Spain: Death of the Afternoon

Women throw books of poetry to him and propose marriage in dozens of letters each week. Fan clubs pay tribute to him throughout Western Europe. He has starred in two hit movies, one of them about himself, and earned more money ($10 million) than it cost to build the Spanish Armada. In July, he became the fourth matador in this century to be allowed to spare the life of his bull. In August, he became the first in history to fight 31 corridas in one month. And, barring illness or injury, by this time next month the mop-haired lad who calls himself “El Cordobés” will have killed more bulls and been awarded more of their ears in more fights before more people in one year than any other bullfighter who ever lived.

“A taurine odyssey,” proclaimed one Madrid newspaper this month, and to his flocks of worshipers, some of whom have paid $65 a seat to watch him, the 29-year-old El Cordobés is the most exciting bullfighter who ever strode the sands. Brushing his great shock of sandy hair out of his eyes, he dances in front of the bull’s horns, pulls its tail, turns his back on it, and usually manages to smear its blood all over himself. If the bull won’t charge him, he charges the bull; and to keep things exciting, he will receive the bull standing up, on his knees and even sitting down. He has been gored 18 times. “He’s the Picasso of the ring,” exults one admirer. “He’s finding fantastic new ways of expressing himself.”

Sixteen Stabs. Yet, to true aficionados of the world’s only blood art, El Cordobés is the death of the afternoon. “He’s like Chubby Checker playing Bach,” sniffs one ardent detractor. “It’s pop bullfighting.”

His vulgarity is only a minor concern of the critics; what shocks them is that, unlike Picasso, he has never really learned the tools of his trade. He handles the cape like a housewife flapping a bed sheet and uses the bright red muleta as if he were flagging down a train. Worst of all, he is so inept with the sword that about the only way he can be sure of killing the bull is to shoot it. He had to stab one bull 16 times this month before it would die, and twice within the past two weeks he has heard the rare warning of a bugle signaling that his allotted time for the kill had nearly expired. So badly did he butcher his opponents at one major fight this year that he needed police protection from the enraged crowd.

More often, however, the crowd ignores his faults and cheers him for all it is worth. “The most interesting thing about El Cordobés’ bullfights is the crowd,” says AntÓnio DÍaz-Cañabate, one of Spain’s most fastidious critics. “They don’t care at all about bullfighting. They want to go mad in the physical presence of a fetish.”

Sex Symbol. And a fetish is what El Cordobés is. An orphan named Manuel Benitez who grew up on the streets of Cordoba and broke into bullfighting the hard way—by jumping into the Madrid ring from his seat in the stands—he is every Spaniard’s dream of the poor boy who made good. He owns four ranches, a fleet of Mercedes and a six-seat private plane, and is building a seven-story hotel in Cordoba. With his serious young face, battered body and brilliant white smile, he has also become Spain’s leading sex symbol, its contribution to the international beat generation.

To the alarm of dedicated aficionados, El Cordobés’ success has encouraged a group of imitators who threaten to transform bullfighting from a dramatic and highly emotional art into a crazy circus act. His imitators are even worse than he is. Significantly, one of them calls himself “The Disaster,” another “The Assassin,” and a third, whose outlandish caricature of the El Cordobés style has brought him warnings by bullfight authorities, fights under the name of “Little Banana.” Last month at a town just outside Madrid, one young apprentice tried to introduce a new dimension to bullfighting by parachuting into the arena from a plane. Fortunately, he missed the bullring and landed in a garbage dump two miles away.