Pluto, Mickey Mouse's mascot, was also the loyal companion of his creator, the American cartoonist and film producer Walt Disney. Together they stayed at the El Fuerte hotel in Marbella and a then young bellboy, now retired, Pedro Guerrero, says to EFE that he took the dog for a walk on the beach every day.
In the spring of 1958, just a year after this establishment opened its doors for the first time, it received a visit from the illustrious filmmaker, one of the fathers of the American animation industry.
Pedro, who is now 83, was 16 years old at the time and, although almost seventy years have passed since then, he still vividly remembers the walks along the coast with Pluto and the “succulent” tips that Disney gave him for doing the task.
“It was a normal dog,” medium-sized and did not have floppy ears, he explains. “Now, the dog was the most polite thing in the world”, nothing like the mischievous Pluto on the screen, who made one mischief after another and gave Mickey Mouse a thousand and one headaches.
He would release him on the beach so that he could run and leave the leash in the sand, but “the dog would catch it with his mouth” and give it to him, it seemed – he comments smiling – “that he didn't want him to be dragged and that he had to go with him.” in the hand".
They stayed in room 208 - he points out - and he was in charge of going out daily with the famous dog. “I would take it to the beach and it would reach the fishermen's port.” At the end of the walk he would take him back and Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck's father would give him “a red ticket.”
Then, the young bellman took advantage of “the first order” that the receptionist gave him to run to give his mother the tip, and when the woman “saw the fifty pesetas – the red bill – she burst into tears,” because With that they had “three days to eat,” he says.
The year that Walt Disney was in Marbella, he stayed for a long week at the legendary El Fuerte hotel, and later he would move to a private residence on what is now known as The Golden Mile to continue his stay there.
That summer, Pedro would see the cartoonist several more times while he was in the city, since he was responsible for bringing him the correspondence that arrived at the hotel, he tells EFE, but then "he lost track of him."
“I rented a bicycle to take the letters to the chalet, but then he no longer gave me money, he invited me to eat,” he remembers. “And don't look at how I got, she gave me everything and, when I was fed up with food, I returned to the hotel.”
Walt Disney has not been the only illustrious guest of the iconic hotel, since during its more than six decades of activity numerous renowned figures such as Timothy Dalton, Peter Lorre, Rafael Alberti, Lola Flores and Vargas Llosa have stayed there, and today His photos decorate a gallery in the hotel, both a tribute and a memory.
It was even the setting for the filming of the film 'Holiday in Spain', starring actress Diana Dors, known as the British Marilyn Monroe, which caused a stir, since some of the scenes They took place on the beach, with the protagonist in a bikini, when in Spain it was not allowed and its use was considered indecorous.
After a renovation of more than 30 million euros directed by the Catalan interior designer Jaime Beriestain and 65 years after hosting the first guest, El Fuerte has reopened its doors in 2023 with “a renewed aesthetic, a great gastronomic proposal and converted into a five stars with 266 luxury rooms,” its director, María Antúnez, explains to EFE.
“It was the second important hotel in Marbella,” says its director. In recent years “it has rained a lot and always for the better,” and the establishment has gone through several renovations since it was founded by José Luque Manzano, a businessman who “wanted to always be up-to-date and that the hotel was always in the best condition,” he says.
Its current owners, his widow and children, have "that same mentality", something that in his opinion is very important, because "to satisfy customers, who are becoming more demanding every day, you have to invest."
