The answer: Dr. 90210’s Robert Rey, M.D. who was one of four children living in dire poverty and whisked away to the US by missionaries working the slums of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

“By all rights, I should have been in a Brazilian jail by now,” says Dr. Rey, 43, who stars in the E! channel’s top rated “Dr. 90210,” a series about the personal and professional lives of busy, successful Beverly Hills plastic surgeons.

While a good woman supposedly stands behind every successful man, three unforgettable females stand behind Dr. Rey who admits to being extremely fond of the fairer gender.

“I like the way they think, I like their strength and the way they look and behave,” says Dr. Rey.

His mother did what few matriarchal things she could to hold a poor, dysfunctional family together despite an abusive father. But she instilled a serious work ethic and love of religion into Robert and his siblings and, later, came to the U.S. to work as a janitor to help with Robert’s medical school bills.

Hayley Rey, Robert’s wife and a program co-star, helped Robert’s fledging practice get a grip on business when he started. Hayley did course work for a degree in finance from McGill University in Canada.

The third female influence is his three-year-old daughter Sydney who, he says, taught him unconditional love.

Dr. Rey’s personal story is also the archetypical yarn of the American Dream, the rags-to-riches rise of a person who must be the most lucky -- or most blessed – guy you’re likely to meet. For, it seems like the right things have always happened to Robert Rey at just the right time.

That drive, his mom’s help, some scholarships and $200,000 worth of student loans got Robert through college, a master’s degree in government and a fellowship at Harvard Medical School where he learned top techniques in plastic surgery.

With that education and training -- and absolutely nothing to lose -- the newly minted Dr. Rey tossed all his worldly possessions into the back of a beat up Mustang, headed west and rented a tiny office in Beverly Hills.

“I found there are more plastic surgeons in my office building that in the entire state of Montana,” he says.

Despite his top training, plastic surgery patients did not immediately flood into his office. And while his tiny Beverly Hills office was only outdone by his even smaller Beverly Hills apartment, fortune still smiled on Robert Rey. One day, Hayley, a gorgeous Canadian, moved into the apartment next door. She was looking for actress work in Hollywood. They soon married.

Around 2000, a woman wanting a breast augmentation came to see him. Unbeknownst to Dr. Rey, she was a secretary at the E! channel and knew many influential people. At Harvard, Robert had learned the very latest breast enhancement technique -- then new to the U.S. Known as the transumbilical method, the surgeon inserts breasts implants through the bellybutton, leaving no scar. Word spread like wildfire and, soon, Dr. Rey was performing that technique, not only on more patients, but before the unblinking eyes of television cameras. Over the next four years, Dr. Rey did about 28 segments for various television channels, all on some aspect of cosmetic and plastic surgery.

Then, he happened to watch an episode of the TV drama, “Nip/Tuck” causing some hot Latin blood to begin a slow boil.

“I was so completely offended by a television program that portrays plastic surgeons as hypersexual, immoral, unethical beings, I declared I was going to do something about it,” Dr. Rey says.

So he went back to an E! channel producer and convinced him into doing a regular reality series about a young Beverly Hills plastic surgeon trying to make it, along with a few other more established surgeons. Because it’s a reality television, the cameras follow the doctors through long hours and grueling surgeries at the office to their homes so viewers can see what normal lives virtually all plastic surgeons lead.

One of the primary things about plastic surgery is, to doctors at least, stress.

“You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘stress’ until you are asked to take a knife to a perfect-looking face to make it even more perfect,” he says.

To cope, Rey has studied the martial arts for seven years, training almost daily in Aikido and Tae Kwon Do. “I can either go see a psychiatrist or leave my stress in a puddle of sweat on the gym floor,” he says.

He says he’ll make a run for Congress when his kids are well on their way.

Whatever he does, Robert Rey, will look to the women in his life for support, encouragement and inspiration.

© 2005 HealthNewsDigest.com