ePub The Last Playboy : the High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa by Shawn Levy in History

Description

At one gilded moment; his fame was so great that he was recognized all over the world simply by his nickname: Rubi. Pop songs were written about him. Women whom he had never met offered to leave their husbands for him. The gigantic peppermills brandished in Parisian restaurants became known; for reasons people at the time could only hint at; as "Rubirosas."Porfirio Rubirosa was the last great playboy: the roué par excellence; a symbol of powerful masculinity; ubiquity; and easy-come-easy-go money."Work?" he shot back at an interviewer; scandalized at being asked what he did with his days. "It's impossible for me to work. I just don't have the time."His natural habitat was the polo field; the nightclub; the Formula One racecourse; the bedroom.He had an eye for beautiful women; particularly when they came with great wealth: He managed to marry in turn two of the richest women on the planet. Rumor had him bedding hundreds of famous and infamous women; including Christina Onassis; Eva Perón; and Zsa Zsa Gabor; who gleefully posed for paparazzi after he had blacked her eye in a fit of jealousy on the eve of his marriage to another woman.But he was a man's man; too; a notable polo player and race-car driver with a gift for friendship; chumming around with the likes of Joe Kennedy; Frank Sinatra; Oleg Cassini; Aly Khan; and King Farouk.When above-board; heiress-type income was scarce; he diverted himself with jewel-thievery; shadowy diplomatic errands; and any other illicit scam that came his way.Whatever legitimate power he wielded came to him from the hands of Rafael Trujillo; one of the most bloodthirstily power-mad dictators the New World has ever seen. A nation quivered at Trujillo's name for decades; yet Rubi flouted his strictures without concern; as if Trujillo's iron grip could never crush him. And he was right.When Rubi died at the age of fifty-six; wrapping his sports car around a tree in the Bois de Boulogne; an era went with him -- of white dinner jackets at El Morocco; of celebrity for its own sake when this was still a novelty; of glamour before it was available to the masses.In The Last Playboy; Shawn Levy brings Rubi's giddy; hedonistic story to Technicolor life.