Xavier Cugat i Mingall: his autobiography.

See the introductory letter by Frank Sinatra

The beginnings of Xavier Cugat.

The place and date of birth influences human personality without any shadow of doubt. In the case of Xavier Cugat, these two factors were basic. He was born on the 1 st January 1900 in a Spanish region with close ties to the Mediterranean Sea and Western Europe, in the city of Girona, capital of the world famous Costa Brava .

Girona, close to the French border and the Mediterranean sea, has seen many civilizations come and go. Hannibal , the famous Carthaginian military commander and tactician, crossed the Perthus crossing with his elephants on his way to Rome. The Ostrogoths and the Franks invaded the Iberian Peninsula via Girona., and Girona was at the heart of a European civilisation while there was the Reconquista was going on against the Muslims.

Just a few years before the birth of Cugat , 1873 saw the triumph of the First Spanish Republic. In one of the Republic Ministries there were three Catalans from the Empordà region: Sunyer i Capdevila, General Nouvilas and Tutau: All of them born in an old county where the Phoenicians and Greeks civilisations had set foot on their way to pave their economic empires. The Empordà is divided into 2 areas of influence: La Bisbal, capital of the Baix (lower) Empordà, and Figueres, capital of the Alt (high) Empordà.

Xavier Cugat was born in Girona, and it is very likely his father was born in la Bisbal, part of the Empordà, an area open to universal ideas and ways of thinking that has seen the birth of renowned figures such as Josep Pla, born in Palafrugell, Salvador Dalí, born in Figueres, and the subject of this site: Xavier Cugat born in the so called "immortal” city of Girona but who lived from a young age in la Bisbal.

We must not forget that two years before Cugat’s birth there had been the Spanish-American War that ended with the defeat of the Spanish “Armada”, who were still using wooden ships against the steel ships of the Americans and with the Spanish firing range three or four times shorter than that of the Americans. This defeat, together with the fall of Puerto Rico and the Philippine islands meant the end of the old Spanish Empire. The failure of the 1873 Republic and the Caribbean defeat meant that some Spaniards would continue their plight for freedom in clandestine ways and others would leave Spain as exiles. Juan Cugat, Xavier’s father chose exile.

Cuba would be Xavier Cugat’s family’s destination, and island also known as the Pearl of the Antilles. Cugat was only four when he landed in Cuba. His family was united under the frugal character of his father and kind love of his mother, Avila Mingall. There were four brothers: Francisco, the eldest, Alberto, Xavier and Enrique, the youngest. This family remained united both in success and failure, tears and laughter. That Cuban paradise and its capital Habana was the home of many artistic circles. It was a musical island, its inhabitants having music and the sense of rhythm in their veins, and little Xavier Cugat felt that rhythm in his soul and would soon show his love for music.

But Cuba and Havana, despite its splendour, was too limited for the family, and they soon decided to go to New York, then the centre of the world. This is the origin of the man, whose autobiography, brilliant however contradictory just like his own life you will be able to read in this website. The reader must not be surprised by the peculiar style and spontaneity of the author.

(Based on the original book by DASA EDICIONS S.A.)

“de girona en recordo molt poc, si no és la intimitat d'aquella plaça [de l'Oli] en què passava llargues hores al dia”

"vaig ser el primer a gravar música en el cinema nord-americà i a fer una pel·lícula sonora en llengua castellana"