George Mathias
OLIVIA VALERE, known as the queen of Marbella nightlife, has died aged 75.
The French businesswoman had been battling stomach cancer for the past year and she was transferred to Paris after her condition had significantly worsened two weeks ago.
Valere was a stalwart on the Marbella party scene, with her eponymous club frequented by a raft of A-list celebrities over the years such as Sean Connery, Prince, and Julio Iglesias.
Valere worked in PR for the French Senate in her 20s before opening her first nightclub in the French capital in 1981.
She fell in love with Marbella after her first visit, and opened club Olivia Valere in 2000 in Puerto Banus, where it quickly cemented itself as a VIP hotspot amidst the ‘golden age’ of Marbella.
She is survived by her husband Philippe Valere, a lawyer who she was married to for fifty years, and her three children, Karen and Arnaud, and Xavier.
She once described her love of Marbella to El Pais, saying: “Everyone who comes to Marbella dreams of returning. Here life is easy and you know that every morning the sun is going to shine.”
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