Dynamic and charming in social situations, Dominguin was thought an ice-cold, analytical genius in the bull-ring. His cool, elegant flourishes - kneeling before the bull, walking disdainfully away, kissing the head of the wounded animal before dispatching it with a sword - led to accusations of arrogance and disrespect, but brought him a huge following. Having slain his first bull aged 14, by 1955 he was a 29-year-old millionaire with 2,300 kills to his credit. He then decided to retire, declaring, "I have lost the feeling and when one loses the feeling one cannot play with one's life."

Considered impossibly handsome, Dominguin was also influenced in his decision to quit by the chance of a Hollywood film career. But four years later, in 1959, he was back, in a series of mano a mano fights with Antonio Ordonez, an equally arrogant matador who was married to Dominguin's sister. Their rivalry was written up in a series of articles by Hemingway for Life magazine, which became the posthumously-published book The Dangerous Summer (1985).

Dominguin thought that Hemingway overstated the matadors' mutual antipathy and anyway knew nothing about bulls; but the summer was dangerous. In the first fight at Valencia, Dominguin swiftly dispatched two bulls but, when a gust of wind tore his red cape to one side, he was gored in the stomach by the third.

Three weeks later he was back on the sand. Fighting in Bilbao, with his admirer Lauren Bacall watching, he was again gored, the eleventh goring of his career. He refused to quit but had been slowed by his wounds.

In 1962, receiving treatment in an Oxford hospital for a dislocated shoulder, Dominguin explained in an interview with Nancy Banks-Smith why bull-fighting was not as cruel as people thought, comparing his sport favourably with pigeon-shooting. "Bang bang and his wing is broken,"he said. "The pigeon's death is slow. What doctor will set his bones? But the death of the bull is merciful. Ten minutes for play and ten for business. In 20 minutes he is dead. I, Dominguin, guarantee it."

That year he retired again, but returned to the ring in 1971, aged 45, when he attempted to fathom the sport's continuing allure. "How to describe it?" he wondered, "It is like being with the woman who pleases you most in the world when her husband comes in with a pistol. The bull is the woman, the husband and the pistol, all in one. No other life I know can give you all that."

His comeback was at Las Palmas, the Canary Islands, when he wore the costume known as the "suit of lights," which had been designed for him by Picasso. He killed two bulls and won one ear, but was overshadowed by younger men - although the actress Deborah Kerr, who was in the crowd, insisted, "He is still the greatest bull-fighter."

Dominguin's last fight was in Barcelona on Sept 12 1973.

Luis Miguel Gonzalez Lucas was born in Madrid on Dec 9 1926. His father was a celebrated bull-fighter of the 1930s whose fighting-name, Dominguin, young Luis adopted. He flourished his first cape at the age of five. Commanding intense devotion in his heyday, Dominguin caused a stir in 1949 by courting Angelita, the 18-year-old daughter of the Duke of Pinohermoso.

The Duke looked with less favour on the young blade than did his daughter, whom he locked in her room. Using the traditional method of knotted sheets she escaped through a window and was rescued by her matador. Their subsequent engagement was not fulfilled, and by 1954 Dominguin's friendship with Ava Gardner was being widely reported. He considered her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but liked her more, he said, for her humour and understanding; he confessed himself unsure what he looked for in women. "Men fall in love with a woman's faults rather than her qualities," he mused.

By the time Dominguin married, in March 1955, the Italian actress Lucia Bose, he felt more confident on the subject: "She speaks Italian. I speak Spanish. We do not know what the other one says and we get mad. It is perfect. But what is speaking? If you say nothing you are always right."

The following year, the Czech film actress Miroslava Sternova was found dead from an overdose, clutching a photograph of Dominguin. His name was further linked with Brigitte Bardot, Rita Hayworth, Lana Turner and Olivia de Havilland.

In 1961 he both provided the foreword for the book of Picasso's bull-fighting art, Toros y Toreros, and performed in a bull-fight in honour of the artist's 80th birthday. When he did finally retire, Dominguin raised fighting bulls on his vast ranch in southern Spain, where he liked to entertain with trophies from his bull-fighting and big-game hunting days all around him.

From his first marriage (which was dissolved), Luis Miguel Dominguin had a son, Miguel Bose, a well-known singer and actor, and two daughters, Lucia and Paola. He married, secondly, Rosario Primo de Rivera.