• Aristocracy Marta Chávarri, from star of the 'biutiful scandal' to discreet housewife

  • Manual.'You first ', the guide to good manners by Carmen Posadas and Marta Robles

A childhood trauma and some spoiled mushrooms are responsible for

Carmen Posadas

(67) dedicating herself to writing.

As a child she took refuge in her room and wrote a long diary where she reflected her sorrows.

"I was very ugly and my sisters were very cute

. They sang, they were funny, they told jokes ... and I sang like a frog and nobody laughed with me. So I started to write, that was the beginning of my vocation, but luckily the newspapers were lost in some move because it was

n a dreadful cursilada, "she recalls. The mushroom thing came later, when she was married and

turned into a very young good lady and mother of two girls.

He did not know what to do and an advertisement led him to plant mushrooms in his garden to do business, but that was a disaster.

"I kept looking in the ads and found one from a creative writing teacher. I started writing and was lucky that the first book I published won an award."

And until today.

Among children's books, essays and novels, there are already 40 works that bear his signature. After diving into historical figures such as the

Bella Otero, the Duchess of Alba or Teresa Cabarrús

, his latest novel has a pearl as the protagonist.

The legend of La Peregrina

(Espasa) count the

500 years of history of the famous jewel worn by kings and queens of Spain

and that

It ended up at Elizabeth Taylor's jewelry box.

"I have not invented anything, the data of the historical figures are real," he says.

Posadas welcomes LOC to his home, a splendid apartment full of books and antiques loaded with family stories.

Pictures of great-great-grandparents, lamps and

inherited porcelains

that coexist with the most curious piece in the room:

an antique desk that he got in Moscow in exchange for jeans

.

"It was hard Soviet times and there was wonderful furniture. People were crazy about jeans and I got that beautiful piece of furniture in exchange for some pants," he recalls.

How did you come up with turning a pearl into the protagonist of a novel?

For a ring from my mother, which appeared after her death.

Before it had been a brooch from my grandmother and a pendant from my great-grandmother.

Now my sister has it and it has become something else.

I have always wondered what objects would say if they spoke and I thought I could do a literary exercise with a piece of truth and I chose the most emblematic jewel, which is La Peregrina.

It has passed through the hands of kings, adventurers, murderers and ended up in Hollywood.

Do you know where it is now?

When Elizabeth Taylor died it was auctioned for $ 11.8 million and was bought by an Arab, but it is not known who he is.

As much as I have tried, I have not been able to know who may have it or what dark secret it keeps so as not to show that emblematic piece.

I have my suspicions and I hope it will be known one day because the story is hilarious.

He won't be in Abu Dhabi ...

It could be, perfectly.

Have you followed the vicissitudes of King Juan Carlos?

Yes of course.

I am very sorry for everything that is happening because he has done many things well for Spain and now, that at the end of his life all this is discovered, it is very regrettable.

But I imagine that over time he will get into perspective, with the lights and shadows, and we will have a more objective view of his entire character.

With the death of Fernando Falcó and the closure of Zalacaín, there has been talk of the 80s and that

beautiful people

of which you were part Are you surprised by the interest that continues to arouse?

Yes, I am very surprised because it has been so long ... I don't know where that came from

beautiful

because, as Claudio Boada said, 'we are not biutiful at all, we are quite ugly'.

How do you remember it?

With much affection, because it was a very beautiful time in my life and I also adored my husband and I was very happy, but there were other things that I did not like at all

For example?

Hated being the meat of

paparazzi

, I hated it.

When all that happened I began to have irredeemable insomnia that I still have to this day.

I didn't sleep thinking that I was in the public eye all the time and that my public persona did and said things that I would never say or do.

They always got the most outrageous headline out of you or you looked like an idiot.

I deliberately disappeared from the media.

Was it difficult for you to be taken seriously?

Everything changed when I won the Planeta Prize in 1998. From that moment on, people began to value me for what I wrote and not for being in the photos.

How is your life now?

Well, I am a grandmother of five grandchildren, the oldest is 13 years old and the little ones, two red-haired twins, who are going to turn 7, and that amuses me a lot, we make a lot of family and tribe plans.

And the same with my brothers, I am very familiar.

It's hard to imagine you as a grandmother ... you are the same as 20 years ago. How do you do it?

Do you believe?

Hopefully!

My daughter Sofía works miracles with her treatments (laughs).

My daughter does aesthetic medicine, there are other people who operate, but the operation scares me because for one that looks good there are like 60 mummies.

In addition, I do a 25-minute gymnastics plank every day at home, I am very constant, and I also dance tango, which fascinates me.

You who live so close to Congress, do you hear the cries of your honorable Members?

Ay, the politicians we have are unfortunate.

We live in a time of great mediocrity in all the parties that, in addition, are fighting among themselves, blaming themselves.

They behave like schoolyard children.

And the topic of the moment, the soap opera Pantoja, are you aware?

Well inevitably (laughs) How could I not be if it's even in the soup!

It seems brutal to me.

Who do you position yourself with?

With Pantoja, like Mayor Almeida?

Mayor?

What did you say?

That a mother is a mother ...

Ahhh ... I don't know, really, I don't dare to judge because there are always two parts to the film.

I have no idea, I hope it is not all a montage and then reconcile and give the bells together or something like that.

I think the kitchen is not bad at all. Will we see her in a Celebrity Masterchef like Celia Villalobos?

Never, never ever.

I can't stand that program, notice that I really like those who present it, but I see everything so fake and so false ... I find it horrible.

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