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Gala Dali was born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova on Sept. 7, 1894, in Kazan, Russia, to a family of intellectuals. After the death of her father, her mother remarried, and the family moved to Moscow. In 1913, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland, where she met her first husband, French poet Paul Eluard. Gala fell madly in love with Eluard, and in 1916, amid World War I, she moved to Paris to marry him. She gave birth to their daughter Cecile in 1918.

 

In 1929, the couple met Salvador Dali, a Surrealist painter, in Spain. Although he was 10 years her junior there was an immediate attraction between them. Gala abandoned her husband and daughter to marry Dali in a civil ceremony in 1934. After a special dispensation from the Pope, they remarried in a Catholic ceremony in 1958. There were no children from their marriage, which was what Dali and Gala saw as an ideal union.

Gala was often referred to as Dali’s one and only muse – the one who saved him from madness and early death. She frequently appeared as a model in Dali’s work. She also was Dali’s agent and often was accused of as being ruthless and materialistic. There were rumors of her extramarital affairs, among them was her first husband, Eluard. Despite everything, Gala and Dali remained devoted to one another until the day she died. She always had believed that Dali was a genius and did whatever she could to promote his career.

 

Gala died June 10, 1982, at the age of 88. After her death, Dali moved to the Castle of Pubol, which he bought and decorated for her many years earlier. Gala not only was his wife, she was his muse, and when she was gone, he lost all interest in art and ultimately, the will to live. Dali died January 23, 1989, and was buried in his museum in Figueras, Spain.

Luis Buñuel was born on Feb. 22, 1900, to Leonardo Buñuel and María Portolés in Calanda, Spain. He was the eldest of seven children. Buñuel was educated at the Jesuit school Colegio del Salvador in Zaragoza. He received a strict religious education, but eventually was expelled. He continued his schooling at the University of Madrid and lived in the Residencia de Estudiantes with some of the newest and freshest intellectuals from across Europe. It was while living there that he met Salvador Dali and Federico García Lorca.

After his father’s death in 1925, Buñuel moved to Paris.  While there, he met and fell in love with Jeanne Rucar. They married and had two sons, Rafael and Juan Luis.  In 1929, using money given to him by his mother, Buñuel and Dali collaborated to create the Surrealist film Un Chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog). Un Chien andalou was a mere 17 minutes long, yet it remains one of the most analyzed films in the history of Surrealist movies.

If gossip rags and tabloids had been as widely available in the 1920s and 1930s as they are today, no doubt Salvador Dali would have featured prominently in them. Based solely on what little snippets we have of Dali’s private life, there is ample fodder for speculation and scandal. Headlines such as “Surreal Artist has Surreal Sex Life!” or “Dali Caught in Scandalous Threesome! – With Wife!” would have blazed across the headlines. Quotes from unidentified “friends” would corroborate the outlandish claims: “Oh, I know of a young actress he disrobed for. She thought he was going to paint her portrait, but instead he made her have sex with a stranger!” “Oh yes! He even brings sailors home for Gala!” “Dali hates to be touched, but he likes to watch.”

 

There is much fuel for the imagination, but little evidence to prove what friends, and even Dali himself, have said about the artist’s private life. Most of what has been printed comes from undocumented sources, and the truth is shrouded in thinly veiled comments and whispered asides, brief mentions in biographies and hints in interviews. But there is nothing concrete, no smoking gun, left behind to confirm what was widely accepted as sexually deviant behavior on Dali’s part.

 

What we do know does create a picture of a man who had an intense dislike of physical contact and a very warped sense of sexuality. Dali claimed in his biography, Being Salvador Dali that his mother performed fellatio on him as a child, thus putting him off sex for life, and that he physically assaulted a young woman for touching his feet. He also published a series of articles in 1929 describing such obscene fantasies as sodomizing his sister and eating feces, although the possibility that he was making all of it up has gone widely unacknowledged. Dali’s habit of excess simply for the sake of being outrageous may have played a significant role in the artist’s wild writings.

Salvador Dali was an exhibitionist who loved to embellish his stories. When it comes to his mother, there were several conflicting theories about their relationship. Did she sexually abuse him when he was young? Or as a known exhibitionist, was it merely another one of his ploys to get everyone’s attention?

Felipa Domenech Ferres, Dali’s mother, met his father, Salvador Dali Cusi, when she was 26 years old. She was described as a demure and a pretty Barcelona girl. As a first child in the family, she had worked at her mother’s handicraft shop since she was very young. Felipa was always skilled with her fingers and drew very well. The two met in Chabrils, a village north of the city, while Salvador was on holiday at the summer villa. They were married shortly after they met, on Dec. 29, 1900, in Barcelona. Felipa settled into their new home in Figueres after their honeymoon, already pregnant with their first son, Salvador Dali.

Unfortunately, the first Salvador Dali didn’t live for very long. He died of gastroenteritis when he was barely 2 years old. Even at such a young age, his genius was already apparent, and his death traumatized Felipa, who was a devout Catholic. 

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