The cad, the bounder, the roue and the lothario. Where are they now, those male predators of yesteryear? Gone the way of the dodo. Already an endangered species when the Charleston came into vogue, they vanished with the arrival of the playboy, a sleek, fast-moving animal perfectly adapted to the modern era of jet travel, night clubs, film stars and gossip columns.
Porfirio Rubirosa -- Rubi to his countless conquests and to grateful headline writers across the globe -- stood head and shoulders above the rest of this international pleasure pack. Rubirosa, the Dominican Republic's answer to Pepe le Pew, provided the model that others could only emulate. A tireless presence at chic nightspots and watering holes, a keen race-car driver and polo player, a friend to the rich and infamous, a relentless pursuer of women with huge bank accounts, he went on a lifelong tear that ended, fittingly, with a spectacular car crash in 1965 after a night of heavy drinking at a Paris club. Even his 28-year old wife -- his fifth -- agreed that Rubi would have wanted it that way.
As Shawn Levy amply documents in The Last Playboy, his bubbly, breathless and appropriately inconsequential biography, Rubirosa worked hard at having fun. Well into his 50s, when he crossed paths with the Rat Pack, he set a pace that few could match. Sammy Davis Jr., wrecked and staggering after a night on the town with Rubi, ran into his host the next day at lunch. Rubirosa, none the worse for wear, was leaning against the bar, elegantly turned out and casually sipping a Ramos gin fizz. Davis asked him how he did it. "Your profession is being an entertainer," Rubirosa said. "Mine is being a playboy."
He found his vocation early. While attending school in Paris, where his father had been posted as ambassador, he took every opportunity to haunt the nightclubs of Montmartre. "Books didn't find in me a very faithful friend, nor did the professors find a conscientious student," he wrote in his memoirs. "The only things that interested me were sports, girls, adventures, celebrities -- in short, life." That version of life requires money, and Rubirosa, despite his polished manners and undeniable charm, had none. That changed when he caught the eye of the Dominican Republic's new strongman, Rafael Trujillo, who saw in Rubirosa a potential ally who could win over the country's golden youth to his regime. For the next 30 years, Rubirosa profited by the connection, sometimes serving in diplomatic posts and, just as often, playing the unofficial role of goodwill ambassador and high-level fixer.
Rubirosa's first audacious move was to marry Trujillo's daughter, a potentially career-ending, or even life-ending, bit of chutzpah. In time, he would capture even bigger prizes. While a diplomat in Paris, he set his eyes on Danielle Darrieux, France's biggest female film star, who quickly became his second wife.
When, after the war, the couple were interviewed by Doris Duke, heir to the R J Reynolds tobacco fortune and one of the richest women in the world, Rubirosa suddenly decided that the American version of the woman could be rather appealing, too. Marriage number 3 took place in 1947, followed quickly by divorce and, in 1953, by marriage number 4, to Barbara Hutton, another fabulously wealthy American heiress. All the while, Rubirosa pursued his side interests with zeal. "One woman is not enough for him," Darrieux complained to the press. "A man like him needs a harem."
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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