Sara Montiel - Personal Information

Personal Information

Montiel was born Maria Antonia Alejandra Abad Fernández on March 10, 1928 in Campo de Criptana in the province of Ciudad Real, Spain. She entered films after winning a beauty and talent contest at age 15. In her first movie she was credited as "Maria Alejandra" a shortened version of her real name. For her next film she changed her name to Sara, after her grandmother, and Montiel after the Montiel fields in the Castile–La Mancha region of her birth. She has been married four times:

• Anthony Mann (American, Actor & Film Director) In Beverly Hills, California 1957-1963 (divorced)
• José Vicente Ramírez Olalla (Industrial Attorney) Rome, Italy 1964-1978 (annulled)
• José Tous Barberán (Attorney-Journalist) Palma de Mallorca, Spain 1979-1992 (Tous's death)

This marriage produced two adopted children: Thais (born 1979) Zeus (born 1982)

• Antonio Hernández (Cuban Videotape Operator) Madrid, Spain 2002-2005 (divorced)

During the Francisco Franco dictatorship, Spanish stars were forbidden to behave in any way that could be perceived at odds with Christian principles and morality, consequently they kept their private lives very private. Montiel was no exception. Pre-marital or out of wedlock relationships were never mentioned and her civil marriage to Anthony Mann was underplayed along with the divorce.

Her 1964 Catholic wedding in Rome was granted great publicity but no one was informed that the marriage only lasted a couple of months. By 1965, the couple had separated and Montiel had started a very secret love affair with Italian actor Giancarlo del Duca (aka Giancarlo Viola) It was all kept under wraps since divorce was illegal in both Italy and Spain.

In 1970, Sara broke up with Giancarlo and started a long-term relationship with José Tous. By the mid 1970s, censorship in Spain was abolished and the truth began coming out. Montiel requested an annulment of her second marriage and the Catholic Church granted it in 1978. The following year, she married Tous in a civil ceremony and the marriage lasted until his death of cancer in 1992.

By 1993, Sara was involved again with Giancarlo Viola. In 2002, the couple parted, and Montiel married a much younger man who resided in Cuba, a union that was doomed from the start and ended in divorce in 2004. Soon after, Viola was back in Montiel's life, and they seem committed to each other in spite of the fact that Montiel lives in Madrid and her partner remains in Italy.

In 2000, Montiel published her autobiography "Memories: To Live Is A Pleasure", an instant best seller with ten editions to date. A sequel "Sara and Sex" followed in 2003. In these books Montiel revealed other relationships in her past including one-night stands with writer Ernest Hemingway as well as actor James Dean. She also claimed a long term affair in the 1940s with playwright Miguel Mihura and mentioned that science wizard Severo Ochoa, a Nobel Prize winner, was the true love of her life.