Antonio himself has admitted:

"I never was a simple boy, because I was good and bad at the same time. I had two faces. I have always been capable of living in two worlds with much ease."

Antonio the mischief-maker:

A famous quote from
   Arne Glimcher, director of the Mambo Kings;

"There isn't a woman, man, child or domestic animal that doesn't fall in love with him."

He can also be highly competitive, willing to take on challenges of all kinds as the young Amazon at the right discovered. [This was before Antonio had learned to rely on his charm with older women].

"He was a very mischievous and restless boy," the older sister of his mother remembers. On more than one occasion he gave a fright to his aunt, like the day that he burnt his hand with boiling oil.

Antonio's mother is not so untractable, but even so, she had her trials.

His brother Javier suffered an attack of infantile rheumatism, for which his mother administered antibiotics by syringe. A budding entrepreneur, Antonio started a small business at the seminary [his school]. He sold the syringes to fellow students! One day, his mother says, "The priests call me, afraid, to ask me for the syringes of my child. The priests believed that it was a more complicated matter. That it was being used for drugs. But no. Not that at all." So for what was the syringes used ? Would you believe make-shift water pistols?

Antonio recognizes and accepts the duality in himself. As an adolescent, he also began to discern the duality between his Malagueño family life and the world outside. In this discovery he was inspired by Demian by Herman Hesse. " He started from that moment to try to control, with different methods, both of his worlds."