High life
Star player
Talo
New York
p°aid° Rubirosa, the much married Dominican polo player, was probably the greatest playboy of all time. He was also a modern Robin Hood. He took from the very, very rich, and gave to the not nearly as rich — namely himself. Rubi, as all his close friends called him, was best man when I married my first wife. Recently I have been having nostalgic reminiscences about him. I just finished reading a book entitled Poor Little Rich Girl, a biography of Barbara Hutton, Rubirosa's fourth wife, as well as one of the richest women on earth.
Thinking back, I thank my lucky stars that Rubi liked staying out even later than I did — because if he didn't, I probably wouldn't be around now to tell you about him. Let me explain. It was in the early hours of 6 July 1965. Rubi and I were cele- brating in New Jimmy's, the best night- club of the period, in Boulevard Montpar- nasse. The day before, our team had won the Open Polo Championship of Paris. Our wives had gone home around four in the morning, but Rubi wanted to go on. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I had to fly to Nice that day and compete in a tennis tournament, My aeroplane was due to leave at 8 a.m., and as I was staying with Rubi in his house at St Cloud, I would just about make it. At six I insisted I had to leave. His last words to me were, 'What a selfish shit you are.' I caught a taxi back and went on to Nice eventually. Rubi left an hour after me, and as was his custom, drove at high speed through the Bois de Boulogne to St Cloud. While passing the Bagatelle Polo Club he hit a tree head on. He died on the way to hospital. When I saw the wreck I realised that no one could have survived it — especially as my side was more badly smashed than his.
Although I was overcome with grief, I did not regret leaving him. Rubi never allowed me to drive when we used to return home together, and he relished performing 'four-wheel drifts' while going round cor- ners in the Bois. There was no way I would have been driving back that night. The Figaro wrote that had Rubi been wearing a seat belt he might have survived. It also said that had Rubi been wearing a seat belt he would not have been Rubi.
The newspaper was right. Among Rubi's many charms was a recklessness where danger was concerned, an insouciance toward physical injury and death. I wish I could say the same about today's playboys. He was the quintessential man's man, someone who was adored by men, obvious- ly in a platonic way, almost as much as he was pursued and worshipped by women. He was the most charming man I ever met, a very good polo player and racing driver, the only man I never saw fail with a woman.
His funeral was attended by about 250 people, a small number for a famous playboy. What was extraordinary, how- ever, was the fact that the service was meant to be attended by only the closest of his friends, and the people who showed up all felt that they were. Among them were peo- ple like the Maharajah of Jaipur, an old polo buddy of Rubi's, a sprinkling of Ken- nedys, plus every waiter from rive gauche night-clubs that Rubi had befriended late at night. French waiters being what they are, as well as maharajahs, it is clear that Rubi was no ordinary chap.
Which brings me to what my friend Gian- ni Agnelli said recently about those good old days: 'People had fun because they wanted to, while present day playboys play for the public. Values today are of very bad quality. One may have had bad habits in the old days, but never bad quality.' Gianni should know. If anyone was braver and more reckless in the face of danger than Rubi it was Fiat's chairman. He also was a great playboy except for one great fault: work. No sooner would dawn come than Gianni would climb on board his plane and fly back to Turin and be at his desk by 8.30.
Although posterity will hardly remember Rubi as a person who live a useful life, I, among many others, certainly will. After all, he lived his life the way he saw fit, lived it to the full; was never hypocritical the way so many people are today where money and doing something with it are concerned. And his timing, or exit rather, was perfect. I simply could never see Rubi doing an exhibitionistic, narcissistic solo on a crowd- ed disco floor, or bending over some filthy loo to ingest a white powder — something which every playboy seems to do ever since 6 July 1965.
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