Rocío Jurado

Childhood and youth

She was born to an artisanal family in 1944. Her father, Fernando Mohedano, was a shoemaker and flamenco singer in his spare time; her mother, Rosario Jurado, was a housewife and amateur performer of Spanish music.

At home, Rocío learned to love music; her first public performance was at the age of eight, in a play at Colegio La Divina Pastora. After her father's death, she helped the precarious family finances. She worked as a shoemaker and as a fruit picker, and still had time to show up to Radio Sevilla contests. She came to be known as the "The Girl of the Awards" after winning every radio station contest she entered. A friend of her mother introduced her to teacher Manolo Caracol.

Marriages

On 21 May 1976, she married boxer Pedro Carrasco. The couple had a daughter, Rocío Carrasco Mohedano. After their divorce in July 1989, and getting an annulment, Jurado married bullfighter José Ortega Cano on 17 February 1995 at "Dehesa Yerbabuena" with more than 1,600 guests. In late 1999, the couple adopted two children in Colombia, José Fernando Ortega Mohedano, and Gloria Camila Ortega Mohedano.

Illness and death

In 2004, Jurado was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and treated in Houston, Texas. In April 2006, she was treated for acute liver failure in a hospital in Madrid. On 26 May 2006, Spain's Culture Minister Carmen Calvo announced that Jurado had suffered a stroke, an assertion denied by Jurado's personal physician as well as her own brother/manager, Amador Mohedano.

On 1 June 2006 she died, aged 59, at 5:15 a.m. at her home in La Moraleja, Alcobendas, Madrid. Her body was taken to the Centro Cultural de la Villa in the Plaza de Colón in a Madrid chapel for a public viewing. Eventually her body was transferred to her native Chipiona, where it remains in the local cemetery of San José.

Discography

Filmography

Awards