Charo Biography
Charo is a Spanish-born actress, singer, comedian, and flamenco guitarist who rose to international recognition in the 1960s through her work on American television and in films.
How old is Charo? – Age
She is 73 years old as of 15 January 2024. She was born in 1951 in Murcia, Spain. Her real name is Maria Rosario Pilar Martinez Molina Baeza.
Charo Family – Education
Her birth date has been the subject of some debate (see ‘Birth year question’ below). Her Spanish passport identifies her as María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baeza. She claims she attended a convent school until the age of 15, when a nun told her she belonged in show business. In the most colorful version of her youth, Charo’s grandmother hired a music professor to teach her classical guitar on a weekly basis, and he was the first man to join the convent.
Charo Husband – Did Charo ever have children?
Xavier Cugat, the bandleader, “discovered” her while recording a television program in Spain in 1964. They married on August 7, 1966. Earl Wilson’s piece from April 1966 disclosed the couple’s wedding arrangements. They were the first couple to get married at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
She later claimed that her marriage to Cugat was really a business transaction, allowing him to legally transport her to the United States. On August 11, 1978, she married her second husband, producer Kjell Rasten, at South Lake Tahoe, California. He quickly became her manager. They have one kid, son Shel Rasten, born in 1981, who plays drums for the heavy metal band Treazen.
Charo Year of Birth
Her birth year is under dispute. Her Spanish birth certificate and passport, as well as her American naturalization papers, all show her birthdate as March 13, 1941. She later stated she was born in 1947 before changing it to 1949. In a 1977 court appearance, she claimed that her passport and citizenship papers were wrong, and that her birthdate was January 15, 1951.
Charo was 17 years old when she married Cugat, according to several newspaper articles from the period. Others referred to her as Cugat’s “18-year-old protégée”. According to an April 1966 editorial about the wedding plans, she was 20 and Cugat was 60 years old. Many accounts said she was 21 on the day of her wedding.
Later, she claimed that her birthdate was 1951 and that her parents had permitted her to lie about her age in order to appear older when she married Cugat. However, that would have put her 15 years old at the time, contradicting her assertion that she graduated from high school at 16 and had not yet begun her performance career. She has never explained the discrepancy.
In October 1977, the same year Charo filed for divorce from Cugat and became a naturalized American citizen, judge Roger Foley in Las Vegas declared the 1951 birth year to be official. Charo produced sworn statements from her parents, but the assertion has been considered skeptically.
Charo Net Worth
She has an estimated net worth of $60 million.
Charo Dancing with the Stars
On March 1, 2017, Charo was announced as a Dancing with the Stars Season 24 contestant, teamed with professional dancer Keo Motsepe. On April 3, 2017, they were the second pair eliminated from the competition, finishing 11th.
Charo Career
She was exceptionally apparent all through the 1970s, seeming multiple times on The Affection Boat, and on assortment and syndicated programs like Donny and Marie, Tony Orlando and Day break, The Skipper and Tennille, The John Davidson Show, The Mike Douglas Show (which she visitor facilitated no less than once) and the fleeting The Brady Bundle Assortment Hour.
In 1975, Dallas Morning News pundit Harry Bowman composed that the ABC network had “made plans for . . . a half-hour satire featuring the uninhibited spouse of Xavier Cugat” and remarked, “This is most likely the most terrible thought of the time.” By October of that year, Charo was advancing a television unique scheduled for November, however it didn’t really show up until May 1976.
A television posting for August 24, 1976 shows what has all the earmarks of being an unsold pilot circulating on ABC at 8:30 p.m. CST: “Charo and the Sergeant — Circumstance satire featuring Charo Cugat. Her most memorable U.S. work is to be an artist at an untouchable dance club, and her moderate Marine Corps spouse finds out. The couple of episodes that were taped turned out to be communicated on the American Military Organization abroad.”
By the last part of the 1970s, she was being referenced to act as an illustration of how overexposure could harm a superstar. One such article cited the “Q score” of Entertainer Q, Steve Levitt’s VIP prominence rating administration, to show that her notoriety declined somewhat even as her commonality expanded. She was named Best Flamenco Guitarist in Guitar Player Magazine’s perusers’ survey two times. She got back to the dance-music scene in June 2008 with the single “España Cañi”, which was delivered through General Wave Records.
Charo Movies
♦ 2021 – The Bitch Who Stole Christmas
♦ 2017 – Sharknado 5: Global Swarming
♦ 1996 – Blame It on the Macarena!
♦ 1994 – Thumbelina
♦ 1988 – Moon Over Parador
♦ 1979 – The Concorde … Airport ’79
♦ 1970 – Tiger by the Tail
♦ 1970 – Elvis: That’s the Way It Is
♦ 1967 – The Big Mouth
♦ 1963 – New Friendship
♦ 1963 – Ensayo general para la muerte
Charo TV Shows
♦ I Love the ’70s: Volume 2
♦ Chappelle’s Show
♦ Viva Hollywood!
♦ The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
♦ Chelsea Lately
♦ The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
♦ RuPaul’s Drag Race
♦ The Suite Life on Deck
♦ The Wendy Williams Show
♦ Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23
♦ Hell’s Kitchen
♦ Celebrity Wife Swap
♦ Jane The Virgin
♦ RuPaul’s Drag Race
♦ Dancing With the Stars
♦ RuPaul’s Drag Race
♦ RuPaul’s Drag Race
♦ Generation Gap