Bullfighter's Comeback

Wineskins squirted into thirsty mouths; trumpets blared the heart-quickening paso doble of the brave fiesta; cries of Ole! rang across a bull ring that is an exact copy of the one in old Seville. It was the privilege of the prosperous Venezuelan city of Maracay (pop. 64,535) last week to witness the return to the ring of Luis Miguel Dominguin, 30, most artful living bullfighter, who retired in 1953 after eleven active years. The privilege cost Maracay $50,000 for two weekend corridas. That was the highest pay ever given to a bullfighter, but the promoter knew what he was doing; it was a near sellout at $10 to $50 a seat.

The Venezuelans, whose money flows as generously as the joy-juice in their wineskins, found Dominguin easily worth his fancy fee in the opening fight. His most brilliant kill was his second. He seated himself on the ringside barrier, perilously immobile, while the big bull from Mexico's famed San Mateo ranch charged three times. His gold-and-pink "suit of lights" flashing, Dominguin followed up with a series of classic passes in mid-ring and killed the bull with a single, perfect thrust, winning both ears and the tail. By the time the killer of more than 2,000 bulls had finished off his third that afternoon, Maracay aficionados were so elated that they paraded him through town on their shoulders. Dominguin's own candid opinion: "I believe I am much better today than I was when I quit in '53; I was worn out from those seasons of a hundred fights."

Venezuela was a symbolic place for Dominguin's comeback; it was a bad horn wound there three years ago that had led to his retirement. "I've lost the joy of fighting," he explained at the time. A millionaire twice over, he traded the suit of lights for blue jeans and a checkered shirt on his 6,000-acre New Castilian estate, with its 20-room, tower-topped house, marble statue of himself, and an antique bed for a restless bullfighter--16 ft. by 7 ft. Over the gate he posted his new motto: "Do nothing all day--and rest afterward." He romanced Ava Gardner, hobnobbed with Ernest Hemingway, flirted in Hollywood and Las Vegas. Last spring he married luscious Lucia Bose, Miss Italy of 1947.

Though he commands record fees, Dominguin, no spendthrift, does not particularly need the money; he returned to the ring, he says, out of "curiosity" and because "one does what one feels he has to do." At Maracay he found that he fought "with more pleasure than ever. Now I fight because I like it."

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