33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inconsequential Charm, December 20, 2005
This review is from: The Last Playboy : the High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa (Hardcover)
If you have never heard of Porfirio Rubirosa, that's no surprise. He died in 1965, and wasn't good at much of anything beyond having a good time, but at that he was extraordinarily good. His was a life of inconsequence, and perhaps inconsequential also is the biography _The Last Playboy: The High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa_ (4th Estate) by Shawn Levy. Inconsequential, but also glittering and amusing. The character Rubirosa made for himself was, Levy says, "nightclubber, cuckolder, kept man, gigolo, scene maker, skirt chaser, dandy." He was hardly a careful examiner of his own life, but when he explained why he did poorly as a student, he was exactly right: "The only things that interested me were sports, girls, adventures, celebrities - in short, life." His limited interpretation of what life was all about was similar to his limited principles. "It has always been one of my chief principles: I will risk anything to avoid being bored." He succeeded wonderfully, and this account of his life, written in a perfect breezy and joking style, is an entertainment that few will find boring.
"Rubi", as everyone knew him, was born in 1909 in the Dominican Republic, and served intermittently as a roving official for that country. He married five times before his death in 1965, to actresses and heiresses. How did Rubi manage to ingratiate himself to so many women, and get so much support from them? There are lots of answers. He was darkly handsome when such looks were thought fashionable and seductive (even leading to the famous backlash "Latins are Lousy Lovers" by Helen Lawrenson in _Esquire_ in 1936). He kept himself in good shape; he was a keen polo player. He was intelligent, capable with five languages, fluent in three. He genuinely liked women. "They want to be happy," he explained. "I try to make them happy." He was successful in these attempts countless times, at least in the short run. He liked women ideally to be beautiful and rich, but was able to spread his happiness with others who lacked such traits. Many simply found him irresistible when they could resist many others. "He wraps his charm around your shoulders like a Russian sable coat," said Hedda Hopper. He was extremely sociable, and made himself comfortable with such lights as the Kennedys and Oleg Cassini. A photographer noted, "He can meet you for a minute and a month later remember you very well." His partying consisted of heavy drinking that didn't seem to have deleterious aftereffects. When pal Sammy Davis saw him the next day after they had been carousing heavily the night before, he asked in astonishment how Rubi could still look and feel good. "Your profession is being an entertainer," came the reply. "Mine is being a playboy." It was his job, but he never found it work. A naive journalist once asked when he found time for work. "Work?" came the reply. "It's impossible for me to work. I just don't have the time." Those who sought to explain his charm in the most fundamental way found an old standby, crediting his success to his having a sexual organ of supremely massive size. It was talked about enough that its dimensions were even specified in Truman Capote's unfinished novel _Answered Prayers_, and waiters would call the largest peppermill in the house "The Rubirosa."
He was enormously famous during his heyday; Groucho Marx particularly liked making jokes that included his name, and few had to ask "Who's that?" The tabloids had a fine time, with headlines like "Cash Box Casanova" or, knowingly, "Who Donged the Ding-Dong Daddy?" He left no children, no good works, no legacy, no example to follow. He was, from many angles, a contemptible cad, but he was terrifically good at living his life as he saw fit. Many found him irresistible, and it may be a guilty pleasure, but this biography is irresistible fun.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Definitely worth the read!, August 19, 2006
'The Last Playboy' gives an in depth look at the exciting party life of Porfirio Rubirosa. In his day he was perhaps the world's premiere ladies' man --- a Cassanova of modern times. Married to two of the richest women in the world along with 3 other women during his life this didn't stop him from dating such Hollywood starlets as Zsa Zsa Gabor & Ava Gardner among hundreds of other women. His polo playing, jet setting, drinking, womanizing and car racing were offset only by his work for Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo as a diplomat whose daughter he also married. Mega bucks from many of these women fueled his non-stop party lifestyle until he wrapped his Ferrari around a tree near his home in France at the age of 56. This book also details his friendships with the Kennedy's, Frank Sinatra and other luminaries of that era. This is a high-flying page turner of a biography that really delivers the goods.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Where have all the playboys gone?, April 24, 2006
This review is from: The Last Playboy : the High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa (Hardcover)
Imagine? He fills your room with flowers. He changes his hotel room to be next to yours to "feel you through the walls." Maybe he sends a limo and escort to take you shopping for something special to wear for dinner. He's a great dancer. He's dashing on a horse or in a race car. The impeccable manners match his perfectly tailored clothes.
Why would you think that he represents a Saddam Hussein style manager of a Caribbean nation and its torture chambers? Why would you think he's an accessory to murder? a murderer? a jewel thief? a profiteer from passports sold to Jews desperate to escape Hitler? Now what is it he does with the fleet of fishing boats his 3rd wife gave him? He doesn't think about any of this, so why should you?
Levy does a great job of tracking Rubi down. It was an intercontinental life in 5 languages, but that would be the easy part, since facts (the ones that Rubi doesn't want anyone to know) are like the proverbial jello nailed to a wall.
In his last chapter Levy tries to opine on the meaning of it all and finds very little. What if Rubi had joined the Dominican resistance? (would never cross his mind.) The closest thing he finds to meaning is a Langston Hughes obituary noting Rubi's (possible) race, which no one had noticed before.
Rubi was a man of his time, but not all time. Why?
Where are the Rubis of the world today? Have divorce lawyers and pre-nups driven them out of business? Have the women lost their sense of romance? Rubi with Madonna? Paris Hilton? Oprah? Martha Stewart? They just don't seem so emotionally vulnerable. Maybe the playboys are still here, sub rosa (pun) in blue jeans, the veritable playboy next door. Or maybe our consciousness has been raised and no acting career can be built when you're seen with the rep. of a 3rd world strong man. Maybe men have become better attuned to women, such that Rubi's sweet nothings are not the tonic they once could be. Maybe drugs have sapped the energy needed to drink all night and play polo the next day.
I became aware of Rubi through my interest in Doris Duke. Levy cites the Mansfield book as the best bio of her. While Mansfield has put together the story, it needs a lot more sifting through. Levy's 3 chapters on Doris flesh out her story. I'd like for Levy go back to his notes, maybe team up with Mansfield, and pack in more research. Doris has (or maybe Doris is) a story aching to be told. The survivors, just like those of Rubi, won't be here forever. Levy, with this difficult work, shows that he's up to it.
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