Xavier Cugat

Template:Short description Template:Infobox person Xavier Cugat (Template:IPAc-en; Template:IPA; 1 January 1900 – 27 October 1990) was an American musician and bandleader who was a leading figure in the spread of Latin music in the United States. Originally from Girona, Catalonia in Spain, he spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba, before arriving in New York City in 1915. A trained violinist and arranger, he was the leader of the resident orchestra at the Waldorf–Astoria hotel from 1933 to 1949 and a prolific recording artist for 40 years. He became known as the "Rumba King." A restaurateur in West Hollywood and New York, he and his band appeared in numerous motion pictures in the 1930s and 1940s. He was also a caricature artist.

Early life

Xavier Cugat was born with the Catalan name Francesc d'Assís Xavier Cugat Mingall de Bru i Deulofeu, or, more simply in standard form with his mother's name last, Xavier Cugat i Mingall<ref name="Pedres">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Bar>Template:Cite web</ref> in Girona, Catalonia in Spain on 1 January 1900.<ref name="LAT Obit">Template:Cite news</ref> He identified as Catalan his entire life.<ref name="Galina">Template:Cite web</ref> His family emigrated to Cuba when he was three years old.<ref name="LAT Obit"/> He studied classical violin and worked as a violinist at the age of nine in a silent movie theater to help pay for his education.<ref name="Galina"/> He was first violin for the Teatro Nacional Symphonic Orchestra in Havana.<ref name="Galina"/> When he was not performing, he started drawing caricatures.<ref name="Groppa2018">Template:Cite book</ref> On 6 July 1915 he and his family arrived in New York City on the SS Havana.

Cugat regularly embellished his life history as a strategy of self-promotion, sometimes making it difficult to determine the facts of his life.<ref name="Galina"/> For example, it was regularly reported that, while still in Havana, Cugat became friends with Enrico Caruso and appeared in recitals with him, but, in a careful analysis, Galina Bakhtiarova showed that that was impossible.<ref name="Galina"/> Cugat's 1948 autobiography Rumba is My Life<ref name=Rumba/> describes in detail an interaction with Caruso in Havana, apparently entirely fictional;<ref name="Galina"/> Caruso did not visit Havana until 1920.<ref name="Galina"/> Similarly, in his 1981 autobiography, Cugat claimed, and it was widely reported,<ref name=TBTimes/><ref name=WAPost/> that he was married to the star of the Cuban musical theater Rita Montaner from 1918 to about 1920, but Bakhtiarova pointed out that a well-sourced biography of Montaner shows that was not possible.<ref name="Galina"/>

Xavier Cugat in May 1924

From the late 1910s to early 1920s, Cugat was beginning a career as a violinist.<ref name="Galina"/> It was a difficult career choice.<ref name="LAT Obit"/> He appeared in concerts in Carnegie Hall in 1920 and 1922. He performed on WDY radio, Camden, N.J., in 1921, becoming one of the first solo musicians to play on radio.<ref name="LAT Obit"/> In the early 1920s he traveled to Europe to continue studying the violin, performing recitals throughout Europe, including a tour in Spain in fall 1924.<ref name="Galina"/><ref name="Mundo">Template:Cite news</ref> He returned to New York disappointed at his prospects of becoming a professional violinist.<ref name="Galina"/> Offered a job to assist an art and antiques dealer in selling Spanish art on the U.S. West Coast, Cugat drove a car-load of paintings to Los Angeles and worked at a gallery there around 1924-5.<ref name="Galina"/>

Early career

Self-caricature of Cugat, aka De Bru, Photoplay Magazine, November 1927

In Los Angeles he was a featured soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.<ref name="LAT Obit"/> His career as a classical violinist not going as well as expected, Cugat began working for the Los Angeles Times as a caricaturist around 1924-1925.<ref name=NYTimes/><ref name="LAT Obit"/> His caricatures were nationally syndicated. They appeared in Photoplay magazine beginning in November 1927, under the byline "de Bru." (His older brother, Francis, was an artist of some note, having painted cover art for F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.<ref name="Gatsby">Template:Cite book</ref>) Assigned to create a caricature of the Mexican star Dolores del Río, he accidentally drew her double instead, Carmen Castillo.<ref name="Galina"/> He became friends with Castillo, and they began socializing, with Cugat putting together a small band for parties at her house.<ref name="Galina"/> The band began performing professionally, and Cugat married Castillo in 1929.<ref name="Galina"/> Cugat would draw caricatures throughout his life.

By the late 1920s, the band led by Cugat was often playing at the Cocoanut Grove, a club in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. Cugat's friend, Charlie Chaplin, visited the club to dance the tango, so Cugat added tangos to the band's performances.<ref name="Galina" /> Seeing how popular the dance was becoming, Cugat convinced the owner to hire South American dancers to give tango lessons. This, too, became popular, and Cugat made the dancers part of his orchestra, now called "Xavier Cugat and His Gigolos".<ref name="Galina"/> In May 1928 he turned his act into a short film of the same name.<ref name="SilentEra">Template:Cite web</ref>

Latin band leader

For more than 30 years Cugat shuttled between New York and Los Angeles, conducting Latin music on both coasts of the United States. In 1931, he took his band to New York for the opening of the Waldorf–Astoria hotel. In 1933 he replaced Jack Denny as leader of the hotel's resident band. For the next sixteen years, until 1949, he led the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra.<ref name="Groppa2018"/><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> One of his trademark gestures was to hold a chihuahua while he waved his baton with the other arm.<ref name="Autobiography">Template:Cite book</ref> For the opening act of any performance, he would invariably play the theme My Shawl that he had composed based on Catalan folk music.<ref name="Galina"/>

Template:External media Template:External media In 1941 a legal dispute initiated by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers proved to be a boon to Cugat's band.<ref name="NYTimes">Template:Cite news</ref> The society banned its music from being broadcast after a dispute with the networks over fees. This greatly limited the songs that most bands could play on the air, but Cugat was able form play lists using a library of more than 500 non-society Latin tunes.<ref name="NYTimes"/> He was signed to a popular radio program with dance bands, Camel Caravan, which enhanced his national reputation.<ref name="NYTimes"/>

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s Cugat was known as the "King of the Rumba".<ref name="LAT Obit"/> He was foremost a natural entertainer and showman, and a musician second. He took pride that people enjoyed and danced to his music, making them feel good and happy.<ref name="LAT Obit"/> Cugat followed trends closely, making records for the conga, the mambo, the cha-cha-cha, and the twist when these dances were popular. In 1940 his recording of "Perfidia" became a hit. In 1943, Cugat's recording of "Brazil" was his most successful chart hit. It spent seven weeks at No. 2 on the Billboard magazine National Best Selling Retail Records chart (behind Harry James's song "I've Heard That Song Before").<ref name="billboard1943">Template:Cite web</ref> Cugat performed and recorded the Cuban classic "The Peanut Vendor" (El Manisero) with many artists throughout his career.<ref name="Galina"/>

Abbe Lane and Xavier Cugat during a 1953 visit to Japan

Cugat recorded prolifically: for Columbia in the 1940s and 1950s, RCA Victor in the 1930s and 1950s, Mercury in 1951–52 and the 1960s, and Decca in the 1960s. Dinah Shore made her first recordings as a vocalist with Cugat in 1939 and 1940 for RCA Victor. After seeing Desi Arnaz perform, Cugat hired him for his touring orchestra, playing the conga drum and singing. Arnaz became a star attraction, and Cugat encouraged him to start his own band, the Desi Arnaz Orchestra.<ref name="closer">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Arnaz">Arnaz, Desi. A Book. New York: William Morrow, 1976. Template:ISBN</ref> In 1945 Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby recorded with the Cugat orchestra. In the 1950s he made several recordings with his wife, singer Abbe Lane. His orchestra also included Lina Romay, Tito Rodriguez, Yma Sumac, and Miguelito Valdés.<ref name="Harris">Template:Cite web</ref> Cugat directed over 150 recordings with the Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra between 1937 and 1942.<ref name="Galina"/> According to Time Magazine, in 1942 Cugat was making a half million dollars (equivalent to Template:Inflation million in 2024) a year as orchestra leader.<ref name="Galina"/>

Restaurateur

Beginning in the 1940s, Cugat owned and operated the Mexican restaurant Casa Cugat on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood. The restaurant was frequented by Hollywood celebrities and featured two singing guitarists who would visit each table and play diners' favorite songs upon request.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The restaurant closed in 1986.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1958 Cugat opened another "Casa Cugat" restaurant in New York City, featuring Spanish, Cuban, and Mexican cuisine, but the restaurant lasted only a year.<ref name=CIA>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="NYT-1967-10-25">Template:Cite news</ref>

Sheet music cover for the song "I'm Old Fashioned" from the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier, starring Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, and featuring Xavier Cugat.

Career in films

The popularity of Cugat and his orchestra led to appearances in films, such as: In Gay Madrid (1930), Go West, Young Man (1936) with Mae West,<ref name="LATStar"/> You Were Never Lovelier (1942), Week-End at the Waldorf (1945), Holiday in Mexico (1946), A Date with Judy (1948), and Chicago Syndicate (1955).<ref name="Harris"/> Cugat's restaurant appears in the 1943 film The Heat's On, also starring Cugat as himself.

Cugat appeared in series of motion pictures with the competitive swimmer and actress Esther Williams and her outsized swimming pools, including Bathing Beauty (1944), This Time for Keeps (1947), On an Island with You (1948), and Neptune's Daughter (1949).<ref name=NYTimes/> His restaurant's exterior and a fanciful depiction of its interior can be found in scenes of Neptune's Daughter, in which Cugat has a substantial role playing himself. The movie was a hit, and Cugat's appearance in it made him a household name.<ref name=WAPost/>

Personal life and death

Xavier Cugat's tomb in Girona's cemetery

Cugat was married four times. His first marriage was to his band vocalist Carmen Castillo (1929–46), his second to actress Lorraine Allen (1947–52), his third to singer Abbe Lane (1952–64), and his fourth to Spanish guitarist and comic actress Charo Baeza, stage name Charo, (1966–78).<ref name="LAT Obit"/><ref name="WAPost">Template:Cite news</ref> Cugat fathered no children.<ref name="WAPost"/>

Cugat became a naturalized American citizen in 1941.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was the author of two autobiographies, Rumba is my Life (1948),<ref name=Rumba>Template:Cite web</ref> and Yo Cugat: Mis primeros 80 Años (I Cugat: My first 80 years) (1981), published in Spain.<ref name="Galina"/>

After a stroke left him partially paralyzed in 1969, in 1972 Cugat returned to Catalonia,<ref name="LAT Obit" /> living in a suite at the Ritz Barcelona hotel.<ref name=Bar/> The hotel has been known since 2005 as the El Palace Barcelona hotel,<ref name="Ritz">Template:Cite web</ref> maintaining a "Cugat Room".<ref name=Palace>Template:Cite web</ref> Despite ongoing heart and lung ailments,<ref name=UPI>Template:Cite web</ref> at age 86 he formed a new 16-piece band and began touring Spain.<ref name=TBTimes>Template:Cite news</ref> He died of heart failure on 27 October 1990 at age 90 at the Quiron Clinic in Barcelona.<ref name=NYTimes/> He was buried in his native Girona.<ref name="ElPais">Template:Cite news</ref>

Legacy

In 1988 the town of Girona named a wide boulevard through the neighborhood of Fontajau as the Rambla Xavier Cugat in his honor.<ref name=Rambla>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Bar/> He was honored with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one on the west side of the 1600 block of Vine Street for music, and another on the east side of the 1500 block of Vine for television.<ref name="LATStar">Template:Cite web</ref> In 1990 the Generalitat of Catalonia awarded Cugat the Creu de Sant Jordi (Cross of Saint George).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=Footnote>Citation in English: For his long artistic career centered in the United States that has made him one of the symbols of musical cinema and one of the most popular and recognized Catalans around the world. Also for his outstanding activity as a cartoonist and caracaturist, evident through numerous exhibitions.</ref> Cugat was posthumously inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame in 2001.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The New Xavier Cugat Orchestra continued to play Cugat's music for another 20 years after his retirement.<ref name="Egan">Template:Cite news</ref> Piano player Robert Kasha purchased the bandleader’s name, music and rights to the band from Cugat, and Kasha played piano for the new band, led by his wife, singer Ada Cavallo.<ref name="Egan"/> Cugat's material was donated to The Jazz Loft museum in Stony Brook, New York in 2019.<ref name="Egan"/>

Cugat's recordings continue to be used in films. Several songs that he recorded, including a 1960's re-recording of his previous hit "Perfidia", were used in the Wong Kar-wai films Days of Being Wild (1990) and 2046 (2004). His song "Cui Cui" was used in the animated film Happy Feet (2006), while Cugat's signature song "My Shawl" was featured in the film Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008).<ref name="LATStar"/>

Cugat was the subject of a 2016 Spanish biographical film Sexo, Maracas y Chihuahuas, in Spanish or Catalan. <ref name="Sexo">Template:Cite web</ref> The film, 1 hr 27 min duration, was written and directed by Diego Mas Trelles.

The personal papers and other personal and professional material of Xavier Cugat are preserved in the Library of Catalonia in Barcelona.<ref name="Bibcat">Template:Cite web</ref>

Cover of a 1950 sheet music book for Xavier Cugat hits, "Requestfully Yours". Cugat often drew caricatures to illustrate his music. Note the ever present chihuahua.

External links

• Personal papers of Xavier Cugat, Biblioteca de Catalunya; accessed 8 November 2015
• Xavier Cugat recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
• Movie scene "Jungle Rhumba" from the film Neptune's Daughter (1949), featuring "Casa Cugat" and Cugat's orchestra. (Youtube video)
• Biographical film Sex, Maracas, and Chihuahuas (2016, 1 hr 27 m, Spanish) (Youtube video)
• A brief interview with Cugat in 1986 in Catalan. (Youtube video)
• Autobiography: "Rumba is my Life" (1948). (Archive.org)
• Autobiography: "Yo Cugat" (1981) in Spanish. (Archive.org)
• Xavier Cugat fan site.