There, Romero lived at his uncle's house on the Calle de la Cruz, a narrow little laneway that was cold and damp.

Necessity, of course, forced him to go out to work as a shepherd, watching over cows, sheep, and swine on Gonzalo Queipo de Llano's cortijo, which lay on the River Guadalquivir.

[6] It was during Romero's time at this farm, though, listening to the "olés" that reached him from the bullring in Seville on windy days (the Maestranza was less than 3 km away), when he found his true calling, and the "bullfighting games" that he played at home, before the mirror, with whatever cloth or rag he could find, may well have set him on the path to what he would soon become.

[6] Romero's path into bullfighting was afforded him by his paternal grandmother, María, who knew a pharmacist in nearby Seville, named Dr. Maravillas Bocio.

[6] Romero's first experience in tauromachy came at the age of thirteen when he found himself before a heifer belonging to Don Juan Conradi's bull farm.

Romero's début at the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid came on 18 July 1957, with bulls supplied by the Alipio Pérez-Tabernero ranch; Adolfo Aparicio and Vázquez II were also on the bill for this appearance.

[5] On 23 January 1960, Romero had his début in Latin America's bullrings when he appeared at Manizales, Colombia, alternating with Luis Miguel Dominguín and Pepe Cáceres.

It was Saint Isidore's Fair (Feria de San Isidro), a major bullfighting celebration, and Romero refused to slay one of the bulls from the Cortijoliva ranch that had been presented to him, claiming that it had already been fought.

[7] On 30 August 1985, Romero was to appear at the Colmenar Viejo bullring, but withdrew for medical reasons, leading the organizers to appoint José Cubero Sánchez instead.

After two "fantastic" faenas, the people there lifted him onto their shoulders and bore him out through the Prince's Gate, without him ever even cutting any ears off the bulls that he had slain.

The dawn of pure bullfighting...", and also "Curro Romero came to the Seville Fair and the elf[note 2] came with him, hidden in the bewitched cape, in the muleta.

[13] With roughly 900 corridas fought in his career,[14] Romero bid farewell to the bullrings at a festival held in La Algaba, Seville, on 22 October 2000, at which he cut three ears.

[7][15][16] Nevertheless, the last time when he donned the suit of lights was in Murcia, on 10 September 2000, a corrida at which he alternated with Julián López El Juli and Pepín Jiménez, fighting bulls supplied by the Luis Algarra ranch.

[17] Romero's professional career has been one of the longest ever known, alternating between epic afternoons and the greatest failures, and, as with José Gómez Ortega and Juan Belmonte, dividing fandom between those aficionados who thought he could do no wrong (curristas), and those who never had a kind word for him (anticurristas).

[7] He is a recognized follower of Real Betis Balompié and was a friend of the flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla.

[6] On 3 March 2001, a jury made up of reporters and bullfighting fans included Romero in its list of the 20th century's ten most important bullfighters; he shares this list with the following practitioners of tauromachy: José Gómez "Joselito", Pepe Luis Vázquez, Juan Belmonte, Domingo Ortega, Manolete, Antonio Bienvenida, Antonio Ordóñez, Paco Camino, and El Viti.

[20] In a ruling in a labour dispute, the magistrate Don Santiago Romero, president of the Chamber of Social Matters of the Superior Tribunal of Justice of Andalusia, defined "Currism" (or currismo in Spanish) as "a feeling that is undoubtedly and notoriously altruistic in favour of the bullfighter, deep and rooted like no other, creator of a permanent illusion, of unconditional hope and of a way of understanding life.

"[21] After his first wife's death on 18 October 2021,[18] Romero could marry Carmen Tello with the Church's blessing, and did so in the chapel at the Casa de Pilatos on 18 December 2022.