Luis F. Romo

Updated Saturday, March 23, 2024-02:38

  • Characters The discreet and stable personal life of David Summers in the four decades of Hombres G

  • Music The modest assets of Hombres G despite their world fame

After

25 years relegated to oblivion

, the figure of Manuel Summers, who died in 1993 at the age of 58, is back in the news. There have been exhibitions, colloquiums, film series and for three weeks you can see the documentary Summers, the rebel, where the director Miguel Olid dissects the figure of the director of the trilogy To er mundo é...

The result has been a tsunami of emotions, especially for Beatriz Galbó (72) and Cheyenne Summers (47), romantic partner and daughter of the Sevillian director, the latter

named in honor of Marlon Brando's Tahitian daughter

. Fed up with certain comments and attitudes and, above all, as a result of the documentary where her mother is interviewed and is censored on multiple occasions, Cheyenne speaks for the first time and confesses to LOC. Once and for all, she wants to settle the story of her parents, she is no longer going to allow them to try to hide something that her father never covered. She does not want to get into wars nor does she crave prominence. "I want speculation about my father's alleged double life to stop," she admits.

Beatriz Galbó and Manolo Summers. On loan

Manuel Summers married Consuelo Rodríguez in 1960

, with whom he had three children, Manolo (62), David (60) and Lucía (48), the middle son being the one who would become famous as the vocalist of Hombres G. After having studied at the Instituto of Cinematographic Sciences, Manolo premiered his first film Del rosa... al yellow (1963) with which he won the Silver Shell at the San Sebastián Film Festival. The protagonist was Cristina Galbó, 13 years old, aunt of our interviewee.

During filming, the director met the actress's little sister, Beatriz, 11 years old, with whom she played, drew drawings, and told her that with that face she looked like a shepherd girl. Years later after losing contact, Beatriz's first boyfriend told her that he had seen an advertisement published in which Manolo Summers

was looking for children for his next film

From Him. With an overwhelming personality she went to the casting. "Don't you know who I am?" She snapped at the director. "The little shepherd girl!" he commented as soon as he saw that beautiful 17-year-old woman.

blockbusters

Beatriz acted in

Goodbye, Stork, Goodbye

(1971), which in Spain surpassed

Love Story

at the box office . They fell in love in the second part,

The Child is Ours

(1973). "During the first years the relationship was kept secret, only the most intimate of the couple knew and, over time, Consuelo would find out. This was not my father's first extramarital relationship."

The director and the actress

were deeply in love

. It was noticeable in every look, gesture, tone of voice... The culmination of their love was the arrival of Cheyenne in 1977, "when my father began to have a family relationship with us as soon as I was born, which caused Consuelo to move to Seville forever. They separated permanently," Cheyenne admits.

Manolo, Beatriz and Cheyenne lived in a chalet on the outskirts of Madrid, although the director kept his apartment in the Madrid residential area of ​​Arturo Soria, from where Manolo and David had become independent, which was already beginning to cause a stir in music.

To know more

Documentary film.

Manolo Summers, the peculiar filmmaker who surpassed 'Love Story' at the box office in Spain

  • Editor: LUIS FERNANDO ROMO

Manolo Summers, the peculiar filmmaker who surpassed 'Love Story' at the box office in Spain

Even though she was little, Cheyenne still remembers how in love her parents were for 22 years, always holding hands while they walked, giving each other constant kisses and, although

they had their little fights

, they soon returned to cuddling.

A certain air of nostalgia invades the words of the

dubbing actress and advertising announcer

: "My father was absolutely present since I was born. He changed my diapers, gave me a bottle, recited poetry to me, read me bedtime stories, taught me to draw, we went to flamenco classes. My mother and I went to the filming, she picked me up at school, where she made a mural and she went to all the tutorials. The teachers played jokes on her and told her that I was little Manolita, because it was his living portrait. That filled my father with pride."

Cheyenne fondly remembers her trips to the United States, where they toured the main cities, especially New York, where they had spent several Christmas vacations. During his last stay, Manolo got very sick to his stomach for the first time.

FAMILY PLOT

When in 1991 Cheyenne was going to celebrate the graduation of the last grade of elementary school she

had studied in San Diego (California)

, her father was unable to travel. She had been admitted to the hospital, they were told, for colic. Her mother and daughter immediately returned to Madrid. At the airport, some of Manolo's relatives convinced Beatriz not to go to the health center so that the director would not think that she had something serious. "My mother swallowed it, they deceived her. From there we experienced a very unpleasant family plot."

Cheyenne Summers, currently.CEDED

His two oldest children asked Manuel to be their mother, from whom he had separated 20 years ago, who was in the hospital. "There I saw her sitting in a chair, in the corner of the room, already dressed in black and with a funeral face," reveals the youngest of the family, who could visit him, but not Beatriz, because if the other children did, from Manolo these disappeared immediately.

From the hospital bed the director held the hand of his first-born and the youngest to express: "You, the older ones, have to take care of Cheyenne, so that she never lacks for anything... (...) They did not

comply "They failed him

," he concludes.

That orchestrated situation did not benefit the director, who had become extremely depressed because he was afraid of dying. Since he was discharged, he spent the illness with Cheyenne and Beatriz, who continually pampered him.

However, in the spring of 1993 Manolo suffered a relapse of his illness and a month before his death his sons asked to take him to Seville supposedly for better treatment. "My father told my mother that they would talk on the phone at any time every day and that when he got well he would come back to our house. He also let her know that if one day they told him that he couldn't get well, he just had to for one reason and that is that

he was dying. So it was. He was 58 years old.

Mother and daughter

found out about the funeral from the cartoonist Chumy Chúmez

, who was almost a brother to Manolo.

For Cheyenne everything was surreal: "My brothers didn't even come close to comfort me, something incomprehensible because during all those years they had treated us with great affection, we went to the Hombres G concerts, we traveled to Acapulco for the filming of

Suéltate el pelo

... "

And he continues: "The only reason for this is that the mother did not let them, and my father would never have consented to that. They have failed him in that and they know it." Since then, the oldest children and Cheyenne have not talked to each other.

The documentary

Cheyenne is also hurt with Miguel Olid, director of the documentary. From the beginning, mother and daughter helped in the project, but "my mother was censored on too many occasions and was told not to mention that they had been a couple. Something incomprehensible, since the professional is absolutely linked to the personal," he adds. the dubbing actress, who adds: "The thing is funny because Miguel emphasizes how hard my father fought against censorship." Beatriz, who in addition to having acted as a still photo in many of her films, also starred in

¡Ya soy mujer!

(1974) or

My First Sin

(1977),

during which she was pregnant.

Manolo Summers and his daughter Cheyenne, when she was a baby.Courted

Cheyenne, on the other hand, appreciates the intention to remember her father, but in her opinion it has had ugly details. "He had the nerve to ask me for a video in which he was with my father and I sent him one in which he gives me kisses while I blow out my birthday candles." She gave him a condition:

"Say that the girl who comes out is her Cheyenne daughter."

Olid refused. "I wasn't going to let the viewer think that she is holding David," she nods vehemently, "but it turns out that talking about us always raises blisters."

She is tired of so much scorn and, above all, that her parents' history is hidden at this point in the film.