Julio Iglesias protected artist friends during dictatorship

Singer-songwriter Víctor Manuel, 70, and his actress wife Ana Belén, 66 (both pictured), say they both had 'serious problems' during the General's reign from 1939, at the end of the Civil War, until 1975, due to an extreme censorship on the arts in place until it was officially abolished on December 1, 1977 by the first president of a newly-democratic Spain, Adolfo Suárez.

Taboo subjects included anything that could be even slightly interpreted as a criticism of the church, the government or the heterosexual nuclear family, or even remotely sexual, and singers, authors, film and theatre directors, actors, painters and anyone else involved could go to jail if they broke the rules.

This forced many of them to 'go underground' – members of the public risked their freedom to watch films featuring Marilyn Monroe, or by the controversial director Luis Buñuel, or to listen to records by Joan Manuel Serrat, the Rolling Stones and Lou Reed, or to read magazines such as Triunfo, whilst some public media, such as Diario Madrid, were ordered to close down.

Víctor Manuel says a musical he had composed was being premièred in México, having been banned in Spain because of the censorship, and that he and Ana Belén were accused by the Spanish government of having 'stomped on a national flag'.

This, considered an insult to the State and Franco's government, would have been punishable by prison and it would have been extremely unlikely the couple would have got a fair trial.

Julio Iglesias, 74, was on tour in México at the time and spoke to the police, saying the incident 'had never existed'.

“Julio has always been great with us difficult moments during the dictatorship,” said Ana Belén.

“We had some legal problems, and Julio was one of the few people brave enough to show his face and stand up for us.

“We'll always be really grateful to him for that – and also, he's a fantastic artist.”

Belén and Manuel made these revelations recently at the Hay Festival in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, and the latter spoke of his lifelong friendship with Iglesias.

Manuel said his own political values were strongly left-leaning: “I went about in a military-style jacket and sideburns,” he revealed, whilst Iglesias – who has, in post-democratic times, expressed his support for the right-wing PP government, was 'completely unblemished'.

The two singers shared a stage frequently - “one day he'd be my support act and the next day I'd be his,” Manuel explains – working together in their early days as emerging artists, although he admits they never talk about politics as it would always end in an argument.

They were on tour together when Belén was on the road with a theatre company, which was how she and Manuel met.