Who Is The Duchess Of Alba? Spain's Hippest Aristocrat Hits Hollywood!
Dec. 14 2011, Published 5:00 a.m. ET
By Debbie Emery - Breaking Celebrity News Reporter
From rubbing shoulders with the royals in Europe, to standing side-by-side on the red carpet with Tom Cruise, the eccentric Duchess of Alba sure is one busy 85-year-old.
While she has been rocketed into the celebrity spotlight since her relationship to ‘boy toy’ civil servant Alfonso Díez, 61, hit the headlines, the Duchess has been a well-known figure in social circles across the continent for decades, and Breaking Celebrity News has the low down on the roving royal.
Born at Spain's Liria Palace in March 1926, Maria del Rosario Cayetana Alfonso Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y Silva, is the only child of the 17th Duke of Alba and the goddaughter to the Queen of Spain.
Now head of the House of Alba, she has over 40 titles - more than anyone else in the world, according to the Guinness Book Of Records.
The Duchess' first high-profile marriage came in 1947 to Don Pedro Luis Martínez de Irujo y Artázcoz and was considered to the last great feudal wedding in Spain after being dubbed by the New York Times, "the most expensive wedding of the world."
The couple welcomed six children during their 25-year marriage, many of which hit the headlines in their own right, including a son who was a riding champion and a daughter who married a bull-fighter.
After her husband's death, the widow wed a former Jesuit priest, Jesús Aguirre y Ortiz de Zárate, in a union that shocked both her nation and the church, because of his rel