Xavier Cugat

Xavier Cugat
File:Xaviercugat1.jpg Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra 1952 Film featurette - Universal Studios
Born	Francisco de Asís Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deulofeu
Occupation(s)	singer, songwriter, actor, director. screenwriter
Years active	1925 - 1990
Spouse(s)	Carmen Castillo (1929-1946) Lorraine Allen (1947-1952) Abbe Lane (1952-1963) Charo (1966-1978)

Xavier Cugat, born Francisco d'Asís Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deleufo (1 January 1900 – 27 October 1990) was a Catalan-Cuban-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a brilliant cartoonist and a successful businessman. His was the resident orchestra at the New York Waldorf Astoria, both before and after WWII.

Life

Cugat was born in Girona, in Catalonia, Spain. With his family, he immigrated to Cuba when he was five. He was trained as a classical violinist and played with the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional in Havana.

On 6 July 1915, Cugat and his family arrived in New York as immigrant passengers on board the S.S. Havana.

Cugat was married four times. His first marriage was to Carmen Castillo (1929–1944); his second to Lorraine Allen (1947–1952); his third to singer Abbe Lane (1952–1964); and his fourth to salsa dancer Charo (María del Rosario Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza Rasten, 1966–1978). His last marriage was the first in Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.

Cugat died of heart failure aged 90 in Barcelona. He is buried in Girona cemetery.

Career

Entering the world of show business, he played with a band called “The Gigolos” during the tango craze. Later, he went to work for the Los Angeles Times as a cartoonist. Cugat's caricatures were later nationally syndicated. His older brother, Francis, was an artist of some note, having painted the famous cover art for F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, The Great Gatsby.

In the late 1920s, as sound began to be used in films, he put together another tango band that had some success in early short musical films. By the early 1930s, he began appearing with his group in feature films. Cugat took his band to New York for the 1931 opening of Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and he eventually replaced Jack Denny as the leader of the Hotel's resident band. One of his trademarks was to hold a small Chihuahua dog while he waved his baton with the other arm. For 16 years Cugat helmed The Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

He shuttled between New York and Los Angeles for most of the next 30 years, alternating hotel and radio dates with movie appearances in films such as Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) and Neptune's Daughter (1949).

In 1940, he recorded the song "Perfidia" with singer Miguelito Valdés which became a big hit. Cugat followed trends closely, making records for the conga, the mambo, the cha-cha-cha, and the twist when each was in fashion.

In 1944 Cugat was prominently featured in the film Bathing Beauty.

Cugat did not lose sleep over artistic compromises: “I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve.”

In popular culture

• Xavier Cugat is mentioned in A Goofy Movie where Goofy calls him the “Mambo King”.
• Xavier Cugat is mentioned frequently on I Love Lucy. For example, in the episode titled “Lucy Goes to Scotland”, Lucy gives Ricky an LP, which he looks at, reads “Xavier McCugat?!” and tosses it away. Another example occurred in the episode "The Marriage License" when Lucy says to Ricky "I wouldn't marry you, even if you were Xavier Cugat!"; to which Ricky responds "Xavier Cugat?!" The jokes were meant to poke fun at the fact that both Cugat and Ricky Ricardo were Cuban bandleaders.
• Xavier Cugat is mentioned in the song "Joe le taxi", sung by Vanessa Paradis, probably as an artist that Joe, the taxi driver, likes to listen to.
• Several of the songs he recorded, including "Perfidia", were used in the Wong Kar-wai films Days of Being Wild and 2046.
• Xavier Cugat is mentioned in third scene of A Streetcar Named Desire (play).
• Xavier Cugat is mentioned in an episode of the TV series M*A*S*H. Hawkeye asserts that “The only Latin I know is Xavier Cugat.”
• Xavier Cugat is mentioned twice in the third season Frasier episode “Moon Dance”.
• Xavier Cugat and Ben & Jerry's are parodied in an episode of The Simpsons when Lisa finds an ice cream flavor called “Xavier Nougat”, to which Homer replies, “No… [I don't want] nothin' made o' dead guys!” In a different episode, “Jazzy and the Pussycats”, Bart declared “Xavier Cugat” as a non sequitur reply to a question while speaking like a jazz musician.

File:Xaviercugat2.jpg

Xavier Cugat Album Cover

• In the ZBS Foundation's series of radio dramas Ruby the Galactic Gumshoe, Cugat is the patron saint of The Moles of Zeeboos, a tango-loving race of sentient humanoid moles; also, one month of the Mole calendar is named for Cugat.
• In Tom Griffin's 1983 play The Boys Next Door, Arnold continually references Cugat saying, “He thinks he's Xavier Cugat or somebody.” [See page 26, Dramatists Play Service, Inc.]
• Xavier Cugat's performance of the song "Yo Te Amo Mucho" appears in The Matador (2005), while Pierce Brosnan is watching T.V. in the hotel.
• Xavier Cugat is mentioned in Woody Allen's Sleeper (1973), when Diane Keaton, searching for a new superlative for an object of modern art, says, “It's greater than Keane! It's Cugat!”
• Xavier Cugat is mentioned in an episode of All in the Family when the Bunker family is playing a trivia game based on bandleaders' initials. However, Archie mistakenly states Cugat's initials to be “E.C.” When corrected by Mike, Archie exclaims, "Whoever heard of anyone having an X for an initial?"
• Selected Xavier Cugat music can be heard on Radio Espantoso on Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
• His birthdate, January 1, 1900, was considered so distinctive in Spain that he and his brothers were exempted from future military duty and his father, a political prisoner, was released from jail. (Source: Text accompanying record collection The Great Band Era, published in 1966, including Cugat's title "Quiéreme Mucho".)
• In an early issue of Mad Magazine, he is referred to as "Xubirant Catgut", conducting the "How're Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree?)" Mambo.
• He is referenced in Desi Arnaz's autobiography as having helped give Desi his start after Desi played guitar for a few years in Cugat's orchestra.

External links

• Xavier Cugat at IMDb