The ALMA Awards or American Latino Media Arts Awards honoring the accomplishments of Hispanics in entertainment was televised this past Friday. And while it is exciting to see all the Hispanic talent get their moment, what my mother and I were more interesting in seeing was if anyone from Spain was going to perform, present, or anything. This then got us into a discussion about who are the most famous and well-known Spaniards around the world. Which, of course, got me curious and researching to find all the famous Spaniards I could remember. What follows is as much for me as it is for you. Picspam time!

Actors

Antonio Banderas: He wanted to become a professional soccer player until a broken foot sidelined his dreams at the age of fourteen. He went on to enroll in some drama classes, eventually joining a theater troupe that toured all over Spain. He then began his acting career at age 19 with a series of films by Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar and then appeared in high-profile Hollywood films including Assassins, Evita, Interview with the Vampire, Philadelphia, Desperado, The Mask of Zorro, Spy Kids, and Shrek.

Penélope Cruz: She gathered critical acclaim as a young actress for films such as Jamón, Jamón, La Niña de tus ojos, and Belle époque. She has also starred in several American films, but she is perhaps best known for her work with acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, in Broken Embraces, Volver and All About My Mother. Cruz has been awarded three Goyas, two European Film Awards, and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2009, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Goya, and a BAFTA for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She is Spain’s first female Oscar winner and also becomes the sixth Hispanic person to win an Oscar.

Javier Bardem: He had garnered critical acclaim for roles in films such as Jamón, jamón, Carne tremula, Boca a boca, Los Lunes al sol, Mar adentro (The Sea Inside) and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Bardem has been awarded an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA, four Goya awards, two European Film Awards and two Coppa Volpis for his work. He is the first Spanish actor to be nominated (for Before Night Falls) and to win an Oscar (the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Anton Chigurh in the 2007 film No Country for Old Men).

Directors

Pedro Almodóvar: Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His film Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother) has received more awards and honors than any other Spanish film: an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director Award at Cannes, the French César for Best Foreign Film, seven Goya Awards, and others. Almodóvar also won numerous honors across the world for Hable con ella (Talk to Her), including a French César for Best Film and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. His film Volver competed for the Palme d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and won Best Actress (shared by the six main actresses) and Best Screenplay. Penélope Cruz was also nominated for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actress for Volver, making her the second Spanish woman ever to be nominated in that category. His next film Los Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces) will also star Penélope Cruz and be released November 20, 2009.

Alejandro Amenábar: Amenábar was born in Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth. He studied cinema at Madrid’s Universidad Complutense but eventually dropped out. Amenábar’s first hit was Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes), which inspired a remake by Cameron Crowe with Tom Cruise and Penélope Cruz in the same role as the original. His next popular film was the American film The Others starring Nicole Kidman, which went on to win eight Goya Awards including awards for Best Film and Best Director. Amenábar was awarded the Grand Prix of the Jury at the International Venice Film Festival in 2004 for Mar adentro (The Sea Inside), and in February 2005 the same film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. His next film Agora starring Rachel Weisz and Max Minghella will get a general release on December 18, 2009.

Musicians

Enrique Inglesias: Iglesias started his musical career with Mexican indie label Fonovisa, which helped turn him into one of the most popular artists and selling more Spanish language albums than any other artist in that period of time. He then crossed over to the mainstream English language market, signing a unique multi–album deal with Universal Music for an unprecedented $48,000,000. Iglesias has sold over 45 million records worldwide, has had two Billboard Hot 100 #1s and one #3, and holds the record for producing 19 number #1 Spanish–language singles on the Billboard‘s Hot Latin Tracks.

Julio Inglesias: 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 his success has continued as he entered new musical endeavors. Thus far, he has performed approximately 5,000 concerts.

Alejandro Sanz: Award winning, Spanish pop/ballad musician and singer-songwriter. Sanz is the recipient of 15 Latin Grammy Awards and two Grammy Awards. Sanz holds the record for the top selling Spanish music CD in history (21 million copies). He became known worldwide in 2005 after his collaboration with Colombian singer Shakira for her hit La Tortura.

Dover: My favorite Spanish music artist. I’ve been listening to them thanks to my cousin in Spain since high school. Most of the world doesn’t know who they are yet, but that’s going to change very soon. In early 2009, Dover has now signed up with Sony. Sony Music Entertainment Spain president Carlos López says the signing of Dover should not be a surprise. “Dover is one of Spain’s most important groups from the ’90s and in this decade,” he comments. López said he expects Dover’s first Sony release to be in January or February 2010. I’ve compiled a quick playlist of them above, so you can get a taste.

Los del Río: Los del Río specialized in Andalusian folk music, and for a number of years they were known for attending private “jet-set” parties at Marbella. However, in the summer of 1996, the duo enjoyed the success of their multi-platinum smash summer hit ‘Macarena‘, which sold over four million copies in the United States and spent a record 14 weeks at #1. This is the longest running #1 debut single in American music history. It was because of the lone success of this song that Los del Río is considered a one-hit wonder.

Sports

Real Madrid: The professional soccer or fútbol club based in Madrid, Spain. Probably best known for having David Beckham as a player from 2003-2007. Real Madrid is the most successful team in Spanish football and was voted by FIFA as the most successful club of the 20th century, having won a record thirty-one La Liga titles, seventeen Spanish Cups, a record nine European Cups and two UEFA Cups.

Artists

Salvador Dali: Spanish artist who became one of the most important painters of the 20th century. He is best known for his surrealist work identified by its striking, bizarre, dreamlike images, combined with his excellent draftsmanship and painting skills influenced by the Renaissance masters. An artist of great talent and imagination, he had a love of doing unusual things to draw attention to himself. This sometimes irked those who loved his art as much as it annoyed his critics, since his eccentric theatrical manner sometimes overshadowed his artwork in public attention.

Pablo Picasso: Spanish painter and sculptor. Also one of the most recognized figures in 20th century art, he is best known as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism. Extremely prolific throughout his long lifetime, he produced around 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, 34,000 book illustrations and 300 sculptures.

Diego Velázquez: Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas (1656). Since that time, more modern artists, including Spain’s Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, as well as the Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works.

Francisco Goya: Spanish painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and as the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown and a chronicler of history. The subversive and subjective element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of later generations of artists, notably Manet and Picasso.

Writers

One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage
to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this. ~ Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes: Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature and is regularly regarded among the best novels ever written. First part published in 1605, the second in 1615. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great, that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes (The language of Cervantes). He has been dubbed el Príncipe de los Ingenios – the Prince of Wits.

Love is this living death, and love’s the knife
that twists my innards. I wait for one word
and wonder if this bloom can last the drought,
if losing you would gain me back my life. ~ Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca: Spanish poet and dramatist whose many works include the poetry “Romancero Gitano” (1928), and trilogy of plays “Bodas de Sangre”, “Yerma”, and “La Casa de Bernarda Alba”. While a student he befriended Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí and many other artists who were, or would become, influential across Spain. From 1925 to 1928 he was also passionately involved with Salvador Dali. (This story can be seen in the recent film Little Ashes.) He was then murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 at the age of 38 and thought to be one of the many victims who ‘disappeared’ and were executed by the Nationalists and dictator Franco. He even foretold his own fate saying: “Then I realised I had been murdered. They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches …. but they did not find me. They never found me? No. They never found me.”

Historical

Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand V of Spain: Sponsored Christopher Columbus’ voyages that led to the discovery of America and laying the foundations of modern Spain and the Spanish Empire. Isabella I was one of the most powerful and influential individuals of her time and is considered to be one of the most important sovereigns in world history.

Hernán Cortés: Spanish conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the King of Castile. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers that began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

Francisco Pizarro: Spanish conquistador, conqueror of the Incan Empire and founder of Lima, the modern-day capital of Peru. Through his father, Francisco was second cousin to Hernán Cortés, the famed conquistador of Mexico.

Hernando de Soto: Spanish explorer and conquistador who, while leading the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States, was the first European to discover the Mississippi River.

Vasco Núñez de Balboa: Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador, who is best known for having crossed the Isthmus of Panama and became the first European to lead an expedition to have seen or reached the Pacific from the New World. He traveled to the New World in 1500 and settled on the island of Hispaniola. He also founded the settlement of Santa María la Antigua del Darién in present-day Panama in 1510, which was the first permanent European settlement on the mainland of the Americas.

Francisco Franco: Military general and dictator of Spain from October 1936 until his death in 1975. During his almost forty year reign, Franco’s governance of Spain went through various different phases, although the most common ideological features present throughout included a strong sense of Spanish nationalism and protection of the country’s territorial integrity, Catholicism, anti-communism and “traditional values”. After he died and Juan Carlos I was appointed king, statues of him were removed or destroyed.

Juan Carlos I: Current reigning king of Spain. On 22 November 1975, two days after the death of dictator Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated King according to the law of succession formed by Franco. (It just so happens he is also the grandson of the last true King of Spain, Alfonso VIII, who was deposed in 1931.) When Franco had named him successor before his death, Juan Carlos had to swear loyalty to Franco’s ideas and movements. However, after Franco’s death and Juan Carlos I placement as King, he quickly instituted reforms to the great displeasure of conservative groups who had expected him to maintain the authoritarian state. Juan Carlos I is credited with bringing Spain back to democracy and modernity. Juan Carlos I is also famous for telling Hugo Chávez, “¿Por qué no te callas?” or “Why don’t you shut up?” in November 2007 at the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago de Chile during a heated exchange. That was definitely heard around the world.

Aah, Spain. I love you.

Categorized as Personal

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