Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway were honored September 5 in their beloved Ronda, Spain, with monuments outside its historic bullring.
The work of sculptor Paco Seville Parra, the two 8-foot tall monuments are made from a stone called Arroyo del Toro.
The monuments with bronze reliefs were funded by Unicaja bank at cost of nearly $20,000.
On the Welles monument, the plaque reads:
“A MAN IS NOT FROM WHERE HE WAS BORN BUT WHERE HE CHOOSES TO DIE”
AND RONDA WAS CHOSEN, HE WANTED TO BE A “RONDENO” FOREVER.
HIS ASHES WERE DEPOSITED HERE, IN EL RECREO DE SAN CAYETANO.
FOR ETERNITY — RONDA 2015
The unveiling, which coincided with the celebration of Corrida Goyesca and Festival of Pedro Romero, was attended by numerous dignitaries, who lauded the artistic titans.
Malaga Council president Elijah Bendodo described Welles and Hemingway as great ambassadors for the region. “They fell in love of bullfighting and took the name of Ronda worldwide. ”
A street in Ronda is named the “Paseo de Orson Welles.” His ashes are buried at the Ronda country property of his close friend, the late legendary matador Antonio Ordoñez.
Hemingway is remembered for such novels as For Whom the Bell Tolls, which features a climactic scene inspired by real-life events that took place in Ronda during the Spanish Civil War. Hemingway also wrote the classic 1932 book on bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon, and his posthumously published The Dangerous Summer (1985), deals with the 1959 bullfight rivalry between Ordoñez and his brother-in-law Luis Miguel Dominguin.
Welles may have been inspired by those bullfights and Hemingway’s 1960 articles in Life magazine when he came to write The Sacred Beasts, which later became The Other Side of the Wind. The aborted It’s All True featured a segment on bullfighting, My Friend Bonito.
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