Julio Iglesias's Real Name: Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva

Quick answer: The singer is known professionally as Julio Iglesias. AllMusic gives his full name as Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva and says he was born in Madrid on September 23, 1943. Encyclopaedia Britannica independently lists the same full name as an "also known as" form and gives the same birth date and city.

Real name and early life

AllMusic's biography, by Mark Deming, says Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva was born in Madrid on September 23, 1943, that his father was a successful physician, and that his first ambition was to become a lawyer and a diplomat. Britannica independently says he was born and raised in Madrid and studied law at his father's urging.

Both sources say football came first. AllMusic says he was recruited as a goalkeeper by Real Madrid as a teenager, and Britannica says he played on the club's junior reserve squad. The sources describe the injury that ended that path differently. AllMusic says a 1962 car accident left him with a spinal injury that kept him in bed for nearly two years. Britannica instead says he became partly paralysed in his early twenties because of a benign spinal tumour. Both say he taught himself guitar during his recovery and that he later went to Britain to study.

Career highlights

Both sources say his song "La vida sigue igual" won a Spanish song competition in 1968; AllMusic names it as the Benidorm International Song Festival and says it led to a Columbia Records contract. Both sources say he represented Spain at the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest; Britannica names the song "Gwendolyne" and says it did not win but became a major European hit.

Britannica says that in 1981 his Spanish version of Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" became the first all-Spanish song to reach number one on the British charts. Both sources identify 1100 Bel Air Place, released in 1984, as his English-language breakthrough, with his Willie Nelson duet "To All the Girls I've Loved Before." AllMusic says the album sold more than three million copies; Britannica says about four million in the U.S. alone.

Britannica lists Grammy Awards for Un hombre solo (1987) and for lifetime achievement in 2019. It also says he completed his law degree at Complutense University in Madrid in 2001 and that his autobiography, Entre el cielo y el infierno, appeared in 1981. Both sources note that his sons Julio Jr. and Enrique also became pop singers.

Name notes for searchers

People looking up Julio Iglesias, Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva, or Julio Iglesias Sr. are looking for the same Spanish singer. Enrique Iglesias and Julio Iglesias Jr. are his sons, not the same person.