Irma Capece Minutolo

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Donna Irma Capece Minutolo (born 6 August 1935) is an Italian former opera singer who was one of the last companions of King Farouk I of Egypt. In recent years, she has claimed to have been the king's last wife.

[edit] Family

She was born in Naples, Italy, reportedly a daughter of Don Augusto Capece Minutolo of the Princes of Canosa, an old Neapolitan family.

[edit] Declaration of marriage to King Farouk I

In 2005, in an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Capece Minutolo, said that she married Farouk "in the Islamic tradition" when she was 16 and that she is writing a memoir of her life as the king's wife.[4]

Reputable published sources such as Time magazine indicate that Capece Minutolo was born in 1935, which would place her supposed marriage at the age of 16 in 1951, which is unlikely, since that is same year that the king married, as his second wife, Narriman Sadek.

Capece Minutolo also has stated that she and Farouk had been married, at the time of his death in 1965, for a total of eight years, which would mean that the purported ceremony took place in 1957.^[1] However, in 1960, Time, described the singer as the former king's "one conspicuous indulgence: buxom, blonde Irma Capece Minuto [sic}, his on-again-off-again sweetheart, whom Farouk may marry sometime."^[2] She further has stated that she was 24 when Farouk died, in 1965, which would place her birth year as 1941. In February 1954, however, the same month that King Farouk and Queen Narriman divorced, Time referred to the singer as the King's "latest collector's item" and gave her age as 18, which would place her birth in 1935, given her birthday (6 August).^[3]

Capece Minutolo's claim to have married the exiled Egyptian monarch has not been substantiated.

[edit] References

1. ^ Samia Nkrumah, "Thrice-Married Man?", Al-Ahram Weekly, 17-23 March 2005 [1]
2. ^ Time, 5 December 1960 [2]
3. ^ "The Fond Collector", 22 February 1954 [3]