Marta Chávarri Figueroa passed away early yesterday due to a heart attack, at her home in Madrid. On August 1, she would have turned 63 years old. The name of the mother of Álvaro Falcó, Marquis of Cubas, and married to Isabelle Junot, will barely ring a bell for the new generations, since Chávarri lived withdrawn from public life for almost 30 years. But during the eighties she was the woman most desired by the tabloids, she even jumped to the economic one, and she starred in media scandals that took a toll on her personally and emotionally. Possessing class and elegance, she was an it girl, long before this expression began to become popular, setting trends with an iconic style that is still current today.
The last images of her are from a month ago, from June 14, when the media at the door of her house asked her about her granddaughter Philippa, born two days before. She thanked her for her congratulations, said that everything had gone very well and that the little girl was beautiful. The consequences of the spectacular domestic accident that she suffered in her house 10 years ago and that forced her to operate on her jaw and eye were evident. As a result, she was left with a certain facial paralysis, her emotional fragility increased - she always left her house accompanied by her - and she had severe headaches.
But if the last times he has been seen has been a month ago, and before, at the wedding of his only son, on April 2, 2022, in the Mirabel Palace, in Plasencia, his appearance in the tabloids was precisely in that same place 40 years before. On June 2, 1982, at the age of 21, she became the Marquise of Cubas by marrying Fernando Falcó, who was twice her age, and brother of the Marquis de Griñón, married to Isabel Preysler. Marta Chávarri, for her part, was the eldest granddaughter of the Marquis of Santo Floro. Her parents were the diplomat Tomás Chávarri and Matilde Figueroa, sister of Natalia, wife of Raphael. Two years before getting married, Marta and her four siblings lost her mother to a stroke.
After her wedding, Marta became the favorite character on couché paper. Her hair and her highlights were the most demanded in hairdressers. Her daily image is summed up in tight pants, a shirt or turtleneck, a jacket, and her sunglasses. And in summer she enhanced her silhouette with tanned skin, swimsuits, a T-shirt and shorts. Her social ascent included the title of Lady Spain 1988, which the previous year had gone to the Duchess of Alba. The gala was held in August at the Ku nightclub in Eivissa and among the guests was one of the businessmen of the moment, Alberto Cortina, married to one of the richest women in Spain, Alicia Koplowitz.
Chavarri and Cortina then began a clandestine relationship that came to light in February of the following year when Diez minutos caught them leaving a hotel in Vienna. Those photos shook the financial world, as the Albertos (Cortina and his cousin Alberto Alcocer) were about to merge the Central Bank with Banesto, an operation in which the money of their wives, the Koplowitz sisters, was involved. And two weeks later, Interviú magazine published some photos of Marta Chávarri sitting in a disco in which it was seen that she was not wearing underwear, only pantyhose. It was the result of blackmailing Cortina into renouncing the merger.
In 1991 Chávarri and Cortina got married. She won the life of a multimillionaire, but withdrawn from the public spotlight, and without the marquisate or custody of her son. In 1995 the couple divorced and Marta later had several sentimental relationships with Philippe Junot (now the father of her son's wife), Javier Salaverri (for 5 years) or the artist Richard Hudson. She, but she, has always remained away from the media spotlight: “I stopped going to parties and moved away from the spotlight because I couldn't stand fame or the press. It was unbearable. Popularity doesn't compensate me, I don't want any leading role. I already had it and I ended up fed up, that's why I retired", she confessed to Vanity Fair in an interview in 2011. Now she lived withdrawn but with a full family life with the support of her sisters, and her son, who yesterday at the funeral home said: "We are all destroyed".
