Trivia

Was of Cuban-American ancestry

Former son-in-law of Juscelino Kubitschek, who was a former president of Brazil.

He began studying ballet at 6 in Havana, Cuba but his later training continuing at age 9 was in the USA.

One of the first American born male dancers to become an international ballet super star and the first American to win the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria. He was also especially cited for "highest technical achievement".

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 56-57.Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.

He became the artistic director of The Ballet Mississippi in 1993 and remained until the company folded due to bankruptcy (specific lack of funding). In 1999, he was invited to take the position of the artistic director of Southern Ballet Theater in Orlando and where he was employed until he died.

It was his idea to re-christen the Southern Ballet Theatre to the Orlando Ballet.

The Orlando Ballet announced in September of 2005 that Fernando was taking a three-month leave to be treated for "lung cancer". But said the final diagnosis was "metastatic melanoma".

In the summer of 1974, the great Russkie danseur Mikhail Baryshnikov defected at nearly the same time as Bujones won his ballet Olympics medal, overshadowing the young American's accomplishment.

He danced with personally with Dame Margot Fonteyn, Natalia Makarova, Carla Fracci, Cynthia Gregory, Marcia Haydée, Gelsey Kirkland, and Marianna Tcherkassky.

New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff wrote that Mr. Bujones was "the greatest American classical dancer of his generation".

He was the cover boy of the December 1979 issue of "Dance Magazine".