Antonio Banderas, the man who always risked himself for love and when he felt that he was dying, he turned his life upside down

2023-08-10 13:20:34

With a spatula

agosto 10 2023, 7:20 am
Antonio Banderas at the Venice International Film Festival in 2021 (REUTERS / Yara Nardi)

The Malaga actor turns 63 today. He is one of the sexiest men on the planet and his nickname “Latin macho” has little to do with his reality: his relationship with women has always been one of love and understanding.

By infobae.com

In addition, he knew how to become an exemplary father to his ex’s children, whom he helped raise. “Suffering a heart attack is the best thing that could happen to me in life,” he said after being on the brink of death.

At first glance it is clear that Antonio Banderas won him over the years, and although heartbreak knocked on his door, he always showed that he was playing for love. In addition, this man from Malaga who traveled to Madrid with only one suitcase, to later conquer Hollywood without knowing a word of English, can free himself from the label of macho with which Latino men are judged: throughout his life Antonio lived for and for women, precisely five who influenced him. Ana Bandera, his mother, Ana Leza, his first wife, Melanie Griffith, his second wife, Dakota Johnson, his daughter by adoption, and Nicole Kimpel, his current wife with whom he has been with for more than 20 years of relationship

Ana Bandera Gallego not only gave him life on August 10, 1960, she also gave him his last name: little or nothing is known about his father, José Domínguez. Antonio was born in the south of Spain, in Malaga, and did not always dream of being an actor. His first passion was soccer. He trained and vowed to become a professional athlete one day. But fate had other plans for him, and after suffering an injury, he had to give up on that dream. Slowly but surely, he delved deeper and deeper into the idea of ​​acting. The same actor recounted that when he began to become famous he was invited to galas, and at every premiere he could take to his mother. A hard blow for the Spaniard was in 2017 when his mother Ana died at the age of 84 due to Alzheimer’s.

Actress Ana Leza and Antonio Banderas in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Barry King/Alamy Stock Photo)

In 1987, Antonio Banderas said “I do” for the first time to fellow actress Ana Leza after just six months of dating. They had met one night in January in a nightclub on Calle Infantas in Madrid. The wedding was in the church of San Nicolás with Pedro Almodóvar and Carmen Maura as witnesses. In 1990, together they made the leap to the United States after the triumphs of Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown (1988), Tie me up! (1989) and The Law of Desire (1987). According to Vanity Fair, Leza devoted her time to being the actor’s private English teacher and soon became one of the biggest drivers of her fledgling career. “She helped me translate the script for The Mambo Kings, work on it, and she gave me a lot of confidence,” Banderas told the outlet. “Without her I would not have gotten the role.” The 1992 musical drama was the actor’s first foray into Hollywood and helped launch his international career. As Leza told the magazine, “it was imperative that I accompany him to the United States because he did not speak a word of English and I spoke it fluently.”

His tone changed when they divorced in 1995 and Leza kept the house they had in Madrid for 3.4 million euros, alimony of 12,000 euros per month and the lifetime rights to 50 percent of all the films he made while they were together. married. “There were eight days of trial,” Banderas told Vanity Fair. “It is a business. What the judge wants to know is how much you are going to pay your partner. They grab you by the foot, they shake you, and when they squeeze every last dollar out of you, they leave you. That’s what he did with me.”

Antonio Banderas in Women on the verge of a nervous breakdown (El Deseo)

Banderas fell in love with Griffith from the first moment he saw her at the 1989 Academy Awards, which the blonde attended with her then-husband Don Johnson, according to InStyle. “I saw this beautiful woman in a cream-colored dress, with pearls,” she recalled shortly after asking her friend Pedro Almodóvar who she was. Melanie remembered exactly what her opening dialogue was, “The first thing he asked me was my age,” Griffith told AARP, “I thought, ‘That’s the rudest thing anyone has ever asked me at first.’ But there was something about him.”

Six years after Banderas got his first glimpse of his future wife, fate brought them back together when they were cast opposite Daryl Hannah in the romantic comedy Two Much (1995). Both were married at the time: Melanie to actor Don Johnson (for the second time) and Antonio to Spanish Ana Leza. “It was very, very fast and very compulsive, but at the same time we were even at the time,” he told InStyle of his on-set dynamic. “We did everything we could to be respectful. We just thought this might be one of those crush moments we have when we shoot movies because we play couple together, and then we go home.” And although Griffith was accused by Leza of “stealing” her husband, they assure that it was not so.

Antonio Banderas with his then-wife Melanie Griffith at the “Shrek 2” party in Cannes (Photo by Stephane Cardinale/Corbis via Getty Images)

Antonio and Melanie got married in 1996. Shortly after, they welcomed a daughter together: Stella Banderas. No one expected them to last, and while they eventually broke up, they spent nearly two decades trying. At first, they even beat Hurricane Madonna: The pop singer made her interest in the actor obvious, but Griffith thwarted her plan. In fact, the drama became so hyped in the press that Melanie said she was banned from the set of Evita. “Madonna was publicly hounding him,” she told Larry King in 2002. “She was pregnant when he was doing Evita. She was pregnant, she had just gotten pregnant and I went with him. So the press made a big fuss about how Melanie is taking care of Antonio and she won’t leave him alone with Madonna because she’s afraid the ‘material girl’ will steal him. And it really wasn’t the case.” Once the story broke, Banderas’s co-workers turned on Griffith. “He hurt me because I was banned from the set,” he continued. Beyond the drama, nothing ever happened between Antonio and his co-star. “Hopefully,” Madonna said of getting close with Banderas. “She had a huge crush on him,” she told Howard Stern in 2015, “[pero] he was with Melanie Griffith. She never left her side.”

Take the full note Here