MADRID, Spain.- In July 1937, in full Spanish Civil War, Alfonso de Borbón y Battenberg, Count of Covadonga, married Marta Esther Rocafort y Altuzarra, a Cuban model who dazzled him with her beauty, according to history.
Marta Rocafort, born in Havana in 1913, was the daughter of the renowned dentist Blas Manuel Rocafort and his wife Rogelia Altuzarra y Carbonell. The young woman met the Count of Covadonga, formerly the Prince of Asturias, in New York, a city where she was working as a haute couture model at the age of just 20.
Alfonso de Borbón left his wife at the time, the also Cuban Edelmira Sampedro y Robato, and only two months after the divorce he married Marta Rocafort.
The luxurious wedding was held in Havana, in the presence of the then President of Cuba, Federico Laredo Bru.
However, the marriage only lasted a few months. Marta Rocafort could not hold the title of Countess of Covandonga since Edelmira Sampedro was authorized to retain it.
After the separation, Marta Rocafort settled in the United States, where she contracted a second marriage, this time with the American millionaire Thomas EH “Tommy” Atkins, Jr., whom she also soon divorced. The wedding had taken place at the Central Baptist Church in Miami on March 19, 1938.
Her third marriage was with Rodolfo “Fofo” Caballero.
Marta Rocafort died in Miami in 1993, at the age of 80.
Receive information from CubaNet on your cell phone through WhatsApp. Send us a message with the word “CUBA” on the phone +525545038831, You can also subscribe to our electronic newsletter by giving click here.
