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At first Barbara acted as though she were not sure that the wonderful news was true. Rubi said nothing on his arrival, either. He looked sullen. He had reasons: behind him in Las Vegas, Zsa Zsa was shrilly announcing through Pressagent Russell Birdwell that Rubi had 1) followed her around like a schoolboy, pleading for her hand in marriage; and 2) on being refused, punched her in the eye, raising a lump on her forehead. According to Birdwell's measurements, the bump was 2% in. long and 1¼ in. wide.
The very next day Rubi and Barbara got married. First they met the clamoring press in Barbara's suite at Manhattan's Hotel Pierre. Barbara, now 41, and only recently released from Doctors Hospital, looked haggard in her black Balenciaga dress and big purple-lined hat. Her hand shook as she held a champagne glass. Rubi looked sleek, well-barbered, healthy as an acrobat, and annoyed.
When a female reporter cried, "You look lovely," Barbara said, "No," in a forlorn voice. She added that she hated to look in a mirror because "I think I'm so ugly." Tears came to her eyes. She asked her 17-year-old son Lance (son of Count Court Haugwitz-Reventlow) to hold her hand. "You would think sometimes that people would believe I'm getting married because he sees something in me, because I'm myself," she said. "But they always think it's the money. When I think of all the silly things I have done—maybe this will all be different tomorrow. Maybe he'll feel differently tomorrow, but today I'm the happiest girl in the world . . ."
Said Rubi, interrupting: "She has brought sincerity to my life."
The wedding itself, a short civil affair, was conducted in Spanish by Dominican Consul General Dr. Joaquin Salazar at his Park Avenue apartment, with Rubi's former brother-in-law, Major General Rafael Trujillo Martinez, standing by as best man. "Oh, this is impossible," said Barbara as she entered the apartment. "I feel as though someone had just hit me on the head." But after drinking a Scotch & soda, she stood up, put one arm around Rubi, and replied, "Si," when asked if she took him to be her husband. "Oh," she said afterward, "we're so tired."
Looking. Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, where she is appearing in a nightclub act at the Last Frontier Hotel, the beautiful Zsa Zsa had herself photographed holding an ice bag to her eye, and went on being difficult. "He wants me still," she crowed. "In a couple of weeks this man will be after me again." Rubi, she announced, had sent her flowers from New York and had called her on the telephone two hours after being married. "See how unhappy they look," she trilled, holding up a newspaper picture of the wedding. "I give them six months. I love George [Sanders, her present husband], Rubi loves me, Barbara loves Rubi, but who loves Barbara?" "Just a publicity stunt," said Rubi. "I refuse to talk about that woman," said Barbara icily. "I'm a lady."