Esther Mucientes Madrid
Madrid
Updated Monday, April 8, 2024-07:22
In a poker game, aces, jokers and the ability to deceive your opponent are key. In the poker game that was played in "the
beautiful people
" in Madrid at the end of the 80s, the card to get the royal flush with which to win was a woman:
Marta Chávarri
.
Anatomy of...
and
Mamen Mendizábal
have done it again in the first episode of the new season of the program: what happened to the photo of
Marta Chávarri
without underwear? Who stole that letter? What was behind a "dangerous game" between powerful men where
Marta Chávarri
ended up being the victim?
Anatomy of...
recovers its essence, a kind of single-chapter documentary treated as an authentic true crime where the greatest praise is that it manages to bring the darkest, most complicated, most mysterious story to light. In the story of the famous photograph of
Marta Chávarri
without panties there is much more than the scandal of a marchioness without underwear. That was the anecdotal thing. The reality is "a power game between men in which
Marta Chávarri
became the victim."
And as in all true crime, the story has a beginning... February 14, 1989, number 666 of Interviú magazine. A headline, What has never been seen by
Marta Chávarri
. On the cover there is a photograph of the still
Marchioness of Cubas
doing aerobics, inside it a fold-out of her with a single photograph:
Marta Chávarri
with a drink and a cigarette in her hand, without panties. More than 600,000 copies were sold and a second edition had to be printed. "That photo was about to destroy
Marta Chávarri
," says
Rosa Villacastín
in
Anatomía de...
The Marchioness of Cubas "became a big game for the paparazzi." Why did that photo appear? Who did he want to hurt? "His photo of her ended our country's biggest financial meltdown."
In reality, the publication of
that photograph was the end of the story
. It all started in August 1988. The
beautiful people
of Madrid controlled Spain during the day and at night they enjoyed the pleasures of the most fashionable nightclubs in Madrid -Joy Eslava, Mau, Mau...-. It was in the latter where a coincidence, a flash taken upside down, gave the card that would win and lose a poker game that had been played for months.
"Are you wearing panties or not?"
In those years the paparazzi entered the nightclubs in search of the celebrities of the moment. They threw their photographs left and right and then we would see what material they had.
That night in August 1988, a photographer placed the flash of his camera upside down,
shining light where no one expected to find the treasure he found. "At that moment no one noticed anything," explains Villacastín. It was later during the relief when the photographer in question realized that he had a photograph of
Marta Chávarri
, then married to the Marquis of Cubas, in which it was clearly seen that she was not wearing underwear.
The photography is intended to be sold to Interviú. At that moment the photographer asks for two million of the old pesetas. The then director of the magazine,
Ignacio Fontes
, brings his team together, asks everyone's opinion:
is she wearing panties or not?
Everyone in that room was men, they all saw the same thing and they asked Fontes's secretary for the opinion:
"But she goes without panties!"
. Fontes wanted to publish, but given the character she was and who she was married to, he went up to the seventh floor of
Grupo Zeta
, where "the bosses" were -
Antonio Asensio
, president,
José Luis Erviti
, vice president - and showed it. It is Erviti who orders the publication to stop.
At that time Erviti was part of the
Lady España
jury that was held in Ibiza. The winner of that edition was going to be
Marta Chávarri
. A photo of
Lady España
without underwear could not be published
, especially when the vice president of the magazine that wanted to publish it was among the jury. The photograph is kept in a drawer, like so many others at that time. In fact,
Anatomy of...
not only delves into the history of that photo but also into the marketing of that time of favors, paid and unpublished photos and aces up the sleeve.
"There was a photo of Lady Di in which you could see her breasts that the director of
Hello!
at that time bought for
150 million pesetas
and sent it to her with a loving note. Favors and throwing weapons in the dangerous games of power," says Pepe González, administrator of the magazine Interviú 1977-79, in the program.
The first card of this poker game is already on the table, even if it remained stored in a drawer for six months:
Marta Chávarri
without panties. But in those six months many kings and queens of those years enter the game: The Alberts:
Alberto Cortina
and
Alberto Alcocer
, two cousins married to
Alicia and Esther Koplowitz
;
Javier de la Rosa
, administrator in Spain of the investments of the KIO group (Kuwait Investments Office);
Mario Conde
and
Juan Abelló
; and
Miguel Boyer
.
"At that time they only talked about wild money, wild power, and everything was very risky.
They were almost poker plays
," recalls Villacastín. The most dangerous game, the most cruel for a woman, was going to be played for
Marta Chávarri
.
And although the panty photo could be considered the photo of the storm, the reality is that it was another photograph that triggered everything. Vienna, January 1989, four in the afternoon. The door of a luxurious hotel.
Marta Chávarri
leaves there with
Alberto Cortina
. "It's a photo of infidelity." That of
Alberto Cortina
to
Alicia Koplowitz
. That photo caused the biggest economic and political earthquakes in the history of Spain.
After marrying the
Koplowitzes,
the Albertos
had assumed control of a business empire inherited by the sisters whose crown jewel was FCC.
Marta Chávarri, the Koplowitzes, the Albertos, "the perfect soap opera"
Behind that photograph in Vienna there was a large banking operation, the largest in the history of Spain,
the Operation that was called Banesto-Central
and that was going to lead to the merger of Banesto with the Central Bank. On the one hand, Mario Conde, president of Banesto; on the other,
Alfonso Escámez
, director of the Central Bank, whom "Conde dazzles" to take over his shares and become Spain's first banker.
However, the power struggle leads
Los Albertos
to buy 12.5% of the Central Bank's shares, becoming the largest shareholders. Behind this move was the intention to place
Miguel Boyer
and not
Mario Conde
as president in that merger .
Boyer
also wanted to be Spain's first banker.
"
The Vienna photo ruins the merger
. The Albertos lose control of their wives' shares. The
Koplowitzes
who had shares in Banesto and Central were in charge there (...) When there is no shareholder peace there is no merger possible," explains in Anatomy of... José Antonio Martínez Soler, founder and director of
La Gazeta
. "It was the perfect soap opera.
If a scriptwriter manages to write it, it won't turn out so perfect
," adds Villacastín.
In fact, after the photo of Vienna and Mau Mau,
Marta Chávarri
ends up marrying
Alberto Cortina
,
Esther Koplowitz
separates from
Alberto Alcocer
after discovering that he was being unfaithful with his secretary and ends up marrying the Marquis of Cubas, her ex-husband. by
Marta Chávarri
. Not even in the best soap operas of those years. She had it all: money, power, betrayals, infidelity, love?
The day after the Vienna photo, which was published by
Diez Minutos
, the photograph of the panties acquires an incalculable value, "the value of 100,000 jobs."
Antonio Asensio,
if he wants, can stop the publication.
The Albertos
then meet with Asensio to prevent it from being published, but Asensio, "who loved to demonstrate the power he had, tells them that he cannot stop it. Not even the pressure from
Javier De la Rosa
, a friend of the
Albertos
, especially from
Cortina
, not even the
Albertos
manage to stop it. Three days after the Vienna photo, the photo of
Marta Chávarri sees the light. Four million pesetas were paid for that photograph.
Marta Chávarri
's value
to the press multiplied by a thousand. And with That is, harassment.
"She stopped being the marchioness and became the fodder for sexist jokes, ridicule and insults. The ban was opened. All the pens believed they had the right to crush
Marta Chávarri
," they say in the program.
Marta Chávarri
, who died last summer, as a result of that she lived her entire life based on sleeping pills and to calm her nerves, according to her sister in
Anatomy of...
They destroyed her.
"Why is it published later? Because someone wanted it to be published?
Anatomy of...
asks . And, above all, who is pushing for it to be published? "The largest banking operation was frustrated by the Vienna photo. The other was revenge against
Marta Chávarri
, against
Alberto Cortina
. I don't know where the hand that moved that photo came from, but there was a black hand. People who were very powerful then, who live today, but who are not so powerful anymore," says
Villacastín
, who even today, 35 years after that photo, still does not want to reveal the name of who or who gave the order to publish that photo. image.
"There are power games that destroy lives," says
Mamen Mendizábal
.