Celia Cruz Biography, Sister, Husband, Family, Life, Death & Funeral

Posted by Merlyn Hunt on Saturday, May 4, 2024

A Cuban-American singer, Celia Cruz had gone on to become one of the most recognized and influential Latin artists of her time when it came to music. Several years after her death, the recipient of the National Medal of Arts is still a very important person. Here’s everything you want to know about her.

Biography of Celia Cruz

It was as Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso that the singer was born on October 25, 1925 in Havana, Cuba. She was raised by her parents, Simón Cruz and Catalina Alfonso as one of 4 biological siblings and many other cousins ​​and extended family members.

For her education, the girl who was to becomeinfluence many people with her singing went to the National Conservatory of Music in Havana. Prior to this, she was attending teacher school hoping that she would end up as a literature teacher by the time she was done. Nonetheless, she found her way after winning a singing competition and she was advised by people like her teacher and long before, her aunt to pursue music as a career.

Also called La Guarachera de Cuba, CeliaCruz began her official music career in the 1940s with a few early recordings she made, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that she really got the attention she deserved. Well Named. This was after she became part of La Sonora Matancera as the lead vocalist.

In the early 1960s she was already in the United States, where she settled in New York. She would go on to sing and rise to fame as a salsa queen.

She had many songs and albums such as Incomparable Celia (1958), Azucar Negra (1993), Celia Cruz and Friends: A Salsa Night (1999), and many others. His last works before his death were Non reproducible (2002), Homenaje a Beny Moré (2003), as well as Regalo del Alma (2003) and Dios defie la Reina (2004) which were released after his death.

Apart from music, the queen of salsa also had roles in a number of films such as Salón México (1950), Amorcito Corazon (1960)Fires Inside (1991) and The Perez Family (1995 ). ), among other documentaries.

Thanks to her musical career which has been successful by almost any definition, she has won numerous awards, including six Grammy Awards, the last two of which were for Best Salsa Album (2004) for her. Regalo del Alma as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016. In 1994, she was honored by US President Bill Clinton with the National Medal of Arts. It should be noted that although by birth she was not a US citizen, she was granted US citizenship in 1961.

Her family, husband and sister

As stated, the singer was raised in a very big way alongside his parents, immediate and extended family members. Among 14 other children, she was one of the eldest, as such she naturally became very responsible very early in life. His immediate siblings were Dolores Ramos, Gladys Bécquer and Bárbaro Jiménez.

His sister, Gladys Bécquer would go on after her death, to sue her husband and others for fraud, claiming they had denied her the share she had in the insurance money left to her by her late older sister.

Speaking of her husband, Celia was married to Pedro Knight Caraballo in 1962. The two would stay together until his death in 2003. Pedro Knight who was also a musician was her husband as well as her manager. Although they would spend the next 41 years together, the couple would have no children together.

He died in 2007 after suffering from diabetes. Before his death 4 years after his wife, he suffered from a stroke and dementia.

Life, death and funeral of Celia Cruz

Popular for her unique sparkling dressing style, the salsa queen bowed to death in 2003 following complications after brain cancer surgery. In December 2002, she underwent surgery to remove a brain tumor, after which she resumed her music.

On July 16, 2003, however, she could not survive a complication after an operation, which led to her death after a good life.

His funeral saw more than 200,000 people come to pay their last respects after numerous vigils held in various parts of the world, including the United States, Colombia and Cuba. She was buried in a mausoleum in New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery, where Pedro Knight would join her less than 5 years later.

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