HOTELS & RESTAURANTS

Francis Butler – Owned influential Finca Besaya in Marbella, for 15 years.

Ram Nandkishore – Restaurant mogul behind Polo House, Jacks and Mumtaz, the first curry house on the coast.

Charlotte Scott – Stylemeister, who has put up many celebrities (even it is said Lady Diana) at her beautiful guest house Trasierra, in Sevilla.

Ian Radford – Owner of Buddha Beach and popular restaurant La Sala.

James Stuart – Owner of Costa de la Luz’s leading hotels Califa, Madreselva and Triperia.

Anthony and Patrick Read – Hotel entrepreneurs, who run San Rafael near Jerez and Corral del Rey in Sevilla.

Marcos Torres – Brazilian owner of boutique hotel Villa Marbella, voted Spain’s Number One on Trip Advisor

Pom and Tina Piek – Dutch born hoteliers who own Hotel la Fuente de la Higuera in Ronda where PM David Cameron recently stayed.

 

MEDIA

Howard Brereton – Journalist and DJ who owns Typically Spanish website.

Lenox Napier – Journalist who founded The Entertainer, which later became the Euro Weekly News.

Gerry and Joan Davies Founded Sur in English in 1984.

Chris Chaplow – The man behind Andalucia.com.

Max Clifford Celebrity publicist with a home in Marbella.

 

CELEBRITIES /FAMOUS PEOPLE

Duchess of York – Spends time in Sotogrande every summer.

Deborah Kerr – Starred in From Here to Eternity with Burt Lancaster and lived in Marbella for three decades until her death in 2007.

Orson Welles – American film genius who spent considerable time in Ronda, where he is buried.

Sean Connery – Lived in Marbella for many years, bringing world attention to the region.

Melanie Griffith – Wife of actor Antonio Banderas, has done a lot of charity work in Andalucia.

Stanley Baker – Star of Zulu, who lived in and promoted Malaga for years.

Stan Boardman – British comedian who has had a home in La Cala de Mijas for decades.

 

LITERATURE & ART

Rainer Maria Rilke – German who wrote the seminal Spanish Trilogy in Ronda in 1913.

David Baird – Hard working writer, with many books on Andalucia to his name. In particular Back roads of southern Spain.

Gamel Woolsey – Gerald Brenan’s wife wrote Malaga Burning: An American Woman’s Eyewitness Account of the Spanish Civil War.

Ernest Hemingway – Great lover of southern Spain and particularly Ronda, for its bullfights. Made numerous references in books and articles.

Richard Ford – Spent four years travelling in Andalucia for his influential 1845 classic Handbook for Travellers in Spain.

David Bomberg – Famous British artist who brought attention to the beauty of the landscape around Ronda.

Geoff Garvey – Influential Grazalema-based writer who edits of the Rough Guide to Andalucia.

David SearleAndalucia-based writer who 20 years ago wrote key legal book You and the Law in Spain.

Nina Epton – Travelled as a single woman, publishing her musings, as simply ‘Andalucia’.

Theophile Gautier – 19th Century French writer, whose book A Journey to Spain (1841) makes particular references to Andalucia.

William Somerset Maugham – 19th Century French writer, whose book A Journey to Spain (1841) makes particular references to Andalucia.

Hans Christian Anderson – Danish author of The Mermaid and I Spanien (In Spain). Spent a lot of time in Malaga and said of the city: “In no other Spanish city have I been as happy and as comfortable as in Malaga.”

 

COMMERCE

Charles Pickman – Businessman who restored the La Cartuja monastery in Sevilla turning it in the 1840s into a successful ceramics factory.

Alexander Williams and Anny Humbert – Helped make Jerez sherry famous and brought substantial income to the local economy.

Robert Blake Byass – One half of the famous sherry conglomerate Gonzales & Byass.

Clara Verheij – The Dutch entrepreneur behind Axarquia’s award-winning Bodegas Bentomiz.

 

GREEN

Steve Samson – Manager of Sunseed since 1987 – one of Andalucia’s most interesting green collectives, which has studied permaculture, share cropping and water use for 25 years.

Edwin Spijkers – For 20 years, has run Spain’s top green website business Generador Electrico from his farm in Ronda.

Hanne and Asger Mundbjerg – Danes who founded green solar company Technicas Maro 20 years ago.

Federico Schatz – German wine producer, in Ronda since early 1990s. He helped promote the area through his products.

Martin Kieninger – Eco-architect who set up the first, fully registered organic vineyard in Malaga.

Sam Ehlich – Founder of innovative company Treasures by Wasteland that uses recycled wood to make fashionable furniture.

 

SPORT & LEISURE

Nigel Shamash – Set up celebrated retreat Cortijo Romero in 1986. Now said to be Spain’s leading centre for alternative holidays.

Rosie and Jonathan Miles – Set up popular alternative yoga retreat Kaliyoga in the Alpujarras in 2002.

Matt and Debbie Southom – Founders of watersports company Xtreme Gene, which has brought numerous world champions to Cordoba and many economic benefits.

Bjorn Borg – Lived on the Costa del Sol for many years running a tennis club. Recently played in Marbella Masters tennis tournament.

 

NOTORIOUS / CONTROVERSIAL

Maurice Boland – Popular local DJ who stepped down from TRE radio station following an indiscretion. Self-styled ‘Mr Marbella’, has huge local profile and raised considerable amounts of money for charity for 20 years.

Freddie Foreman and Ronnie Knight – Both played a big part in the notoriety of the so-called Costa del Crime.

Adnan Khashoggi – Controversial arms dealer whose estate later became La Zagaleta.

Toni Muldoon – Timeshare fraudster, helped maintain the notoriety of the Costa del Sol and affected the lives of hundreds of expats (albeit negatively).

Mickey Green – Notorious criminal who fled Britain to the Costa del Sol 30 years ago and has never been found.

Helen and Len Prior – Famously had their house wrongly knocked down in Almeria and still live in the garage without compensation.

Garry Leigh – Famous timeshare conman, who was killed in an accident last year.

Xaviera Hollander – Former New York hooker and madam, the author of the notorious novel the Happy Hooker (later a film with Lynn Redgrave) has lived in Andalucia for decades.

Judah Binstock – British entrepreneur, one of the most enigmatic of Marbella, who came in the late 1980s to escape British justice.

Marc Rich – Known as the ‘commodities magnate’, Rich, based in Marbella, allegedly made 13 billion dollars a year. Bill Clinton gave him a presidential Pardon after he was indicted for the biggest tax fraud in US history.

Tony King – So-called Costa killer jailed for life in Spain for killing two Spanish teenagers and the attempted rape of a third.

 

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