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Antonio Banderas turns 60: Fun facts about Hollywood great's six decades of life
10/08/2020
PROBABLY Spain's most world-renowned male actor – despite still waiting for his Oscar – Antonio Banderas turns 60 today (Monday), although sadly, he will not be able to celebrate it as he would have liked: The silver-screen star, who lives in the UK, has just announced he has tested positive for Covid-19, and will have to 'party' in quarantine.
He has assured fans, friends and family that he 'feels relatively well', just 'a bit more tired than usual', and 'hopes to be fully recovered as soon as possible' through 'following medical instructions'.
“I'll take advantage of my isolation to read, write, rest and carry on making plans to start to give some meaning to my recently-completed 60 years of life, which I'm really looking forward to,” Banderas said on Twitter.
To help him celebrate, even if it has to be in total isolation, national media sources have unearthed a series of fun facts about the Costa del Sol's biggest human export that even his greatest fans may have missed – some of which we've revealed here.
Born on August 10, 1960 in Málaga – where he never misses taking part in the Easter week, or Semana Santa parades – he was José Antonio Domínguez Bandera, before he started using his mother's surname first, adding an 's' on the end, and his middle name as his main name at the beginning of his acting career.
He started out life in Pedro Almodóvar films, as did fellow Spanish Hollywood star Penélope Cruz, and by 2005, had become such a household name in Tinseltown that his star on the Walk of Fame was unveiled.
If you're on holiday in California and go on the obligatory tour, you'll find Banderas' star at number 6801, Hollywood Boulevard.
Yet acting was not even his first choice of career: Banderas wanted to be a footballer, according to Vanity Fair, although a left-foot injury as a teenager put paid to this path.
“I carried on playing a bit after it healed, but it was so painful...that I gradually ended up giving up,” Antonio admits.
He made his Hollywood début in 1992, aged 32, in The Mambo Kings – but as he did not speak English, Antonio had to learn the entire script phonetically and memorise it, without even knowing what the story was all about.
But Banderas swiftly became bilingual, and was soon singing in English as well as acting in it – you can hear his smooth, powerful vocals in his duet with Michael Ball in the song Me & My Shadow, if you're curious.
Speaking English was probably fairly crucial to the next huge change in his life – meeting the woman who would become his wife for nearly 20 years and the mother of his daughter.
Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas first came face to face on the set of the 1995 film Two Much, an exciting moment for the latter, who had been a huge fan of the actress before they knew each other in person.
Until then, Antonio had been married to actress Ana Leza – who played cameos in Almodóvar's Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios ('Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown') and alongside Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in Philadelphia – since 1987, but they split up after Antonio and Melanie met.
As is often the case, life mirrored art as Antonio's and Melanie's on-screen romance blossomed after the cameras stopped rolling, and the following year, their daughter, Estella del Carmen Domínguez Griffith, more commonly known as Stella Banderas, was born.
Griffith, now 63, was also married when she and Banderas met, to Miami Vice star Don Johnson, with whom she has a daughter, Fifty Shades star Dakota Johnson, now 30.
Banderas and Griffith were together until 2014, and officially divorced the following year – a celebrity split which came right out of the blue for the general public and caused shockwaves among their fans.
He has always denied that his relationship with German-Dutch financial consultant Nicole Kempel, now 39, had anything to do with his split with Melanie, stressing that Nicole had refused to become a part of his life unless and until he and Melanie separated.
Nicole and Antonio now live together in an undisclosed town in Surrey, UK, where Banderas is studying design at London's prestigious Saint Martin's College.
One of Banderas' most famous appearances was in The Mask of Zorro, in 1998, where, according to Spanish national daily 20 Minutos, he had to learn to handle a sword with the help of an Olympic fencing team – a sword which was, in fact, considerably heavier than the one he would use on screen, to ensure he would appear 'natural' on the film.
Weirdly, though, the Banderas film that has so far grossed the highest is actually a cartoon featuring his voice – Shrek 2, premièred in 2004, in which Antonio narrates the character of Puss in Boots, netted US$928.7 million in ticket sales.
Outside the world of the silver screen, Banderas has been involved in international politics – albeit in the background. Not only did he take part in Barack Obama's second electoral campaign on behalf of the USA's Hispanic community, but the whole thing started in the actor's house in Los Angeles, he revealed on a Spanish TV interview in 2011.
“We got together 150 creators from different communications media so Obama could address them,” Banderas explained. “It was surreal, it felt like something out of a film.”
The guests included Mexican-American actress Eva Longoria, of Desperate Housewives fame, plus Hispanic politicians and union leaders 'who had the capacity to drum up funding and votes', such as Los Angeles' mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julián Castro.
“I'm delighted that the US president is using my house to send out a message to the Latin community,” Banderas said at the time.
He said everyone had a password to be able to enter his house during the campaign – even Banderas himself.
“Mine was El Zorro,” Antonio reveals.
In the space of 10 years, Antonio was awarded two honorary degrees – from Dickinson College Carlisle in the US State of Pennsylvania in 2000, and, naturally, from Málaga University in 2010.
Closer to home, and perhaps more 'ordinary', Banderas' fans can find his eponymous perfumes on sale throughout Spain, including cosmetics chain Druni and supermarkets such as Carrefour and Mercadona.
Despite his acting career spanning 38 years – starting with Enrique Belloch's Pestañas Postizas ('False Eyelashes') and then Almodóvar's Laberinto de Pasiones ('Labyrinth of Passions') in 1982 – and having won a Palme d'Or at Cannes, two Goyas (one a lifetime achievement award), and a Concha at San Sebastián, Banderas has never won an Oscar, an Emmy or a Golden Globe.
He has just one nomination for an Oscar, for this year, with Almodóvar's Dolor y Gloria ('Pain and Glory'), two Emmy nominations from 2004 with Presenting Pancho Villa and from 2018 with Genius: Picasso for Best TV Series Actor, with Golden Globe nominations for the same shows, years and category, another Golden Globe nomination for Dolor y Gloria (2019) as Best Actor (Drama), and two other Golden Globe nominations, for Best Comedy or Musical Actor with The Mask of Zorro in 1998 and Evita in 1996.
As far as his fans are concerned, all three of these awards are long overdue and they look forward to seeing him pick up at least one of each in the years to come.
The first photograph, above, from Wikimedia Commons, shows Antonio at this year's Goyas, collecting his award for Dolor y Gloria.
In photograph four, Banderas carries the float for his Easter brotherhood, or hermandad, in Málaga, on Palm Sunday in 2017, and photograph three shows Antonio and Melanie in happier times in 2010 (archive picture).
Picture two, before Banderas had to give up football, and picture five, taken on his second birthday in 1962, are from the actor's Instagram site, antoniobanderasoficial.
Related Topics
PROBABLY Spain's most world-renowned male actor – despite still waiting for his Oscar – Antonio Banderas turns 60 today (Monday), although sadly, he will not be able to celebrate it as he would have liked: The silver-screen star, who lives in the UK, has just announced he has tested positive for Covid-19, and will have to 'party' in quarantine.
He has assured fans, friends and family that he 'feels relatively well', just 'a bit more tired than usual', and 'hopes to be fully recovered as soon as possible' through 'following medical instructions'.
“I'll take advantage of my isolation to read, write, rest and carry on making plans to start to give some meaning to my recently-completed 60 years of life, which I'm really looking forward to,” Banderas said on Twitter.
To help him celebrate, even if it has to be in total isolation, national media sources have unearthed a series of fun facts about the Costa del Sol's biggest human export that even his greatest fans may have missed – some of which we've revealed here.
Born on August 10, 1960 in Málaga – where he never misses taking part in the Easter week, or Semana Santa parades – he was José Antonio Domínguez Bandera, before he started using his mother's surname first, adding an 's' on the end, and his middle name as his main name at the beginning of his acting career.
He started out life in Pedro Almodóvar films, as did fellow Spanish Hollywood star Penélope Cruz, and by 2005, had become such a household name in Tinseltown that his star on the Walk of Fame was unveiled.
If you're on holiday in California and go on the obligatory tour, you'll find Banderas' star at number 6801, Hollywood Boulevard.
Yet acting was not even his first choice of career: Banderas wanted to be a footballer, according to Vanity Fair, although a left-foot injury as a teenager put paid to this path.
“I carried on playing a bit after it healed, but it was so painful...that I gradually ended up giving up,” Antonio admits.
He made his Hollywood début in 1992, aged 32, in The Mambo Kings – but as he did not speak English, Antonio had to learn the entire script phonetically and memorise it, without even knowing what the story was all about.
But Banderas swiftly became bilingual, and was soon singing in English as well as acting in it – you can hear his smooth, powerful vocals in his duet with Michael Ball in the song Me & My Shadow, if you're curious.
Speaking English was probably fairly crucial to the next huge change in his life – meeting the woman who would become his wife for nearly 20 years and the mother of his daughter.
Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas first came face to face on the set of the 1995 film Two Much, an exciting moment for the latter, who had been a huge fan of the actress before they knew each other in person.
Until then, Antonio had been married to actress Ana Leza – who played cameos in Almodóvar's Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios ('Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown') and alongside Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington in Philadelphia – since 1987, but they split up after Antonio and Melanie met.
As is often the case, life mirrored art as Antonio's and Melanie's on-screen romance blossomed after the cameras stopped rolling, and the following year, their daughter, Estella del Carmen Domínguez Griffith, more commonly known as Stella Banderas, was born.
Griffith, now 63, was also married when she and Banderas met, to Miami Vice star Don Johnson, with whom she has a daughter, Fifty Shades star Dakota Johnson, now 30.
Banderas and Griffith were together until 2014, and officially divorced the following year – a celebrity split which came right out of the blue for the general public and caused shockwaves among their fans.
He has always denied that his relationship with German-Dutch financial consultant Nicole Kempel, now 39, had anything to do with his split with Melanie, stressing that Nicole had refused to become a part of his life unless and until he and Melanie separated.
Nicole and Antonio now live together in an undisclosed town in Surrey, UK, where Banderas is studying design at London's prestigious Saint Martin's College.
One of Banderas' most famous appearances was in The Mask of Zorro, in 1998, where, according to Spanish national daily 20 Minutos, he had to learn to handle a sword with the help of an Olympic fencing team – a sword which was, in fact, considerably heavier than the one he would use on screen, to ensure he would appear 'natural' on the film.
Weirdly, though, the Banderas film that has so far grossed the highest is actually a cartoon featuring his voice – Shrek 2, premièred in 2004, in which Antonio narrates the character of Puss in Boots, netted US$928.7 million in ticket sales.
Outside the world of the silver screen, Banderas has been involved in international politics – albeit in the background. Not only did he take part in Barack Obama's second electoral campaign on behalf of the USA's Hispanic community, but the whole thing started in the actor's house in Los Angeles, he revealed on a Spanish TV interview in 2011.
“We got together 150 creators from different communications media so Obama could address them,” Banderas explained. “It was surreal, it felt like something out of a film.”
The guests included Mexican-American actress Eva Longoria, of Desperate Housewives fame, plus Hispanic politicians and union leaders 'who had the capacity to drum up funding and votes', such as Los Angeles' mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Julián Castro.
“I'm delighted that the US president is using my house to send out a message to the Latin community,” Banderas said at the time.
He said everyone had a password to be able to enter his house during the campaign – even Banderas himself.
“Mine was El Zorro,” Antonio reveals.
In the space of 10 years, Antonio was awarded two honorary degrees – from Dickinson College Carlisle in the US State of Pennsylvania in 2000, and, naturally, from Málaga University in 2010.
Closer to home, and perhaps more 'ordinary', Banderas' fans can find his eponymous perfumes on sale throughout Spain, including cosmetics chain Druni and supermarkets such as Carrefour and Mercadona.
Despite his acting career spanning 38 years – starting with Enrique Belloch's Pestañas Postizas ('False Eyelashes') and then Almodóvar's Laberinto de Pasiones ('Labyrinth of Passions') in 1982 – and having won a Palme d'Or at Cannes, two Goyas (one a lifetime achievement award), and a Concha at San Sebastián, Banderas has never won an Oscar, an Emmy or a Golden Globe.
He has just one nomination for an Oscar, for this year, with Almodóvar's Dolor y Gloria ('Pain and Glory'), two Emmy nominations from 2004 with Presenting Pancho Villa and from 2018 with Genius: Picasso for Best TV Series Actor, with Golden Globe nominations for the same shows, years and category, another Golden Globe nomination for Dolor y Gloria (2019) as Best Actor (Drama), and two other Golden Globe nominations, for Best Comedy or Musical Actor with The Mask of Zorro in 1998 and Evita in 1996.
As far as his fans are concerned, all three of these awards are long overdue and they look forward to seeing him pick up at least one of each in the years to come.
The first photograph, above, from Wikimedia Commons, shows Antonio at this year's Goyas, collecting his award for Dolor y Gloria.
In photograph four, Banderas carries the float for his Easter brotherhood, or hermandad, in Málaga, on Palm Sunday in 2017, and photograph three shows Antonio and Melanie in happier times in 2010 (archive picture).
Picture two, before Banderas had to give up football, and picture five, taken on his second birthday in 1962, are from the actor's Instagram site, antoniobanderasoficial.
Related Topics
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