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María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza (born January 15, 1951), better known as Charo, is a Spanish-American actress, comedienne, and flamenco guitarist, best known for her flamboyant stage presence, her provocative outfits, and her trademark phrase ("cuchi-cuchi").
Official documents in Murcia, Spain (where she was born) state that she was born in 1931 while the United States indicated she was born in 1941, but Charo has insisted she was born in 1951 and she persuaded a United States court to decree 1951 birth year as official.
The performer has said in past interviews that her parents allowed her to falsify her age to appear to be older after marrying 66-year-old band leader Xavier Cugat when she was 15. Further complicating the question is the fact that contemporary press reports gave her age at marriage as 21, an April 1966 column on the wedding plans stated she was 20 and Cugat was 60, and columns less than two years before the marriage refer to her as Cugat's "18-year-old protegée" — which, if she was falsifying her age, would have made her actually 13 at the time. In October 1977 — the same year in which Charo filed for divorce from Cugat and became an American citizen — a United States court upheld the 1951 birth year as official, with the performer providing a sworn statement from her parents in support of her claim. Commenting on the disputes over her age, she has said that the public's disbelief could prove advantageous: "But if people really believe I'm older, that's fine. Don't be surprised if I come out with my own cosmetics, a new energy bar and maybe some vitamins."
Charo was born María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza in Murcia, Region of Murcia, Spain. Charo's father was a lawyer who reportedly fled to Casablanca during Francisco Franco's dictatorship while her homemaker mother stayed behind in Murcia, raising their children. She studied classical and flamenco guitar while residing in Murcia, and can claim Andrés Segovia as her guitar teacher. He once spoke of his pupil in an interview and remembered giving her career advice. "Stop saying 'cuchi-cuchi' so much, Charo! Be serious!" (Segovia taught general music classes as community service in schools around Murcia.) She took guitar lessons from him and other teachers from the age of nine. She has been named "Best Flamenco Guitarist" in Guitar Player Magazine's readers' poll twice.
When Charo was quite young, she was "discovered" by famous bandleader Xavier Cugat, whom she later wed on August 7, 1966. Cugat was 66 and had already been married four times (Rita Montaner, Carmen Castillo, Lorraine Allen, and Abbe Lane) although reports sometimes listed fewer marriages. An April 1966 column by Earl Wilson on the couple's wedding plans announced, "Sixty-year-old Xavier Cugat and his 20-year-old Spanish girlfriend and singing star Charo hope to get married in San Cugat, Spain, in a few days if Cugat can convince church authorities his two divorces should not be counted against him since he wasn't married in church." The couple was the first to have their nuptials in Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
In a February 2005 interview with the Los Angeles-based Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión, Charo claimed that her marriage to Cugat had been merely a business contract, a way for him to legally bring her over to the United States where he was based.
She moved to West 257th Street in the New York City borough of The Bronx with her mother and aunt, and was regularly featured in shows with Cugat's orchestra in New York and Las Vegas, as well as in overseas engagements in Latin America and Europe. She claims he was confident in her eventual success from early on, and that she gave him a Rolls-Royce as a parting gift once she came of legal age.
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