Nevada Street
From the obituary in today's Financial Times:
Jorge Quinle, the Brazilian playboy who has died at the age of 88, inherited a multi-million-dollar fortune and blew it all on wine, women and song.The wine was usually champagne, the song was jazz--he numbered Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie among his friends--and the women were among the most glamorous of the 20th century.
There is no doubt that beautiful women were the real business of Jorge Quinle 's life--he claimed never to have done a day's work. His conquests included the young Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner and Lana Turner. They may have cost him every last penny--they certainly swallowed his last million--but his investment paid off in spectacular fashion.
Handsome, charming and for most of his life extremely rich, he met Marilyn Monroe when she was only 20 and they remained close even after their affair cooled. In 1962 they planned to go together to the Venice Film Festival and he flew to the US with a topaz necklace for her.
He was horrified on landing to hear that she had killed herself. Not a man to let tragedy stand in the way of passion, he checked into his regular room at the Beverly Hills Hotel and called Jayne Mansfield.
"I wasn't able to give the jewels to Marilyn," he said years later, "so I have them to Jayne. She was delighted. We spent the next two years together."
He had liaisons with Hedy Lamarr, Veronica Lake and Anita Ekberg. Not that he targeted only stars. He claimed that one lady turned down his invitation to the Rio carnival, saying: "I can't go next week--I am going to be crowned Queen of Denmark."
In the end the money ran out. "The secret of living well is to die without a cent in your pocket," he once said. "I seem to have miscalcualted."
Hey. We all need to have a role model.
This afternoon as I was taking my constitutional around the park I found a dollar bill lying on the sidewalk. As I reached the edge of the park I passed a fellow playing a guitar so I dropped the bill into his case. It seemed only right since I stopped to take his picture, even though the picture never came out.
Easy come, easy go, as Jorge would say.
