Chika-chika with Julio Iglesias

LOS ANGELES – The call came at exactly 5 p.m., Monday, Nov. 20, while Millie Gurfinkel (husband of celebrity immigration lawyer and STAR columnist Michael Gurfinkel) and I were in Starbucks adjacent to the Borders bookstore in Hollywood.

No name appeared on the screen of my N70 cell phone; only the word "Call."

Hello! No reply.

Hello, hello, hello! Dead silence.

Who could be calling me at this time?

The cell phone went dead. A while later, it rang again.

Hello, who’s calling please?

"Ricky," the unfamiliar but friendly voice said. "It’s Julio!"

Then, it dawned on me that I had a telephone interview with – si, si, si! – the Julio Iglesias, arranged by the SonyBMG Manila office in connection with Iglesias’ latest album entitled Romantic Classics in which he does a duet of a Filipino version of All Of You with Lea Salonga, translated by Ryan "Mr. C" Cayabyab (along with Crazy, originally sung by the late Patsy Cline).

Julio as in Julio Iglesias? I was incredulous!

"Yes," he answered.

No, Ziyi Zhang didn’t break her regal walk on the red carpet at the Oscars to say "Hi!" to me and ask if I received the Valentine card she had sent me (she didn’t) and neither did Vin Diesel call me from across the lobby of a five-star hotel in Beverly Hills. They didn’t know me from Adam and, even if I did have separate one-on-ones with them, I doubt if they ever recognize me the next time we meet.

But Julio Iglesias, 63, calling me by my nickname, and twice saying, "I love you, my friend!" gave me a real high. Yes!!!

I knew there was going to be a "phoner" but it was scheduled at six o’clock yet. Earlier, I told Millie that we had to rush with our coffee and muffins because I had to go back to the cheap inn I was booked in to catch Julio’s call on a landline. I did give Mark Bonifacio (SonyBMG staffer) my cellphone number, just in case, but I didn’t expect Julio himself, or any star-interviewee for that matter, to be the one to call because the usual procedure is for the "handler" (whether in Manila or wherever the subject is) to make the call first and see to it that the interviewer is on the line when the phone is passed on to the star-interviewee.

I’m in L.A. now, I told Julio, mentioning in passing that his call came an hour early. "If it’s okay with you," I added, thinking that he was in the vicinity, too, and taking a chance with brazen derring-do, "maybe we can do the interview face-to-face?"

Julio said, "I’m in the Caribbean, Ricky, and I want to tell you that I read The STAR regularly," adding as if we’ve been on a beso-beso, chika-chika term all this time when actually we haven’t really met, although I felt a certain "connection" with him because every year this past decade or so, he has been sending me (and a few other friends in the Philippines, including STAR’s Sounds Familiar columnist Baby Gil) Christmas cards showing his children with girlfriend-model Miranda Rijnsburger, 41, starting with one and then two and then three and then four (with a fifth one coming soon as reported in the Nov. 20, 2006 issue of People magazine; the eighth child of Julio who has three other children – including singers Julio Jr. and Enrique – with his Filipino ex-wife Isabel Preysler), so I kind of "saw" his second batch of children grow up. (Julio and Miranda only sign but don’t appear in the cards.)

"Oh," I said, still unbelieving that the Julio Iglesias was calling me by my nickname, "I want to thank you for the Christmas card you’ve been sending me every Christmas."

"You’ll get the new one in three weeks," he said. (The holidays must have clogged the mails; I got the card only yesterday while typing this story.)

More small talk.

I told him that once, while attending a Hollywood press junket at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, I saw his son Enrique and his girlfriend, tennis star Anna Kournikova, at the driveway, waiting for the valet to get their car.

"Did you talk to him?" Julio asked.

"No, I did not. I was afraid he might ignore me," I told him.

"Next time you see him, talk to him. He’s a nice boy."

And then we talked about the Romantic Classics album (which also includes such selections as Everybody’s Talking, How Can You Mend A Broken Heart, Always On My Mind, Waiting For A Girl Like You, Drive, I Want To Know What Love Is, Right Here Waiting, Most Beautiful Girl and It’s Impossible.)

How different is Romantic Classics from his previous albums?

"Very different. I carefully considered the question of what makes a pop song classic. What sort of songs not only reach the top of the charts but reverberate in our ears, and our hearts, forever, becoming as familar as memories," writes Julio in his liner notes for the album. "Regardless of the era or the genre, the songs I’ve found are united by a common theme, one that I have often explored in my work. They eloquently address one stage or another in the life of romance, from infatuation and longing to heartbreak and betrayal. Each has a melody that’s impossible to resist and lyrics that will continue to be relevant as long as people fall in and out of love. I endeavored to truly reinterpret these hits, not simply remake them, taking a fresh approach for a contemporary audience. I hope that those of you who remember these songs will savor them once again and that those who are just discovering them will enjoy them as much as I did when I heard them for the first time."

Romantic Classics doesn’t include any Spanish songs, only English and Filipino (All Of You and Crazy).

Is he now comfortable singing also in English?

"Before, no. Because I was thinking and feeling in Spanish. But now, yes. I can express my feelings in English as easily as I can in Spanish. Or in Filipino. Especially Filipino because, as you know, the Philippines is close to my heart... for so many reasons." (Note: It’s said that Julio often comes to visit, not necessarily to do a concert. Jorge Araneta is one of his best friends here.)

Is there any plan for him to do another concert in Manila?

"In November, hopefully."

Asked why he chose Lea to sing All Of You with him (original partner was Diana Ross), Julio said, "I love Lea. She’s very talented. She’s my personal choice."

They never met, though. Julio recorded his part in his own recording studio in Marbella, Spain, where Mr. C was present to personally coach Julio in singing in Filipino; while Lea recorded her part in Manila. Through the magic of technology, their respective parts were mixed together in New York where they eventually met to do photo shoots.

"Yes, it’s true." confirmed Lea. "I actually didn’t get to work with Julio Iglesias in the conventional sense of the word. We recorded our parts for All Of You separately; he was in Spain, I was in Manila. However, I did have the chance to meet him in New York late last year. I found him incredibly charming. He was everything I expected he would be – handsome, lovely, funny, witty, with a self-deprecating sense of humor. It was so light being around him, and it would really have been a treat. The ones who can better relate their experience with him would be Vic Valenciano (of SonyBMG) and Ryan Cayabyab. All I got was the chance to have lunch with the man, but it was an experience I shall always treasure. I had the best time."

Asked what other Filipino song would he like to record, Julio said, "Dahil Sa’yo. It’s almost a national anthem in the Philippines, isn’t it?" Then, he began humming the song.

Many people probably don’t know that Julio is a frustrated soccer player.

"I thought I’d be either an athlete or a player," he confirmed in his own by-lined story in the November 2006 issue of Reader’s Digest. "I loved soccer and became a junior goalie for Spain’s top pro team, Real Madrid. I was on a great team and was also in law school – just one class away from finishing my degree and going on to practice law. Then, everything changed. It was in Sept. 1963 and the day before I turned 20 years old. I was driving with some friends in a village outside Madrid, on a little service road, when I was in terrible accident. My car rolled over, and my spinal cord was damaged. My nerves were compressed, affecting my lower body. I couldn’t walk...It took time for me to recover. I had to learn how to walk again. My soccer-playing days were over for sure."

Before we hung up, I asked Julio what his favorite is among his hundreds of songs (more than 80 albums in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and German). I made a wild guess. Could it be To All The Girls I Loved Before?

"You know, Ricky," he was still calling me by my nickname, "all my songs are my favorites. I can’t choose just one."

So how many girls has he loved before?

He laughed. "It’s a myth," adding, "I love only one woman now and she’s none other than Miranda."

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