The Last Playboy
August 23, 2007 by msporealhadef
This is a biography of Porfirio Rubirosa the iconic Latin Lover, gigolo, playboy of the 1940s , 50s and 60s. “Rubi” as he was known to international and cafe society and the sensational press of the time was the husband of Barbara Hutton, Doris Duke and the French Actress Danielle Darrieux. The author goes well beyond this tabloid froth, however, to examine Rubirosa’s background and more importantly his love/hate relationship with Rafael Trujillo, the long time dictator of his native Dominican Republic, and father of the first of his five wives. A member of the Dominican diplomatic service during much of his adult life, Rubirosa was both admired and despised at home for his swashbuckling lifestyle, and headline grabbing pursuit of beautiful women. Less well known is his role as a go-between for Trujillo with the Kennedys in the early 1960s and his service as ambassador in Havana as Castro was siezing power in 1958-59. Rubirosa’s 1965 death at the wheel of his Ferrari, in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne ended both a life and a way of life which could probably not be repeated today. A fascinating book for those who remember the era, and a look at an time so close and yet distant for those who do not.
