Deceased in 1932 at the age of 59, Santos Dumont's coroners decided to declare heart attack as his cause of death. Doctor Walther Haberfield secretly removed his heart and kept it preserved and hidden for 12 years, until deciding to hand it to Santos' relatives, who refused to receive it. It is now displayed at the Air Force Museum in Rio de Janeiro.
Biographers are inconclusive about Dumont's sexuality. There are accounts that he fell for an american woman and, at his old age, was insistently courting Yolanda Penteado, a much younger Brazilian socialite, to whom he sent flowers, chocolates, met for dinners and strolls and, by accounts of his closest friends, made him feel "electric". Due to his parisian education in the midst of the Belle Époque, he had refined manners and was fashion-conscious, very much a dandy. This, combined with his shyness and great focus on his work, might have misleaded people into considering him gay.
In honor to the "father of aviation", Rio de Janeiro's downtown airport is named after Santos Dumont and showcases a huge mural depicting his profile and main inventions.
Dumont's designer friend and journalist "Sem" was Georges Goursat, heir of a wealthy family from Périgueux. He arrived in Paris in 1900, enjoying celebrity during the "années folles" (crazy years) of the turn of the century, when artists, socialites, aviators and politicians crowded bohemian cafés, luxurious restaurants (such as Le Maxim's, shown in the film) and horse races. In 1923 he received the Légion d'honneur medal, as recognition for his coverage of the 1st World War. He died impoverished due to the economic downfall os the post-war in France.