JOHN Fulton died on February 20, 1998, at the age of 65, leaving behind one of the most remarkable expat legacies in Andalucia.
His story began far from the bullrings of Spain in Philadelphia in 1932, where he was born into a blue-collar family.
Like millions of American boys, he read Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Death in the Afternoon’ and saw the Tyrone Power film ‘Blood and Sand’, becoming instantly fascinated by Spanish bullfighting.
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But unlike the other youngsters dreaming of adventure, he actually did something about it.
Being drafted into the US Army as a teenager gave him the opportunity to visit Mexico, where he spent his free time trying his hand at fighting bulls.
He quickly realised he had a genuine talent for it, alongside a natural gift as a painter.
When his time in the military was up, he made the life-changing decision to move to Spain to open an art studio and make a living as a matador.
He arrived in Algeciras in 1956, and while it took time to establish his credibility in a deeply traditional world, he finally took his ‘alternativa’ in Seville in July 1963.
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A fully-qualified bullfighter is considered the equivalent of a university doctorate.
After years of training and facing bulls as a ‘novillero’ or apprentice, the aspiring fighter has a graduation ceremony known as the ‘alternativa’.
During this event, he appears as a proper matador for the first time and is welcomed into the profession by the other two bullfighters on the bill, swapping the black lace of the amateur for a suit of lights decorated with gold filigree.
The bullring of Sevilla is called La Maestranza, and it is widely considered the Wembley Stadium of the sport.
Any bullfighter who takes his ‘alternativa‘ in another ring, such as Valencia, has to repeat it in La Maestranza before he is accepted as a true matador by the purists.
Because Fulton had settled in Sevilla, with his art studio located near the cathedral, he had the immense honour of graduating in the most important bullring of them all.
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Through the 1960s and 1970s, he pursued his double career as both a bullfighter and an artist, becoming one of the best-known local characters in the city.
It was during this golden era that the making of the 1962 blockbuster movie ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ presented director David Lean with serious logistical problems.
Shooting the Arabian scenes required old-fashioned architecture that no longer existed in the modern Saudi state and which would be incredibly difficult and expensive to fake.
Sevilla provided the perfect solution for the British film crew.
Because of its rich Muslim past, the city boasts authentic Arabic palaces, and both the Alcazar and the Casa de Pilatos were used as stunning locations in the film.
As a prominent English-speaking figure in the artistic scene of Sevilla, Fulton naturally crossed paths with the Hollywood circus that had rolled into town.
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During filming, the American matador struck up a close friendship with Peter O’Toole, the legendary star of the picture.
On one memorable occasion, Fulton even managed to persuade the famously charismatic actor to dress up as a matador.
When a bullfighter finally retires, he cuts his ponytail immediately after killing his final bull in a tradition dating back to the 1700s.
While modern fighters wear a small ornamental hairpiece, they still signal their retirement by removing it and brandishing a pair of golden scissors in a little ceremony called ‘cortar la cola’.
Fulton had first faced a bull in the tiny ring of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico.
He returned there in 1994, exactly forty years later, to cut his ponytail and bring his incredible transatlantic journey to a poetic end.
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