The actress and presenter Carmen Sevilla, who died on Tuesday, had a scandalous love life both on and off the screen. Once nicknamed the Bride of Spain, the interpreter starred in intense romances that crossed borders to Hollywood, although her two great loves were the Spanish composer Augusto Algueró and the movie theater businessman Vicente Patuel, with whom she married.
Her first boyfriend in her youth was the Mexican bullfighter Carlos Arruza, who, when he proposed to her in the early fifties, made her decide between him and her career, and it is clear that Sevilla wanted to continue in showbizz. After that first request rejected by the actress, there were some more. The actor Luis Mariano, whom she also rejected when she proposed to him; and comedian Mario Moreno, from whom she did not accept the proposition, she says, advised by Lola Flores.
It was at the time when Sevilla could have become intimate with Frank Sinatra, during the filming of Pride and Passion in Spain, when he set out to win her over and sent her several bouquets of red roses. It is said that she did not succumb to her temptation and years later she acknowledged: “Of course it made me tick, it was divine. She had eyes and an education and a sweetness… What happens is that I was stupid ”. She also talked about a romance with Charlton Heston and other actors during her Hollywood film stage, but it did not go further.
Love came to Carmen Sevilla from the hand of Augusto Algueró, a Catalan musician who composed several songs for her. It is said that they fell in love while working and were soon married on February 23, 1961 in the Basilica del Pilar in Zaragoza. She wore a Pertegaz dress and even received the congratulations of Pope John XXIII.
Together they had a son, Augusto José Algueró, the only heir of the interpreter. But the couple’s love was cut short after the Sevillian learned that she was not the only woman in Algueró’s life. Among other occasions, since it is said that he was unfaithful with Bárbara Rey, Mariví Dominguín or Ornella Muti, it was during the filming of Summer Cruise that Carmen learned that her husband had lived an idyll with one of the film’s actresses, Elena Duke, and Seville put an end to the relationship.
After her married life with Algueró ended, Carmen Sevilla once again trusted in love, as soon after she began a new courtship that lasted a decade. And after that she married again, in Arcos de la Frontera, in 1985 with Vicente Patuel, a businessman who owns movie theaters. With him, she Carmen she said that she found love. They met in the most common scene of a fan going to ask her idol for an autograph, and love arose between them. “With Vicente I learned what love is,” she assured years later.
The change in public tastes during the Spanish transition meant less activity for Carmen Sevilla and that is why she allowed herself to be convinced by her husband and retired to the countryside. She was not very happy there, but staying by Patuel’s side was what convinced her. Her husband suffered a heart attack at the age of 68 that left her a widow and devastated, and that was what led her to return to the capital and relaunch her career on the small screen.
