Julio Iglesias De la Cueva (born September 23 1943 in Madrid) is a Spanish singer who 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. While Iglesias rose to international prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a performer of romantic ballads and as an iconically suave Spanish gentleman his success has continued as he entered new musical endeavors. Thus far he has performed approximately 5000 concerts.
In the early sixties when he was a law student in Madrid he briefly was goalkeeper for one of Real Madrid's youth soccer team showevera 22 September 1963 car crash truncated his footballer's career. His doctors thought he would never walk again but slowly he began recovering his health. To develop and increase the dexterity of his hand she began playing guitar. When recovered of health he resumed academic studies and travelled to England to study English language first in Ramsgate then at Bell Educational Trust's Language School in Cambridge.
In 1968 he won the Benidorm International Song Festivala songwriter's contest in Spain and signed a contract with Discos Columbia the Latin music label of the Columbia Records company. He represented Spain in the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest earning fourth place after Northern Irish singer Dana Scallon and the Welsh singer Mary Hopkin. His entry was the song 'Gwendolyne' his first recording. Notable albums from this decade are A Flor de Piel (1974 with the European hit 'Manuela') El Amor (1975) and Soy (1978). He also sang in French. One of his popular song is Je n'ai pas changé.
In 1978 he signed a contract for CBS International adding English French Portuguese and German to his languages repertoire. Iglesias released the album De Niña a Mujer (1981) from it came the first English-language hit a Spanish cover of "Begin the Beguine" (N. 1 in the U.K.) he also released a collection Julio (1983).
In 1984 he released 1100 Bel Air Place the hit album which gave him great fame in English-speaking markets. It sold three million copies in the U.S. With the first single "To All the Girls I've Loved Before" a duet with Willie Nelson earning fifth place in the Billboard Hot 100 it also featured "All of You" with Diana Ross.
Iglesias won a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album in the 1988 Grammy Awards for the album Un Hombre Solo ("A Man Alone"). He recorded a duet with Stevie Wonder on "My Love" in his Non Stop album a crossover success in 1988.
The singer's south Florida mansion on the exclusive security obsessed private Indian Creek Island was placed on the market in 2006 for a quoted $28 million dollars making it one of "Ten Most Expensive Homes in the South" in 2006 according to Forbes Magazine. [wikipedia]
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