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From the May issue of People en Español
Translated by Carole
Chayanne opens his heart to speak of the woman he won, the son he adores
and his life outside the stage.
Caption: p.78 - He has a great charisma, an angelic smile," says his ex
manager Carlos Alfonso.
P. 79 - A full conquest of the world. With more than 20 years of a triumphant
career behind him, Chayanne is ready to begin new roads and we reveal
his protective intimacy with his wife and his small son. By Maria Morales.
From the air, the stadium in Guatemala City seemed a multicolor anthill.
Tens of thousands of young people with posters and placards have arrived
at the site until no more fit. Observing the multitude from a helicopter
that he took to a presentation with the other members of the group, Los
Chicos, Chayanne, then 13 years old, asked the pilot what football team
was playing this afternoon. His answer: There is no game. We were going
to sing, remembers Chayanne, laughing.. I thought that there was going
to be another function with so many people there. For more than 20 years,
the fans of the talented, energetic and always smiling son of Puerto Rico
have been there, supporting him since he began on his first stage at 10
years of age and throughout his successful career as soloist and actor.
His last world-wide tour, which took him to countries like France, Turkey,
and Switzerland with the songs of his new disc, Atato a tu Amor, concluded
in February. Others had taken a deserved break, but that same month Chayanne
choose to put completely to record his next disc. The CD coming to the
market in October with songs in Spanish and English continues the plans
of the singer to conquer the anglo world which outline started with his
movie, Dance with Me. "Always I am beginning", says Chayanne, 31, in spite
of the fact that he has already sold more than 6 million discs as a soloist.
On a personal level, the sexy Puerto Rican always is beginning new projects.
His recent baby is a house that is being constructed next to the sea in
Miami for him, his wife, Marina Maronese, 31, and their son, Lorenzo Valentino,
almost three. "What I want is that the house, when you enter, embraces
you" said Chayanne, who has lived in Miami for the last 15 years. "Why
are you going away, if I love you. Everything is here." The same could
be said today of his life. "He now has everything", says his friend and
companion, Jose Javier Diaz. "I have seen him rise in airplanes to go
on tour to gain fame far from his family. But now he knows where he is,
and where he's going with his fame, his wife and son, whom he adores."
He is known to speak little of his family. "I do it for protection. I
do not like putting Lorenzo in a window." Chayanne smiles from ear to
ear when he is asked about him. "I have a love for this boy that delights
me because it is a beautiful thing to have," he says, adding that in the
family, it is the son who sings to him. "To have a son is very beautiful.
It gives you much more love, it grows love in you. When you have a worry
or some doubt, they leave. It is incredible." Although the image of a
dedicated father does not agree with his public persona (a mixture of
killing matador, seductive smile, voice that caresses, and body that invites
to sin) fatherhood is a role that he is enjoying to its fullest. "I enjoy
it", he says. "We go to the circus if it comes, we go to the zoo, or we
go to eat fried fish. Always I am giving to him that love that they have
given me". Part of that love comes from his wife, whom he met 10 years
ago while picking up his suitcases in an airport, says Chayanne. "We spoke
by telephone for three months", he says of Maronese, Venezualan of Italian
ancestry. "After that, We saw each other in Puerto Rico." They have been
together since then. While other couples in the artistic media have failed,
their relationship works because between them exists great communication
and understanding, and Maronese is a very secure person , he says.
"I have been lucky, but also it is as you feed it, as you throw water
to the flowers so that the garden does not wither", says Chayanne, watching
the sea from his room in The National hotel in Miami Beach. "That is a
little work. Relationships are very difficult. It is the determination
that you put to it". To put all his determination into something is nothing
new for him. Born as Elmer Figueroa Arce, en Rio Piedras, Chayanne grew
up in San Lorenzo, in the southeast of Puerto Rico, in an extremely united
family composed of his father, Quintino Figueroa, supervisor of sales,
his mother, Irma Luz Arce, a teacher, and four siblings: Kenny, 36; Clara
Luz, 35; Elliott, 23; and Enmanuel, 21. No one calls him Elmer, choosing
to use the artistic name that his mother gave him, inspired by the television
series, Cheyenne. "Elmer exists only in documents. The debts are Elmer's",
he jokes. The celebrations and especially the music were never missing
in the Figueroa house. "I have photographs of my family playing the guitar,
singing. My sister with the guitar, my brother with the cuatro, my grandfather
with the cuatro, my uncle with the accordion", says Chayanne. A 5 he made
his debut in church beside Clara. "My sister sang and I made noises",
he assures. "I was the mascot". Until the age of 10, Chayanne led the
life of a child, attending primary school in San Lorenzo, practicing baseball
and football with his friends, and playing with his brothers and grandparents,
one of whom nicknamed him "el picaflor". (the hummingbird) "I don't know
why he called me this", he says, with the look of a naughty boy.
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With his voice and a smile "that kills everybody" according to Carlos
Alfonso, the ex manager of Los Chicos, Chayanne joined the musical group
in 1979. "My mother and my father saw it as a hobby", assures the singer,
who as a boy thought of being a marine biologist. Although the music has
given him infinite satisfaction, it has also cost him dearly. "I didn't
see my brothers and sister grow up", he says, with the pain of this separation
palpable in his voice. "I believe that since the age of 15, I have not
spent a complete month in Puerto Rico". The upbringing that he received
in the home of his parents served him fully during his time with Los Chicos.
"I give thanks for the education that they gave me". He assures. "All
the boys did the pranks of boys, sure, but he was a healthy boy", remembers
Leonor Costanzo, their professor of dance and choreography, who had the
role of mother in the group. When he was not on stage or rehearsing, Chayanne
and the other adolescents rode horses and motorcycles, swam or played
sports. In order to please their admirers, the boys not only gave out
kisses and autographs, but threw shirts and pillows signed by them from
the balconies of the hotels. "There were times that it occurred to me
to go to see the babies, to see if they were in bed, and it gave me a
fainting fit when they were not", recalls Costanzo, who lives in Puerto
Rico. "In those cases, or they were on motorbikes or dancing en the hotel
disco. But always they were with one of us. Chayanne was a special boy,
very straight. He was left like this by the family that he has."
After crossing Latin America and making the movie, Los Chicos en Conexion
Caribe, the group broke up in 1983. That same year Chayanne launched as
a soloist. He was barely 14. " To have everything is as if they threw
you into an abyss", he comments of these difficult days. Alone, but with
the support of his family, Chayanne passed the next years in Mexico, Spain,
Los Angeles, and Miami where he opened his way. Already 17 years, he had
his first disc, Chayanne es Mi Nombre. The following discs with names
as "Fiesta in America", Fuiste un trozo de hielo en la escarcha", Tu Pirata
soy yo", "Este ritmo se baila asi", "Tiempo de vals", and "Completamente
enamorado", among others, maintained him in the public light, as did his
participation en the telenovelas Pobre juventud, Tormento, Las divorciadas,
Sombras del pasado and Volver a empezar. This combination of music and
acting, also provided a more diverse public, which could see him as a
youth and take note of his growing sex appeal and his explosive live presentations.
With the public at his side, the rewards were expected. In 1989 Chayanne
won an MTV award for the best international video and a year later he
received a nomination for the Grammy as best latin pop vocalist. In 1993,
he was selected as one of the 50 most beautiful people by the magazine.
People, a deed that he repeated two times in People En Espanol (one of
the 25 most beautiful of 1998 and one of the most sexy men in the world
in 1999). That he was considered sexy was no surprise to his old friends.
"He always had a magic, especially a charm with the women", says Diaz.
"From youth, he already had those eyes to the girls, and had only to look
at them and already everything was finished. He was born with that star".
That star, or angel, according to his dance teacher, pushed toward Hollywood,
where in 1998 he was in his first movie in English , Dance with Me, with
the actress and singer, Vanessa Williams. "When he tested for the movie,
I felt my heart beat more rapidly", said the director of the film, Randa
Haines. "He danced for us although there was no music. "He said to me,
'I am a singer and began to sing without music and to dance. It was wonderful.
He has something that makes women feel incredibly comfortable with him".
That is indeed what Williams felt when she met him. "We had chemistry
immediately", said Williams to BPI Entertainment News Wire, in 1998. "How
can you not have chemistry with someone so open and charming?" The enchantment
that he distilled in that performance opened to him the English market
of the United States. " They identify me with the movie and they know
my music", says Chayanne. Since Julio Iglesias and Carlos Santana, who
he admires for their contributions to music and their long careers, Chayanne
wants to break even more barriers. "I with to arrive to other countries
where I have not previously arrived, he says. "With time, I am going to
act more, but I am going to follow the music, in the language that it
is". Chayanne found the success does what it does, augurs, Alfonso. "I
believe that Chayanne has not even arrived at the maximum of where he
is going to arrive. He is going as far as Ricky Martin or even more. He
has talent, voice, the smile of an ingenuous boy, he's attractive. With
that, he puts everyone in his pocket." Besides wanting to please the public,
Chayanne also dreams of maintaining his familiar life and that his son
one day admires him as he admires his father. "With this, I already win
the sky", he says. With or without a helicopter, without doubt, there
is another brilliant star in the firmament.
©People en Español, May 2000
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