued writing songs, and one day he decided to go to a record company to offer one of his songs to be interpreted by one of their singers. The manager, after listening to a single recorded by Julio with only his guitar, asked him ?Why don?t you sing it yourself? Julio answered "Because I am not a singer”

Finally they convinced him, and he performed at the then famous Benidorm Music Festival. On July 17th, 1968 he was proclaimed the winner of the contest with his famous song La vida sigue igual, and he signed a contract with Columbia Discos.

Julio married, on January 20th, 1971, in Toledo (Spain), Isabel Preysler Arrastria, they have three children, they were separated in 1978, and they divorced one year later.

He was number one on all the worlds? lists, from Mexico to Argentina and from Spain to Japan.

He recorded albums in Japanese, french, italian, and Portugese

In Paris in 1983, Julio Iglesias received the first and only Diamond Record Award ever given to a singer by the Guinness Book of World Records for selling more records in more languages than any other musical artist in history (Spanish, German, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Tagalog and Japanese).

In 1988, he received the Grammy Award® for Best Latin Singer of the Year 1987

In 1985 he became one of the few Hispanic artists to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Every thirty seconds one of his songs is played on a radio station somewhere in the world. He performs in concert all over the world, and his albums continue to be successful in sales.He 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.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Iglesias

http://www.julioiglesias.com/

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