Naty Abascal turns 80 in a splendid moment of form. She maintains the chic that fascinated Rafael Medina, Duke of Feria, when she was little more than a teenager.
Nothing was easy in the love story, or seduction, starring Naty Abascal and Rafael Medina and Fernandez de Cordoba, Duke of Feria. The truth is that it lasted a whole decade in which the couple knew how to make a place for themselves in the social chronicle and the most exclusive halls of power in Spain, in addition to conceiving their two children, Rafael and Luis. Very few bet on this relationship, which was indeed unequal, but not because of the rancid ancestry of their respective families. Her backpacks, Naty's and Rafael's, were different.
Rafael and Naty had known each other at least since adolescence: at the age of 12 or 13, they already saw each other in their native Seville. Both were heirs to prominent families, as Naty was the granddaughter of the III Marquis of Romero de Toro and Rafael, a Medinaceli. At that time, she separated fashion and Elio Berhanyer, who put her on a New York catwalk at 18. Turned into a character model, Naty Abascal triumphed in the United States. She shot Bananas with Woody Allen and posed nearly N- for Playboy.
As a talent from the elitist Ford Agency and muse of Valentino or Óscar de la Renta, Naty Abascal was raffled off by brands. She is also a Scottish racing driver named Murray Livingstone Smith, whom she married in 1970. They were together for five hectic years in which they drank the VIP area of the best parties in half the world. In 1975, everything came together for the model: the divorce and the illness of her beloved father. She decided to return to Seville.
"I had told my poor parents a lie," Naty Abascal confessed to XL Semanal. «I told them that I was going to do a charity parade. I told them: I'll be back in a week. But I stayed for two and a half years. My parents were horrified. At that time, for a girl to go there was like a mortal sin. They were without speaking to me I don't know how long ».
Why Naty Abascal began dating Rafael Medina upon his return to Seville from New York
Upon returning to Seville, she Naty she picked up almost where she had left off. «I met Rafael Medina, who was my boyfriend before I went to America. And we started dating, and between whistles and flutes, to make a long story short, we ended up getting married». He had already gone through his own thing, as he was admitted to the Navarra clinic for a manic-depressive episode and saw how his commitment to Blanca Toro, daughter of a colonel friend of his father, was broken when the gifts from the wedding.
Be that as it may, the crush between Naty Abascal and Rafael Medina existed, although over time neither of them really spoke of falling in love. Their relationship was, shall we say, complicated. Not only because of his fragile mental health but because Naty had appeared practically N- in 'Playboy' and the Medinaceli family did not seem like a worthy bride. In the unpublished memoirs of the Duke of Feria published by 'Crónica', he recalled that moment.
"Naty told me: 'You don't dare to face your family, that's why you don't marry me.' So I went home and told my parents. I wasn't in love with her but I was impressed by her physical appearance, not anything else. Days before the wedding she wanted to turn me back, but it was too late. So I had two dry whiskeys and got married. In reality, I married Nati's family, who were endearing and united people who gave me all the love that I did not have at home ».
This crude story of his marriage to Naty Abascal was written in the worst situation of the Duke of Feria: during his stay in jail at the end of his life. Probably the bitterness of his circumstances intervened in the memory of him, so starkly. In any case, Naty did not fully enjoy her new life in Seville either, definitely away from the interesting New York bohemian who welcomed her with open arms.
"From bohemia to getting into Seville, imagine," Naty Abascal confessed to XL Semanal. “A very orderly life. I had the children. I would go to New York from time to time to see my friends and stay for a week, but then I had to come back to reality. I missed him a lot, but you don't have to be pessimistic, and he made the best of everything. I dedicated myself to taking care of the plants, in the house, and I gave lunches. A lot of people would come, and Bo Derek or Jane Seymour would suddenly appear. He was always moving people from outside ».
There were also trips and parties in Spain, of course. In the notes that he wrote as never-published memoirs, the Duke of Feria recalled some anecdotes, such as when on a trip to Cuba, Fidel Castro himself asked to meet Naty Abascal. The Duchess of Feria had to take a plane to Havana to occupy a box near Castro in the mandatory military parade. But Rafael Medina did not have Naty's temperament, so cheerful and not very formal.
Why Rafael Medina and Naty Abascal, Duke, and Duchess of Feria, broke their love
"Naty sometimes went too far," Medina wrote in his unpublished memoirs. «At a dinner at the American embassy, Minister Javier Solana passed a note to someone to call his attention because Nati was going too far. Even so, she has always managed to have a good image », he admitted.
Naty Abascal told another version of things. "The problem was that one day Rafael stopped being the charming person he was, and the one he had married me to," she told Hola. «And I'm not blaming him here, because I think, mentally he was not well. Deep down he was sick ».
We know how this story of love, seduction, or fascination ended: Naty Abascal met Ramón Mendoza, then president of Real Madrid, on a cruise, and the spark arose. They kissed on deck, even though he was with Jeannine Girod (who caught them) and she was still married. "A few days later they called me from Madrid to tell me that they had been seen together in Red Square in Moscow," said the Duke of Feria. "I asked for a separation."
