{"product_id":"the-last-playboy-the-high-life-of-porfirio-rubirosa","title":"The Last Playboy : the High Life of Porfirio Rubirosa","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt 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 rou 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. \"Its impossible for me to work. I just dont 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 Pern  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 mans 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 Trujillos name for decades  yet Rubi flouted his strictures without concern  as if Trujillos 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 Rubis giddy  hedonistic story to Technicolor life.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44946236375093,"sku":"ByrdShop_0007170599","price":29.71,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780007170593.jpg?v=1769932529","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-last-playboy-the-high-life-of-porfirio-rubirosa","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}