The Unbelievable Life of Porfirio Rubirosa S
If there was one man who most embodied the idea of the mid-century playboy with bachelor lifestyle and all the extravagance and women that came along with it, it would have to be Porfirio Rubirosa, a Dominican man in Paris. After many years of adventures and misadventures with ladies from all walks of life, he eventually met the stunning 19-year-old actress Odile Rodin and quickly tied the knot.
Yet, it wasn’t long before young Odile was exposed to his terrifying dark side. Porfirio Rubirosa was born in the Dominican Republic in 1909, the youngest of three children. However, at the age of only 6 years old, Paris would become their new home when his father, Pedro Rubirosa, got a job as a diplomat in France.
The father would have a large influence on his son with his illustrious career and reputation. He had a powerful presence, vibrant social life, and impeccable taste. But most of all, he was rather a womanizer. These traits would have an effect on his impressionable young son growing up as would become evident when Porfirio was older.
But the similarities would end there. As well the father took both work and pleasure seriously, his son would be focused only on the latter. At the age of 17, the young Rubirosa returned to his homeland and following in his father’s footsteps, joined the army, soon rising through the ranks. By the age of 20, he had attained the rank of captain in the army and on his nation’s polo team.
It was through polo that Rubirosa first met brutal Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. He turned on his charm and actually impressed the leader. Because of this, Trujillo made Rubirosa an offer he couldn’t refuse. A new position as lieutenant in his very own presidential guard.
It turned out that one of his first jobs would be to receive the dictator’s 17-year-old daughter at the airport. Although it seemed like a simple enough job, when Rubirosa caught sight of her, he immediately fell head over heels. She was beautiful, and beautiful girls were his weakness. Her name was Flor de Oro, and she was just returning from studying in France.
Rubirosa struck up a conversation with her in French, and probably oozing with charisma, was soon invited to a ball at the presidential palace. But, he was only getting started. At the ball, Rubirosa defied etiquette and danced with the dictator’s daughter for every number. He was treading on thin ice, and his behavior would soon come to Trujillo’s attention, sparking his fury.
Afterward, no doubt as a result of his behavior at the ball, Rubirosa was decommissioned from his post in the presidential guard. He even went into hiding at his family’s coffee plantation. After 8 days, he received a letter from Flor, an invitation to meet her in secret at a photo booth away from prying eyes.
Their secret meeting would prove life-changing when Flor de Oro proposed to Rubirosa, with the young couple marrying in 1932. But, it turned out that rushing into marriage may not have been the wisest idea. Fortunately for Rubirosa’s career, the marriage did allow him back into the good graces of Trujillo.
He followed in the footsteps of his father and began a career as a diplomat. His work brought him to Berlin and eventually to Paris. Despite being married, he couldn’t resist the temptations of the city and was known for going on night-long benders, returning home covered in lipstick. Darkly, when his wife questioned where he was, he took to beating her.
After many years of infidelity and ill-treatment of his wife, Rubirosa’s behavior would earn him a divorce. He and Flor separated in 1937. As a result of these developments, he began to dread returning to his home country for fear of his ex-father-in-law’s ire. His finances also diminished without the support from his ex-wife’s family and their obvious wealth.
Rubirosa would end up compensating for this in the most surprising of ways. With the political situation darkening in Europe and World War II on the horizon, many Jews sought to flee to safer lands and Rubirosa began selling them visas to the Dominican Republic. Although presumably self-motivated, he undoubtedly saved many lives this way.
The beginning of World War II brought new challenges to Rubirosa’s life in Europe. With his opinions on the Germans not exactly viewed as acceptable by the Vichy France government, he soon found himself interned for 5 months in a German hotel. Luckily, he had a beautiful woman in his life at this time, the French actress Danielle Darrieux, who he was deeply in love with.
She was able to obtain a release for him in exchange for some promotional work in Berlin. Now free, the couple quickly decided to get married in the face of all the strife of war. But things would be harder than anticipated. In 1944, the pair was ambushed in Paris on the way home from a nightclub.
Unprotected in an open car, they were fully vulnerable to their attackers. And Rubirosa bravely shielded his wife with his body, even taking three bullets near his kidneys. After this harrowing incident, it was very clear that they had to get out of the city. They went into hiding, spending the remaining months of the German occupation of France on Darrieux’s farm.
But even here, they weren’t entirely safe. And once had to spend several days in hiding in a friend’s barn. The couple had been through so much together, but would their shared trauma sustain their bond long-term? Darrieux, being from the glitzy world of cinema, inadvertently ended up introducing Rubirosa to many other beautiful and eligible women.
One of these was journalist Doris Duke, an heiress who was worth $100 million. After interviewing Darrieux with Rubirosa present, a spark of attraction was felt between the two. And Duke became determined to have Rubirosa for herself. She used her money to achieve this by allegedly offering Darrieux $1 million to divorce Rubirosa.
Whatever actually happened, the two were divorced in 1947. And only a little while later, Rubirosa and Duke were married. However, shortly before the official ceremony, Duke’s lawyers surprised Rubirosa with a prenuptial agreement. Although hesitant, he did sign it in the end. Marrying one of the richest women in the world definitely had its advantages.
Rubirosa was showered with lavish gifts that included sports cars, horses, and even a World War II era B-25 bomber. But, would riches and opulence really lead to a flourishing marriage in the long run? Disagreements arose between the expectations they had of each other. Duke expected her husband to always be available to her.
Well, Rubirosa had always been more independent, desiring to do as he pleased. This would end up including secret alliances with other women, one of which was even his ex-wife Flor. After catching Rubirosa and his first wife red-handed, the marriage swiftly fell apart and quickly led to a divorce, astoundingly only a year after they had been married.
Because he had signed a prenup, he only gained a 17th-century house in Paris and a meager $25,000 a year alimony until he remarried. It seemed to be a pattern in his life that he was again single and desiring a rich wife to take care of him. When he was once asked about the notion of work, he famously exclaimed, “Work? It’s impossible for me to work.
I just don’t have the time.” However, the man seemed to consider his profession to be pursuing leisure and women. Among Rubirosa’s forays into different walks of life, he would eventually find himself drawn to car racing after making friends with several race car drivers. The world of racing became yet another space for Rubirosa to meet new women, and all women became romantic considerations for him, even the wives and girlfriends of his peers.
One of these married women that Rubirosa encountered was a famous Hungarian-American actress and socialite, Zsa Zsa Gabor. After a chance encounter at New York’s Plaza Hotel in 1953, she returned to her suite for a nap. And when she awoke, her room was entirely filled with flowers, accompanied by a note that read, “To the most beautiful of women.
” He continued chasing her, spoiling her with more flowers and phone calls, and Zsa Zsa became more and more enamored with Rubirosa with each passing day. But this ardor was only a preview of his much darker and a more possessive side. Gabor’s husband eventually filed for divorce, and soon after Rubirosa proposed a marriage ultimatum.
However, despite her desire for Rubirosa, she still felt conflicted over her love for her husband, and Rubirosa was not happy about this. On one occasion, he lashed out and hit her. Gabor responded to this in a surprisingly twisted fashion, defending him by saying, “Quote, the fact that he hit me proves that he loves me.
A woman who has never been hit by a man has never been loved.” Meanwhile, Rubirosa’s bank account continued to dwindle. So, when an extremely wealthy woman entered his life, Rubirosa, despite his interest in Gabor, became quite drawn to heiress Barbara Hutton. At 40 years old, she wasn’t exactly the type of youthful beauty he usually went after.
But, she was rich, very, very rich. Oddly enough, she also had a long-standing rivalry with Rubirosa’s ex-wife, Doris Duke. If she married him, it would very much be a sweet retribution for her. Probably for all the wrong reasons, they both agreed to marry, tying the knot in a lavish ceremony in New York in 1953.
As it turned out, this marriage didn’t go better than Rubirosa’s previous one. Hutton was in poor health at the time, and alongside Rubirosa’s lack of empathy, it just wasn’t a good combination. Meanwhile, his ex-girlfriend Zsa Zsa Gabor sneered from the sidelines saying, “Quote, I give them 6 months.
In a couple of weeks, this man will be after me again.” Nonetheless, they still did. She showered him with exorbitant presents, such as an enormous coffee plantation, 40 suits, eight polo ponies, a plane, and at one point simply $2.5 million in cash. It was even reported that she was spending $66,000 on him every single day.
Yet, despite all this, Rubirosa was for some reason miserable and seemingly bored. Even more astoundingly than his last marriage, which was extremely brief at 1 year long, this one was even shorter. After only 2 weeks, Hutton left Rubirosa’s side and moved in with her aunt. This harmed their relationship, and after only 53 days, they were divorced.
Rubirosa wasn’t at all the husband that Hutton required considering the state of her health. He couldn’t wait to be back to his exciting bachelor lifestyle complaining that “She stays in bed and reads all day. It’s a very boring life.” Shocking as the whole escapade turned out, if one thing was true, it was that it was a very profitable marriage for him and he was no longer broke.
Now a free man again, Rubirosa headed right back into the waiting embrace of his former girlfriend, Zsa Zsa Gabor, just like she had predicted. By 1956, Rubirosa was now 47 years old and had returned to Paris. For many reasons, things eventually didn’t work out with Gabor and the two separated. But shortly afterward, Rubirosa met an aspiring young French actress named Odile Rodin and was immediately smitten saying “I fell in love with her the first moment I saw her.
She was young, fresh, so beautiful and again had a certain mysteriousness.” Rodin’s mother, aware of Rubirosa’s reputation, forbade her daughter from entertaining his advances. Yet she eventually relented after watching their chemistry together during a single slow dance. Rubirosa was madly in love with Odile and her joie de vivre.
Alongside him, she very much enjoyed partying into the early hours of the morning. Five months after meeting, the couple were wed in October 1956. Odile would soon get to know a darker side of Rubirosa that wasn’t on display publicly. And that was how controlling he could be. He made his preferences known for how he wanted her to act.
From how much hairspray she used to how conservatively she should dress. In social gatherings, he kept a jealous eye on her and her interactions. He also moved her to the outskirts of Paris, away from the film industry, so that she was more under his control. Aside from his controlling behavior, the marriage was a lot more stable than Rubirosa’s prior entanglements, ostensibly without any of the violence or drama.
As the years wore on, and by 1961, things finally changed in his home country. When the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was finally assassinated. He was succeeded by his son, Ramfis Trujillo, who proved to be just as unstable as his father. Ramfis’s leadership would prove disastrous for the Dominican Republic.
He attempted to have the Venezuelan president taken out, got an embargo placed on the country by the USA, and then decided to pilfer $200,000 from the treasury and flee the country. Eventually, a new leader came to power, the elected president Joaquin Balaguer, who quickly fired Rubirosa from his post as a Dominican diplomat.
This plunged the playboy into immediate financial uncertainty. By now, many of his socialite friends from the past had moved on, and his financial concerns weighed heavily on him. Living without money was difficult for a man so used to a life of carefree fun and games. Rubirosa found himself getting depressed.
In 1965, Rubirosa passed away after driving his Ferrari into a tree. It was never determined whether the cause of his demise had been the result of drink or depression. Odile eventually moved to Rio de Janeiro and married a Brazilian businessman. Thanks for watching History Xposé. If you love uncovering the best stories in history, hit like and subscribe to keep exploring with us.
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