Though he entertains all the time when he's there, it is a house where “open spaces” are also empty for much of the year, because he's appearing or recording elsewhere in the world. But there are cushions scattered about like the shields of weary warriors, on carpets that seem deep enough to swallow swords, if the visitor chooses not to contemplate the swimming pools (there are two of them), while waiters wearing white gloves serve gourmet fripperies. The usual Mediterranean garden is, of course, inside the house, as private as the island, for invited eyes only, behind walls on which, alas, there are no Picassos. He can afford to live wherever he wants to, between his tours of around fortyfive countries and the eighteen-hour days in recording studios, where he may work on as many as forty perfectionist takes for a single, simple song. Every thirty seconds, somewhere in the world, someone listens to him, in Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Japanese or English-“Begin the Beguine” to a disco beat. His duet with Willie Nelson, “To All the Girls I've Loved Before,” hit the top of the American Pop charts. “I have many houses,” he explains, “but no home.” This is after some 100 platinum albums, 350 gold albums, and 100 million total albums sold.

We are supposed to be talking about Julio Iglesias's house. In a recording studio in Los Angeles, we are not supposed to be talking about Pío Baroja. In a rare respite from the recording sessions and concerts that have earned him his place as the world's most popular singer, Julio Iglesias shares a sofa in his sitting room with his Belgian pointer, Hey. Certainly, some crooners are unlikelier, and more likable, than others. Iglesias was a personal friend of Anwar Sadat. Iglesias's father, a Madrid physician, was kidnapped and held for several weeks, in 1981, by Basque terrorists.) So what if Sammy Davis, Jr., endorsed Richard Nixon? Mr. (Julio Iglesias studied law at Cambridge University, intending to become a diplomat, until, in 1968, one of his songs, “La Vida Sigue Igual,” won first prize at the Benidor music festival.) Imagine Eddie Fisher, married either to Debbie Reynolds or Elizabeth Taylor, and one of them is snatched by the Symbionese Liberation Army or the Ku Klux Klan.

At the hospital, a nurse gave him his first, serendipitous guitar.) Imagin Dean Martin or Vic Damone at the Harvard Business School, wanting to grow up Lee Iacocca. Iglesias was a goalie for Real Madrid, the Spanish soccer team, before an almost-paralyzing automobile accident incapacitated him for two years. Imagine Perry Como playing shortstop for the Dodgers. But it is as if Frank Sinatra, in a casual interview, had mentioned William Dean Howells or Henry James. I will explain who Baroja was in a minute.

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