"A man with a woman is everything. Without one, he's not anything."
-- Antonio, Cosmopolitan, Jan. 94

BEFORE ANA HE WAS KING OF THE NIGHT

"In a relationship between man and woman I don't like that both surrender that much. When a history finishes, I like to retain a friendship instead of which there can be a conflict, and precisely that which made them a pair [is what] breaks the attachment. What I want of a person is to know that she is never going to demand anything of me. I need wide and open space." Antonio Banderas--1985

Even before Antonio went to Madrid, he had a reputation with the ladies. Miguel Gallego, a friend [also director of Dintel repetory group] said, "He had many girlfriends. He caused some rehearsals to be suspended because some of them were actresses and they had broken up or had a fight. Then he had to call off the rehearsal because of him falling in love." Hard Copy, summer of 1995

The story goes that romantic Antonio when still in Malaga was enthusiastic, hyperactive, obsessive, but inveterately fickle. His obsessions could last two seconds and then disappear. Then girlfriend Celia Trujillo, a member of Dintel who later followed Antonio to Madrid, says that after a month of dating each other, Antonio already wanted to get married.

During his early days in Madrid, Antonio gained a reputation as being "King of the Night". Antonio admits "I never went to bed before six or the seven in the morning, and you meet some very strange people, that would involve you in many things and mislead you a little."

One of the women Antonio dated in Madrid before he met Ana Leza was actress Eva Cobo (left). She was one of his co-stars in Matador.. She played a model Antonio's character Angel unsuccessfully tried to rape.

Ana Bandera, Antonio's mother, confirmed that her son "has had many girlfriends," He'd come home Holy Week to Malaga accompanied by one of his girlfriends. "He had a time that he dated a lot; He'd say 'We'll go out to dinner to see if they got along. But actually, he always looked for the permanent, to get married and formalize his life."

Until he did the play Edward II in 1984 and started earning his own way, any "formal" relationship would have been impractical. But after a while, he got a bit tired of his lifestyle.

In 1987, Antonio's life would make a dramatic change just when he was looking for something more...

ANA LEZA

"I've had success with the girls. I admit that I'm a romantic--sometimes this worries me, because I'm not sure if the rest of the world is on the same wavelength. And I'm quick to recognize love when I see it. For example, four days after I met my future wife [actress Ana Leza], I knew we'd get married. I was so much in the habit of going through relationships quickly, though, that people gave our marriage a year at most. We've now been married five years. Am I faithful? My English is still not so good. What does that word mean?" -- Antonio -Cosmopolitan, December, 1993

"People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall... Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we've had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people...Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever... "
the character Anne Edwards, married to the same man for 45 years from The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. (Antonio is set to play Jesuit priest Emilio Sandoz in the movie adaptation)

"Obviously, I loved my wife. And I said in front of the priest, 'Yes, I do.' I did that. But life changes for everybody. I'm not inventing anything. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life justifying myself. If people think I am a bad guy because I did what I did, that's fine. What am I gonna do! Go house by house explaining this is why I divorced her! Everybody has problems in their houses. Life is like that." [Antonio - GQ]

That people change is certainly the case with Antonio Banderas and Ana Leza. The slightly erronerous conclusion is that Antonio is the one who did all the changing. While their relationship was never the fodder for the tabloids that Antonio's relationship with Melanie Griffith became, nevertheless, people have made enough conflicting observations from "before" and "after" to foster the hypothesis that Ana, rather than Antonio, was the individual that might have changed the most. And that is not offered as a criticism. Her change was not necessarily a negative one, but rather one from practicality to spirtuality, from focusing her life energy on Antonio's career goals to her own personal growth. While these are estimable in themselves, for the marriage to continue to be a living, working relationship, it would require a corresponding, complimentary change in Antonio. While Antonio may have been mentally tolerant of the changes, they may have caused him personal distress as they impacted on his traditional, Catholic upbringing and his own perceived needs and goals. Communication was the basic glue that held them together. Without it, the marriage lost its relevance.

It is only logical that Ana Leza's apostasy from the Catholic Church in favor of the teaching of Buddhism was a factor in the couple's alienation. Antonio's mother described the religious roots of her sons in Tan Solo un Actor: "The children the have been inculcated with the matters of God, but at the bottom they are sustained by their faith, their religion, their relationship with the Malagueña brotherhoods . Because ours has never been a fanatic thing, but a religion very much of the popular type, like what we have in Andalucia." That Antonio is in his own way traditionally religious is verified by his devotion to Semana Santa and his naming his daughter after the Virgin del Carmen, to whom he claims devotion. We live in a society that celebrates freedom of religious expression so sometimes we don't recognize how divisive religious differences can be when they occur suddenly within a family.

ANA LEZA AND ANTONIO TOGETHER

Antonio and Ana met each other in Madrid either through a common friend in a bar on Infanta Street or in a coffee shop under the National Theatre (Buzz) in February, 1987. Antonio said of the meeting in Buzz, November, 1994 :" She saw the play I was doing (by Lorca), and she loved it. And we started talking and talking, and we have been eight years talking now. We never stopped talking." [Pretty ironic in retrospect]

Ana, five years younger than Antonio, is the daughter of the actress Concha Leza . At the time she met Antonio, she was alternating her fine arts studies with her career as a theatrical actress, in the company of Nuria Espert.

There were those who considered the marriage precipitate and unwise, but nevertheless on July 27th,1987 after just six months of courtship, Antonio Banderas and Ana Leza married at the Church of San Nicolas, with witnesses Carmen Maura, Antonio's co-star in a number of films, and Pedro Almodovar. The wedding banquet was celebrated at the Ritz Hotel.

"Truthfully, I wanted to celebrate, and the best way that I found was with a white wedding, with flowers, and in the Ritz, a hotel which has always declined to put up actors," said Antonio.

Left: An early photo of Antonio and Ana . Above: Ana with Carmen Maura in Women on the Verge. It's interesting to spot Ana in various Antonio movies such as Mambo Kings, Of Love and Shadows, and Philadelphia. Her name varies in credits.

Within acting circles there was gossip about the marriage. They said that she was not the ideal person for a successful actor . Deja vu. Eight years later they would say similar things about Melanie Griffith.

Ana ignored the gossips . "Antonio" -- she said after a couple of years -- "is a searcher; simply he went in search of that which he didn't have, when he was up to no good . Also, I believe that there is something of machismo in the idea of believing someone a rogue. I think that it also happens that when somebody so well-liked with such potential for fascination decides to get married, the result is incomprehensible and inadequate. Some prefer to think that it has not happened, that it could not be true. That occurred in our case, they didn't want it, and they therefore searched for complicated explanations that justified the wedding. I have waited two years and a half to be accustomed to the idea that it doesn't matter that I don't seem to them the right person; in reality, the right woman doesn't exist for somebody so desired."

Ana met Antonio at a time when he was ready to re-evaluate and clean up his lifestyle. Now somewhat financially secure, he could think and plan for a future rather than having to live only in the present.

For seven years, Antonio Banderas and Ana Leza appeared as the model marriage . Ana Leza, never actually stopped being an actress, but she dedicated the greater part of her time and efforts to help Antonio in his career. Ana was described as the cautious person that balanced the life and the career of Antonio.

"Our meeting" Antonio said "made another type of life much more sensible. Ana and I corresponded in many ways. She is very critical with me and with all my facets, which I will thank her for all my life. She's very dedicated to me, and I realized a long time ago that I awake in the morning because I hanker to be with my wife. She is my motor. I have put my feet on the earth because I was confused."

Cosmopolitan, January,1994 had the following from Antonio: "Since I met Anita I'm happier, a much better man. Six years ago before we were married, I thought I was happy, but I really was just unconscious, crazy, having a good time with my friends in Madrid. ..."I don't want us to bring children into the world if we're not prepared for it. I don't want to be traveling and shuttling them around on planes all the time. They deserve better than that." [He obviously changed his mind about this]

Cosmo said Antonio was comfortable telling Anita even his darkest secrets. "It can be painful, especially if I behave bad, but fortunately I don't have much time to behave bad."

Both Arne Glimcher (Mambo Kings) and Fernando Trueba (Two Much) agreed that Ana Leza exercised an important role in Antonio's life, especially in helping Antonio learn English.

"Ana was his worldly support because Antonio was a more volatile being. Antonio is a candid person, of contrasts, ethereal, almost angelical." Antonio, in statements of 1993 recognized that "I would be diminished without Ana, as if I was lacking an arm or a leg."

If anyone had any doubt of the devotion that Antonio and Ana had for each other, Antonio's refusal of Madonna's advances in the documentary Truth or Dare seemed to confirm it. Ted Cassablanca of Premiere Magazine said that Ana sympathized with Madonna by the following comment to the Material Girl:

"Darling, I know you love my husband, but, I LOVE my husband.!"

Continued in Antonio and Ana Apart