Xavier Cugat

Xavier Cugat was born on Jan 01, 1900 in Spain. Xavier Cugat's big-screen debut came with The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse directed by Rex Ingram in 1921, strarring Violinist - Tango Bar Scene (uncredited). Xavier Cugat is known for You Were Never Lovelier directed by William A. Seiter, Fred Astaire stars as Robert Davis and Rita Hayworth as Maria Acuña. The most recent award Xavier Cugat achieved is Walk of Fame. The upcoming new movie Xavier Cugat plays is The Phynx which will be released on May 06, 1970.

Born in Spain, Xavier Cugat's family moved to Havana, Cuba, when he was three. Always musically inclined, he packed up and moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times newspaper during the day and labored to put together a band at night. After a few years of playing smaller clubs in the L.A. area, Cugat finally got his break when he and his band secured a job at the prestigious Coconut Grove nightclub in 1928. His style of music caught on, and Cugat was instrumental in bringing Latin music to the attention of the US public. In the '30s and '40s he was nicknamed "The Rumba King" because of his popularization of that Latin dance. In Cugat's film appearances he usually played himself, even if the character had a name other than Xavier Cugat, and he and his band appeared in several memorable MGM musicals in the '40s. After suffering a stroke in 1971, Xavier Cugat retired.