Just what was the appeal? Levy, the author of Rat Pack Confidential and the film critic for the Portland Oregonian, makes a fairly convincing case that the Rubi magic came down to a combination of charm, mystique and, quite possibly, physical attributes, not limited to Rubi's darkly handsome features. (Levy writes that cheeky waiters referred to the largest pepper-mill in the house as "the Rubirosa.") Rubirosa spoke five languages, three of them fluently. His dress and his manners were impeccable, his appetite for women stupendous. He preferred that they be rich and beautiful, but in a pinch, anything with curves would do: the hat-check girl, a waitress, a low-rent prostitute. In his prime, he was unstoppable. "He wraps his charm around your shoulders like a Russian sable coat," the gossip columnist Hedda Hopper wrote.
Even women determined to resist, and warned in advance, found themselves saying yes when Rubirosa mounted a full-scale offensive. Even Zsa Zsa Gabor, a grandmaster at the sex-for-money chess game, succumbed, although she drew the line at marriage. Her tempestuous relationship with Rubirosa provides Levy with some of his best material. Rubirosa, who surely saw in Gabor the challenge of a lifetime, pursued his prey ardently and relentlessly, in full view of the panting press.
It made for spectacular theater. When Gabor refused to leave her current husband, the actor George Saunders, Rubirosa struck her. Gabor called a news conference and showed up wearing an eye patch. "In Spanish, Rubirosa means a red rose, but to me it's a black eye," she told reporters. The headline in New York's Daily News read: "I Said No, So Porfy Poked Me: Zsa Zsa." Strapped for cash, Rubirosa proceeded to marry Barbara Hutton. The marriage lasted 75 days and netted the happy husband cash and property worth US$3.5 million, enough to finance his polo ponies, tailored suits and lavish partiers for years to come. And Rubirosa, a superbly conditioned nightlife athlete, had lots left in him. Eartha Kitt, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, the Empress Soraya of Iran -- there was scarcely an actress or princess alive whose name was not linked with Rubirosa's at some point in the 1950s and even the 1960s, when he began to slow down just a bit.
There's some poetic justice in Rubirosa's increasingly desperate attempts to keep up with his fifth wife, the French actress Odile Rodin. A ferocious nightclubber, she would frequently skip off to Paris, and the arms of her many male admirers, while Rubi stayed home in the suburbs, tending the garden and playing with his Chihuahua. He came to enjoy the simple pleasures, but then again, for Rubirosa, everything in life was simple.
"Women like to be gay," he once explained to a radio interviewer. "I like to be gay. They want to be happy. I try to make them happy." That's all there was to it.
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