The Queen of Spain honours Antonio Banderas for his Costa del Sol charity work

Oscar de la Renta, Hillary Clinton, Queen Sofía of Spain and Antonio Banderas at the New York awards ceremony

Málaga-born Antonio Banderas is of course no stranger to receiving awards, but last week when he received the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Gold Medal at a New York gala held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, it wasn’t in honour of his A-List status as one of Hollywood’s most bankable male leads, nor for his success as a film director, film producer and singer…

No, this time it was in recognition of the actor’s unstinting philanthropic works on the Costa del Sol, where he and his wife Melanie Griffith are generous supporters of the Benalmádena-based CUDECA Cancer Hospice – founded in 1992 by British expat Joan Hunt, OBE and whose operation relies entirely on donations – while Antonio Banderas is also the president of the Lágrimas y Favores Foundation which supports financially needy Andalusian university students.

Hosted by fashion designer Oscar de la Renta and presided over by Spain’s Queen Sofía – who said Banderas was “a firm defender of the country’s interests and, especially, the intensification of relations between the United States and Spain” – former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also awarded a Gold Medal during the ceremony, in recognition of the former First Lady’s contribution to ties between the US and Spanish-speaking countries, as well as her commitment to Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus’ micro-lending initiative. Having jointly presided with Hillary Clinton over the first micro-lending summit in the US in 1997, it was clearly a subject close to the Queen’s heart.

Award-winning Antonio Banderas – who also this year has been appointed ‘Ambassador of the Spanish Brand’ – received his Gold Medal from the hands of fellow actor Michael Douglas, who joked about the fact that it was on the set of Banderas’s iconic ‘Mask of Zorro’ that he first clapped eyes on his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones. Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, was presented with her Gold Medal by Henry Kissinger, who wished her “the greatest success in her future endeavours”.

Founded in 1954 as the Spanish Institute to promote greater awareness and understanding of the culture of the Spanish-speaking world in the United States, the New York-based organisation was renamed in November 2003 for Queen Sofia.

Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith – who despite their busy schedules make a point of visiting Málaga each year so he can join his Lágrimas y Favores (Tears and Favours) brotherhood taking part in the Easter processions – own a beachside villa in Marbella. Their 17-year-old daughter, Stella del Carmen, was born at the resort’s Costa del Sol Hospital in 1996.