The Pursuit of Happiness

A few years ago, Doris Duke--"Dee-Dee" to her intimates--resurrected an old bronze statue of a bull. It had been in one of Dee-Dee's barns.She had it dragged out and set up among the fauns and iron deer on her Somerville, N.J. estate. It was a sentimental gesture. The bull was the metal incarnation of the animal on the old Bull Durham tobacco label--almost the coat-of-arms of Dee-Dee's father, James Buchanan Duke, founder of the American Tobacco Co., who had died in 1925, leaving Dee-Dee $53 million.

Dee-Dee was twelve then, and suddenly just about the richest girl in the world. She was gingerly brought up on the 2,500-acre Somerville estate. The most fun she had was with her pony, Patsy. She loved Patsy, and when the pony died she hung a sign on the empty stall: "Ponies do have souls and Patsy most of all."

Jimmy. At 22, Dee-Dee married James Henry Roberts Cromwell. Jimmy was different from the rest of the boys. Jimmy was 38 and more mature. He had already been married once. His stepfather was Edward T. Stotesbury, Philadelphia socialite and financier. Jimmy had advanced ideas. He had thought up a "Synchronization Theory" which had something to do with the flow of money and goods. He also had ideas on birth control, libel laws, sterilization of defectives, boxing and politics.

Dee-Dee built a dream house for herself and Jimmy in Hawaii. It was a Morocco-Persian mansion with two stone camels at the doorway, a swimming pool with a hydraulic-elevator springboard. Her "ShangriLa" cost $1,000,000. She also contributed $50,000 to the Democrats (Jimmy's political party), and when Jimmy was made U.S. Minister to Canada, she went along. She was a tall, shy, honey-blonde girl with a solemn face. Sometimes she entertained her friends by tap-dancing.

In 1940 she and Jimmy separated. Three years later she got a Reno divorce, although Jimmy countered with a court order declaring the divorce of no effect in New Jersey. While their broken romance dragged through the courts and the tabloids, Dee-Dee went to Egypt to help the war effort.

She tried running a merchant seamen's canteen. She gave that up and went to Rome. There she worked as a reporter for Hearst's International News Service. Said Dee-Dee: "I've been searching for some kind of work both useful and interesting." In 1946 she returned to the U.S. and revisited Shangri-La. Last spring she fluttered back to Paris, this time as a fashion editor for Harper's Bazaar. There last week Dee-Dee got married again.

"Rubi." Her husband was Porfirio Rubirosa, whom she had met the year before in Rome. "Rubi" danced divinely. Dee-Dee danced divinely, too. Rubi was honorary charge d'affaires of the Dominican Republic, although he was not recognized by the French because he had once been acceptable to the Vichy regime. He was lean, dark, and a few inches shorter than Dee-Dee. He had been married twice before--to Dominican Dictator Trujillo's daughter Flor de Oro, and to Danielle Darrieux, the pert and sexy French film star (Mayerling), who had once been marked for death by the French underground. Around Paris nightclubs, everybody knew eager, ardent Rubi.

Dee-Dee and Rubi were married in the Dominican Legation. First they signed a contract, suddenly produced by Dee-Dee's law firm, by which Dee-Dee kept control of her multimillions. Rubi had two highballs, then he and Dee-Dee and the ten guests and 100 newsmen drank champagne. Dee-Dee wore a gold and diamond necklace, a rakish little hat and an ankle-length water-green dress called "Source" by its designer, Christian Dior, the high priest of the "New Look" (see BUSINESS).

Rubi was impeccable in grey striped pants, pearl-grey waistcoat and dark coat. He fished out a ring appropriately, if inexpensively, made of rubies. Dee-Dee gave Rubi a solid gold ring which looked like a small-sized handcuff. "Oh, boy!" gasped Rubi.

This week, Dee-Dee and Rubi were somewhere on the Riviera. In the U.S., the question arose whether Dee-Dee had been legally divorced from Jimmy, whose lawyer doggedly maintained that she had not. After the Riviera, Dee-Dee and Rubi can live in Dee-Dee's apartment on Paris' Left Bank. If Dee-Dee tired of that, she could return to her town house in Manhattan, her villa in Newport, her dream house on Oahu, or the old place in Somerville, watched over by the old bronze bull.

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