Early life king
Alfonso XIII, ca. 1929 Portago was born in
London, and lived between
Madrid and
Biarritz. He became articulate in four languages, and spoke English with a distinctive British accent. Olga's first husband, Frank MacKey, who was more than 40 years older than she was, shot himself while terminally ill and left Olga an enormous fortune ($500 million) made as founder of
Household Finance Corp. Portago was a first cousin of
Vicente Sartorius, 4th Marquess of Mariño as well as
José Luis de Vilallonga, 9th Marquess of Castellbell. Portago was dark-haired and had freckles and blue eyes. He was 1.83 m (6 ft) tall and weighed 77 kg (170 Ibs). He famously won a bet at the age of 17 when he flew his plane beneath
London Tower Bridge. He participated twice in the
Grand National Steeplechase at
Aintree as a
gentleman jockey, although he found keeping his weight down to be a struggle.
Bobsleigh He also was a
bobsleigh runner, recruiting several cousins in order to form Spain's first bobsleigh team for the
1956 Winter Olympic Games in
Cortina d'Ampezzo. He had had only two or three practice runs in Switzerland before buying a pair of sleds. With Portago steering, the two-man bob finished fourth to the surprise of the traditional teams, missing out on a medal by 0.16 seconds. in a crash during
that year's Mille Miglia, in a straight road section between
Cerlongo and
Guidizzolo, in the communal territory of
Cavriana A tire blew on Portago's third-place
Ferrari 335 S causing it to spin into the crowd lining the highway. He was travelling at . The 335 hurtled over a canal on the left side of the road, then veered back across the canal, causing the deaths of nine onlookers in total. A photograph dubbed "
The Kiss of Death" shows Portago kissing actress
Linda Christian at a stop just before his fatal crash. As T.C. Browne wrote, "The inevitable happened when Alfonso [...] de Portago stopped alongside the course, ran to the fence, kissed Linda Christian, ran back to his Ferrari and drove on to his destiny, killing himself, his co-driver, 10 spectators, and the Mille Miglia". Once Portago commented, "I won't die in an accident. I'll die of old age or be executed in some gross miscarriage of justice". Nelson countered this assertion, saying Portago would not live to be 30. According to Nelson, "every time Portago comes in from a race the front of his car is wrinkled where he has been nudging people out of the way at 130 mph (210 km/h)". ==Legacy==