Romualdo Izquierdo: "Tamara Falcó is not and does not intend to be at the level of her father"

The chief editor of La Otra Crónica (LOC), Romualdo Izquierdo, publishes 'Los Falcó' with La Esfera de los Libros, a fictionalized biography about the exciting life of the Marquises of Griñón and Cubas.

Why a book about the Falcó brothers? What I have tried to do is an X-ray of the aristocracy of this country in the last century.

With the Falcó brothers an era ends.

It is the end of a stage.

The country they have lived in is no longer the same. How have you documented yourself? It has been fascinating.

I knew that the Falcó grandparents had links with Alfonso XIII and I began to delve into the history of the Montellano without any prejudice.

They began to use the surname Falcó in the Transition, because until then they used the family title of nobility.

In the end, I found a lot of material and was able to speak with the protagonists of the time. What has surprised you the most? The important role that the aristocracy played in the 40 years of dictatorship.

Franco not only rehabilitates the old noble legislation that was repealed in the Second Republic, but also favors the economic development of the aristocracy.

He also arrogates the right to grant new titles and appoints his successor with the title of king. What was the most difficult information to obtain? It was not easy to get to the sources because I started the book when the King had just left for Abu Dhabi.

My job involved getting involved in complicated and painful things. In your biography you say that Fernando Falcó and the King Emeritus had parallel lives. This is the result of the relationship that the Montellanos had with the Monarchy: with Alfonso XIII and, later, with Don Juan, his successor.

They were from the families that went to Estoril for 15 days to see don Juan.

But not much else either because the aristocracy was convinced Francoist.

They were winners of the war and they were able to do business with Franco. How was Fernando's relationship with the King? They were the same age.

Franco reached an agreement with Don Juan that Don Juan Carlos had to be educated in Spain.

They selected a series of companions among the great Spanish families.

It was tremendous because with the course already started they were all taken out of their schools and taken to Las Jarillas, which was a farm in the middle of the countryside, in a boarding school regimen.

Fernando and don Juan Carlos immediately empathized because they are very similar.

The friendship continued over the years. Don Juan Carlos has to prepare for the Zaragoza Military Academy and that preparation is done in Madrid.

Don Juan speaks with the Duke of Montellano and asks him to take care of his son in his palace during the months that he is going to be preparing.

And the duke replied that he was going to have the whole palace to himself.

They left him the entire mansion, including the chaplain, and the whole family moved to a rented flat. Well, they were courtiers, right? The aristocrats competed to gain Don Juan's favor, but without displeasing Franco.

The Duchess of Alba gave the presentation party for Don Juan Carlos as heir at the Palacio de Liria.

And the Montellanos organized another party for him in the summer because they wanted to put themselves at the same level as the Albas. They were aware of the way of life that King Juan Carlos led, right? The mother of the Falcós, the Duchess of Montellano, for me It has been a discovery.

She was very very discreet and she never gave any interviews.

She was the one who put the dots on the i's of her children and the one who distanced herself from Don Juan Carlos because his behavior was not exemplary. EL MUNDO published in 1992 that the King had signed laws when he was not even in Spain but in Switzerland. It's a scandal.

It was reported and nothing happened.

They said there had been a typographical error and signed on Monday before leaving for Switzerland.

Nothing happened because it was 1992 and we were in the middle of the Olympics and in the heyday of the country.

He capitalized on it.

At one point in the book, Fernando Falcó affirms that the King's problem was that he believed that everyone fell in love with him. Even when he was 70 years old and the other 30 less.

Did the Falcós suffer a lot from the final situation of King Emeritus? Carlos did not live through the humiliating departure of Don Juan Carlos, but Fernando did.

He was very upset by what was happening because he considered it to be a smear campaign.

He maintained his loyalty until the last minute.What were the Falcó pioneers in?In living without asking permission.

They thought: "We are marquises and we are going to live as such."

Carlos Falcó was groundbreaking with the rest of his family.

He went abroad to study engineering and when he returned he did not connect with the girls around him.

He devoted himself to planting vines and watering them when it was forbidden.He was the first to plant blond tobacco in Extremadura, which was a revolution.Exactly.

And he held a meeting with the vertical Francoist union of growers and ignited the spirits of the people to try to break the Tabacalera monopoly.

He broke many taboos because at that time it was not well seen that the nobles worked or marketed their own wines. This meant a serious confrontation between the two brothers.

Fernando Falcó was not at all amused that his brother put the family nobility title as a wine brand. The Junta de Extremadura wanted to expropriate one of their estates. When the PSOE came to power, a lot of demagoguery was made with the motto of the land for those who work it.

Expropriating the greats of Spain was one of Rodríguez Ibarra's best-known war cries in Extremadura.

He began to expropriate farms from the House of Alba.

And, later, he did it with the Valero estate that had belonged to the Falcó family since the 19th century and that they wanted to keep as a hunting ground.

The family appealed several times and, in the end, the Supreme Court agreed with them.

The farm passed back to the Falcós just the day the owner of the farm died. Yes?

Just that day her sister, Rocío Falcó, had an accident in a Madrid shopping center and fell backwards down an escalator.

She died naked. The work also reflects the struggle that the noble women had to undertake to inherit the titles. They were 10 years in court of constant humiliation.

They resorted to the European courts and even the United Nations, which told them the same thing that the Constitutional Court had told them: that noble legislation had nothing to do with Human Rights.

They were left in a legal limbo to everyone's despair and there were some tremendous fights in the courts of sisters against brothers and nieces against uncles.

It was a disaster for the nobility.

In the end,

the government had to pass a law recognizing that men and women have the same right to receive a title of nobility. Did the love life of the Falcós overshadow their professional achievements? Without a doubt.

What were their weapons of seduction? They had an exquisite education, a good plant and a noble title.

They showed that they knew how to enjoy life, which was very attractive. Did the popularity of Isabel Preysler harm Carlos in business? In the end, the residue that remained is that Carlos Falcó was known thanks to Isabel Preysler.

She was the woman who did the most damage to him socially.

That ending was very hard. The truth is that his first wife Jeannine Girod cheated on him with Ramón Mendoza and Isabel Preylser with Boyer. And did you hear the Marquis de Griñón speak ill of either of them?

Nope,

Right? You do include in the book what he said about Boyer to María Eugenia Yagüe: "What hurts me is that Boyer came into my house as a friend, drank my whiskey, smoked my cigars and took my wife and I was the last to know." It's great. He himself confessed that he was excessively naive and that he had too much confidence in himself. Everyone was telling him what was happening, but there are times when you don't want to see it.

Even his brother told him and the other denied it and blamed the right-wing media. And the same thing happened to Fernando Falcó when his wife Marta Chávarri was caught with Alberto Cortina. It was a tremendous scandal and had ramifications in the economic activity of the country because a major bank merger went down the drain.

It was a family disaster and, furthermore,

It almost coincided in time because Preysler and Chávarri were sisters-in-law for a year and a half.

The two were looking for their own prominence in the media and competing with each other.

Curiously, Fernando Falcó later married Esther Koplowitz, who was the sister of Cortina's ex-wife. Yes.

It was not so strange because Falcó and Koplowitz knew each other when they were young.

Fernando already liked her when he was young. And Carlos Falcó also remarried Esther Doña with the firm opposition of all his children. In between is Fátima de la Cierva, who is the only one of the four who is an aristocrat and who has a very discreet life and does not like public projection.

Carlos Falcó mimicked a lot with the women he was with and at that time he was socially missing.

And when he met Esther Doña he returned to the media circus.

Is Esther Doña the new Preysler? I don't think they are comparable.

How was that episode of domestic violence that he himself related to you? They called me and told me that the Marquis had spent a night at the police station and the gender violence protocols had been applied to him.

And I called the Marquis de Griñón's office and he called me back 10 minutes later.

And he told me quite naturally that she had been at the police station from 4 in the morning until 11. In the end, she did not file a complaint, but it was ex officio, right? The next morning the judge took it away from her.

She was nothing. Was Esther Doña chasing Falcó's fame? I don't know.

She is a lady 30 years younger than him and the social showcase was guaranteed. She has also published her memoirs in a book in which she revealed the intimate WhatsApp of the Marquis of Griñón.

What do you think? It was a relationship in which WhatsApp must have been quite important.

Every year on the anniversary day they met he gave her an expensive handkerchief.

In the end, he bet on her until the last minute.

No one from the family attended her wedding.

In fact, the family later came to an agreement with Esther Doña as her widow and bought her the rightful share of her inheritance.

The problem was solved quietly. The book is also a reflection of an era.

Are the nobles like the Falcó on the way to extinction? Like them there are no more.

They were the last knights.

But noble titles continue to be of interest and litigation continues for them.

Netflix premieres its docuseries on Tamara Falcó in August and is titled,

Every year on the anniversary day they met he gave her an expensive handkerchief.

In the end, he bet on her until the last minute.

No one from the family attended her wedding.

In fact, the family later came to an agreement with Esther Doña as her widow and bought her the rightful share of her inheritance.

The problem was solved quietly. The book is also a reflection of an era.

Are the nobles like the Falcó on the way to extinction? Like them there are no more.

They were the last knights.

But noble titles continue to be of interest and litigation continues for them.

Netflix premieres its docuseries on Tamara Falcó in August and is titled,

Every year on the anniversary day they met he gave her an expensive handkerchief.

In the end, he bet on her until the last minute.

No one from the family attended her wedding.

In fact, the family later came to an agreement with Esther Doña as her widow and bought her the rightful share of her inheritance.

The problem was solved quietly. The book is also a reflection of an era.

Are the nobles like the Falcó on the way to extinction? Like them there are no more.

They were the last knights.

But noble titles continue to be of interest and litigation continues for them.

Netflix premieres its docuseries on Tamara Falcó in August and is titled,

The family later came to an agreement with Esther Doña as a widow and bought her the share that corresponded to them from the legitimate inheritance.

The problem was solved quietly. The book is also a reflection of an era.

Are the nobles like the Falcó on the way to extinction? Like them there are no more.

They were the last knights.

But noble titles continue to be of interest and litigation continues for them.

Netflix premieres its docuseries on Tamara Falcó in August and is titled,

The family later came to an agreement with Esther Doña as a widow and bought her the share that corresponded to them from the legitimate inheritance.

The problem was solved quietly. The book is also a reflection of an era.

Are the nobles like the Falcó on the way to extinction? Like them there are no more.

They were the last knights.

But noble titles continue to be of interest and litigation continues for them.

Netflix premieres its docuseries on Tamara Falcó in August and is titled,

But noble titles continue to be of interest and litigation continues for them.

Netflix premieres its docuseries on Tamara Falcó in August and is titled,

But noble titles continue to be of interest and litigation continues for them.

Netflix premieres its docuseries on Tamara Falcó in August and is titled,

in which Vargas Llosa appears more than Carlos Falcó.

Do you think that she lives up to her father?No, she doesn't claim it.

Her father is unrepeatable.

She has another role and she is not doing badly.

She has realized the media potential that she has and is exploiting it.

And she is going to open a restaurant in the Palacio del Rincón, in Aldea del Fresno.

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