ORDONEZ, ANTONIO

born Feb. 16, 1932, Ronda, Spain died Dec. 19, 1998, Seville in full Antonio Jimnez Ordnez Araujo Spanish bullfighter, generally considered to be the first-ranked torero of the 1950s and '60s. Antonio Ordez was the son of Cayetano Ordez, called Nio de la Palma, who was the prototype for Pedro Romero, the matador in Ernest Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway is said to have ranked the son even higher than the father. Carrying on the tradition, Antonio's grandson, Francisco Rivera Ordez, became a matador in 1996; he was the son of Paquirri, who was killed by a bull in Poziblanco, Spain, in 1984. Antonio Ordez became a matador in 1951 and fought more than 2,000 bulls until his retirement in 1971. He was married to the sister of his greatest rival in the arenas, Domingun. In 1959 Hemingway chronicled their ongoing competition in a series of articles for Life magazine that was later published as The Dangerous Summer (1985).