Free Gilded Lily by Isabel Vincent

dissatisfaction with himself and those around him—that was to blame for the string of wives and girlfriends he seemed to collect over the years, like the mills and factories and plots of land he recklessly snapped up for Globex. The patterns rarely changed—the manic womanizing seeming to coincide with his periods of utter euphoria. He would fall madly in love with a beautiful woman, live with her for anywhere from a few months to a few years, and then send her packing.
    â€œThe women arrived at Fred’s house with a suitcase, but they always left with an apartment, a car, whatever they needed,” recalled his sister. “He always took care of them.”
    While still in his twenties, he became involved with Sylvia Bastos Tigre, a woman from one of Rio’s most important legal families, who was nearly double his own age. Typically, he was enamored with her during the first several months of their courtship. Unlike the two others, who would come later, Alfredo did not marry Sylvia.
    â€œSylvia is wonderful,” he noted in an undated letter to Rosy. “She does all to please me and help me. What she possesses, and nowadays is a rare jewel, is goodness [sic].”
    Sylvia, who was extremely well connected in Rio society, encouraged him to behave like the important Brazilian entrepreneur he was on his way to becoming. She convinced him to buy a yacht and a vacation home at Aguas Lindas and join the important clubs in the city.
    But the relationship didn’t withstand the “spring disease,” and Alfredo impetuously ended everything in a moment of depression. “We never understood Fred’s attraction to Sylvia,” said his friend and former employee Maria Luisa Goldschmid. “We thought it was some kind of strange mother complex because Sylvia was old enough to be his mother.”
    Aviva Pe’er, who had been crowned Miss Israel in June 1954, seemed more like the type of woman for Alfredo. At least she seemed to be willing to put up with Alfredo’s zanier moments. On New Year’s Eve, he invited Aviva and his friend Maria Luisa to a hotel bar in downtown Rio following the annual Ponto Frio party. It was three in the morning, and instead of leaving his car outside, he decided to drive it through the wide open doors of the hotel lobby. Alfredo parked the car, calmly gave the keys to the startled concierge, and headed in the direction of the bar with his shocked entourage.
    â€œFred drove right through reception,” recalled Maria Luisa, adding that his actions were not the result of an overindulgence in alcohol. “It was just Fred. This was the kind of thing he loved to do. Of course, it caused all sorts of confusion. The police were called, and Fred had to pay a huge fine. But we all had a great time.”
    In 1955, following his dalliance with Miss Israel, he married a woman named Zani Roxo in New York, only to divorce her less than a year later in Florida.
    Marie Paule Flore Delebois, a pretty Frenchwoman whose mother Charlotte had worked for the French Resistance during the war, was next. Alfredo fell in love with Scarlett, as she was known in Rio because of her flaming red hair, and flew her to New York where he married her in a civil ceremony in July 1959. A year later, the couple adopted an infant girl and boy, both of whom had been abandoned at a local orphanage on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. A case of adulthood mumps had made Alfredo sterile. But the marriage didn’t last. “Fred fell in love with an image, and the image didn’t quite correspond to reality,” said his sister Rosy, referring to his breakup with Scarlett.
    In February 1962, the marriage to Scarlett was annulled. At the time of the breakup Scarlett agreed to custody of the little girl, Alexandra. Mother and daughter left Brazil for good, and took up their new lives in France. Alfredo, a newly single father, was left with the son, Carlos.
    Single again, Alfredo