Today, November 2, All Souls’ Day, the bullfighter Rafael de Paula died at the age of 85, of natural causes in Jerez. An artist with strokes of genius has died. A legend of bullfighting, possessed of a striking irregularity, capable of reaching the highest levels of artistic sensitivity and then sinking into the hells of bullfighting. you scare louder.
Rafael Soto Moreno (Jerez de la Frontera, 1940) has died, born to be a bicycle mechanic and redirected to a bullfighter by fate. And it was to star in some of the most brilliant moments of bullfighting of the 20th century and, also, the saddest due to its neglect, its fears and its special character.
Gone is the life of an extravagant, tormented, controversial and manic character and, also, that of an essentially artistic bullfighter, creator of ineffable moments, unrepeatable, made of sensitive flesh, gifted like no one else for emotion, owner of a very special elf, the beginning and end of beauty… In 2002 he received the Gold Medal of Fine Arts.
He knew the unleashed passion of the fiery popular admiration and the loneliness of prison; was the God of the religion of Paulism and the demon of himself. But above all, he has been the creator of sublime, unspeakable and unforgettable moments, which have reserved for him a very special place in the history of bullfighting.
“I always wanted to be a vintage bullfighter, but I couldn’t,” he said in this newspaper on March 31, 2006, one day before the Jerez bullfighter received in the Plaza de Las Ventas the tribute of a grateful and generous fan, who remembered the few and unforgettable brushstrokes of a brilliant artist and abandoned to oblivion an irregular career marked by bad knees and an unfortunately indolent character.
Congenital degeneration of the patellar cartilage. That was the ailment that Rafael de Paula suffered from in his knees, which forced him to undergo surgery 10 times, and was the main reason why he did not reach the bullfighting dimension that he always dreamed of. “I had a hobby, heart and intelligence, the three basic things to be a great bullfighter,” he added in that interview, “but I couldn’t because my knees began to break in 1972 and I was at the mercy of the bulls for 28 years.”
Despite this, on September 28, 1987 he starred in one of the unforgettable pages of contemporary bullfighting. “Bullfighting has never been so beautiful,” titled his chronicle of the event, the unforgettable Joaquín Vidal, who was a joyful spectator of Paula’s work on a Martínez Benavides bull. Corchero name, in the plaza of Madrid. “Bullfighting was the art of dominating the bull until Rafael de Paula turned it into a symphony; yesterday, in Madrid,” the journalist wrote. “Never has bullfighting been so beautiful; never has bullfighting, in the last few decades that can be remembered, reached the greatness to which Rafael de Paula took it with his task of muleta al toro-torazo, cornalón and astifino, which came out, hat, in fourth place.”
That was, in the bullfighter’s own opinion, the most exciting afternoon of his life. But she wasn’t the only one.
First passes at 13 years old
He was born into a humble gypsy family. It is said that when he was 13 years old he gave his first passes to a heifer without ever having seen anyone bullfight. And when he saw Gregorio Sánchez do it, an unstoppable passion was born in him. He rented a suit to debut without horses in the Plaza de Ronda in 1957. He returned three years later to the historic arena to take the alternative from Julio Aparicio and with Antonio Ordóñez as a witness.
Until then, he had only participated in twenty bullfights with horses, but the written and dreamed legend of a different bullfighter, majestic and elegant, who handled the cape with an unknown duende and rhythm, and capable of breaking his waist in an eternal natural, had already begun.
After fighting in a few bullfights in his first years as an alternative matador – he was never a bullfighter of many celebrations – on June 28, 1964 he locked himself in with six of Salvador Guardiola’s bulls in Jerez de la Frontera, cut off six ears, and his many supporters carried him on their shoulders to the sanctuary of the Virgin of Mercy, and there, at the feet of the patron’s association, they sang a salve in thanksgiving. Paula’s dress was orange and gold—unusual for him, accustomed to jet—and it so happened that the third bull was given to a group of 50 blind people from ONCE who came to see and enjoy their idol.
And another event in her hometown occurred years later, on May 17, 1979, when Paula immortalized the bull Silky, from the Marquis of Domecq’s livestock, whose two ears and tail were cut off after a task that made history. What would be the shock that, since then, a plaque commemorates that feat on one of the walls of the Jerez bullring with the legend, now almost illegible, Rafael de Paula, king of bullfighting.
Meanwhile, it had taken 14 years to confirm in Madrid – an unusual case – and there are still fans who remember that afternoon of May 28, 1974 for a great takedown of Veronica. Months later, on October 5, in the Plaza de Vistalegre, together with Antonio Bienvenida and Curro Romero, he cut off both ears of a bull belonging to Fermín Bohórquez, before whom he delighted with a cape and muleta, and the popularity of the bullfighter skyrocketed.
On up to seven occasions he was locked up with six bulls, two of them in the Maestranza of Seville: on October 12, 1975, before bulls from six farms, a celebration in which he cut off an ear, and on the same date but in 1987, in which he paraded both ears of a Bohórquez bull.
And so, between sublime moments and monumental fights, between Veronicas of unparalleled presence and bulls in the corral, – which were not few -, Paula forged a long career that ended abruptly and unexpectedly on May 18, 2000, in her bullring in Jerez, when, in the company of Curro Romero and Finito de Córdoba, she heard the three warnings from her two bulls, and, between an anger covered in tears and the general disconsolation, he tore off his ponytail and ended his stay in the arena.
Afterwards, the tribute would arrive in Las Ventas on April 1, 2006, a short period as agent (somewhat eventful) of Morante de la Puebla and some personal episodes that, before and after, sprinkled darkness on a dark personality.
Already in 1985 he was arrested at the end of a bullfight in El Puerto accused of having hired two people to teach a lesson to the alleged lover of his wife, Marina Muñoz, daughter of his first agent, with whom he had three children. After the trial and the various appeals were resolved, the Supreme Court sentenced him to two years and three days for inducing a home invasion with intimidation. He was returned to prison on January 18, 1995, and a month later he was granted the third degree.
The case had an enormous social impact due to its peculiarities – the bullfighter was acquitted of the crime of homicide or attempted murder, and ended up separating from his wife – and due to the unique personality of the accused.
In November 2014, he exchanged for 1,800 euros the six months in prison that the judge imposed on him for threatening his lawyer with a knife and a hoe, with whom, apparently, he had a dispute over alleged complaints that were never filed because they were irrational.
He has been, it is true, the most literary bullfighter, and there it remains The quiet music of bullfightingby José Bergamín; the most photogenic – his snapshots are flashes of sensitivity – and one of the most awarded – in 2002 he received the Medal of Fine Arts – but, perhaps, also the most fragile, the most inconsistent and the most predictable.
He always had a sad face and a strange look in his eyes. His unexpected reactions seem like the work of a tormented brain. There remains that afternoon when, seized with anger after a bad job, he stabbed the rapier into the wood of the barrier and alarmed those around him for good reason; or the show he starred in in 2012 in Ronda, where he went to collect an award and present the book of one of his children, and snubbed the mayor and asked those present not to buy the work of the young writer.
Rafael de Paula has died, a tender and vulnerable character, a man from the 18th century, mysterious and hermetic; A great bullfighter has died.