Manolete

Soon, Manolete was said to be worth the equivalent of $37 million in today’s dollars and to command fees equivalent to $160,000 for a single afternoon.

But Manolete’s manager had told him to stop mimicking the garish, balletic style of bullfighting that was popular at the time and taught him, instead, to leverage his rail-thin build and natural demeanor into something statelier.

It gave the impression that Manolete was hardly bothering, committed to a minimum of strain.

Asked by a reporter why he didn’t smile more, Manolete replied, “This business of the bulls is a very serious thing.”

Once, during a fight in Mexico City, Manolete was gored in the leg, and as the medics carried him away, someone asked him why he stood his ground when even the crowd recognized how erratically the bull was behaving and yelled for him to fall back.