Luis Miguel Biography

Luis Miguel (born Luis Miguel Gallego Basteri April 19, 1970 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a singer of Spanish/Italian descent who is among the most popular Latino celebrities. Luis Miguel has won some of the most prestigious music awards such as four Grammys and three World Music Awards and has performed at venues around the world. Luis Miguel has sold over 55 million copies worldwide. In Mexico, he is nicknamed El Sol ("The Sun") and Luismi.

He was the son of the late Spanish singer Luis Gallego Sánchez (nicknamed Luisito Rey), and an Italian national, Marcella Basteri. He has two younger brothers, Sergio and Alejandro.
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His career started early. At the age of four, he appeared in public in Costa Rica. It was during this period, and for the next years as he grew from a child into a teenager, that he was exposed by his then manager, to watch and analyze practically every movie, recording, and concert performance that Elvis Presley put on tape, as a learning process towards the attainment of a high degree of showmanship. His actual recording career started in 1981, when he recorded his first album, 1+1= 2 Enamorados (1+1 = 2 in love) with the Mexican brach of EMI. Two years later, he started touring latin american countries including Colombia, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina.

In 1985, he took part in the San Remo Music Festival, where he won his first award. That same year, he also won the Antorcha de Plata (silver torch) award in the Viña del Mar Music Festival. That led to his recording of a duet with Scotish singer Sheena Easton. The song was called Me Gustas Tal Como Eres (I like you as you are).

He had a short acting career between 1984 and 1985. In 1984, Miguel co-starred in the film Ya Nunca Más and, in 1985, in the telenovela Fiebre de Amor.

In 1987, he signed with WEA, which gave his career a huge push, especially with the backing of producer and composer Juan Carlos Calderón. His relationship with his parents soured soon after, with accusations of mismanagement of his career and bad economic decisions that put his fortune in danger.

He made a successful transition from child singer to adult showman extraordinaire, with the album 20 Años in 1990, as well as after a string of sold out shows, first in Mexico, then throughout Latin America and elsewhere in the world, where he established a reputation for hard work, and for delivering some of the most extraordinary vocals to be ever heard in popular music. He is equally adept at singing rancheras, as he is with ballads, or when delivering his own kind of hard driving, rock derived music. Luis Miguel's career soared to even greater heights when he started recording boleros. His first album of boleros was Romance, released in 1991. In 1993, he won the Best Latin Pop Album Grammy Award with Aries and three years later, he got his own star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His career has only gone up from there.

For all his fame, Luis Miguel is mostly a loner that hates the label of "heartbreaker". He dated Stephanie Salas in the 80s and was rumored to have a daughter, Michelle Salas, for whom Luis Miguel has never accepted responsibility. Amongst the many women in his life are photographer Mariana Yazbek, singer Sasha Sokol, model and television presenter Sofía Vergara, tennis superstar Gabriela Sabatini, MTV VJ Daisy Fuentes, singer Mariah Carey, and TV Host Myrka Dellanos. Luis Miguel is currently dating Aracely Arambula.

LUIS MIGUEL PICTURES

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LUIS MIGUEL BIOGRAPHY