Book Description

Lucius Beebe said that "The nearest thing to a royal family that has ever appeared on the American scene was the Vanderbilts … their vendettas, their armies of servitors, partisans and sycophants, their love affairs, scandals, and shortcomings, all were the stuff of an imperial routine."

Stasz reveals new facts and insights into the fascinating lives of three generations of Vanderbilt women who dominated New York society from the middle of the eighteenth century through the twentieth. Of special interest are the discovery of unpublished letters and a pseudonymous lesbian novel that shed light on the complex character of the most currently famous Vanderbilt woman, Gloria Vanderbilt. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Very thorough and entertaining history of Vanderbilt Women
This is a must read for anyone interested in the Gilded Age. The Vanderbilts were a huge part of it, and the women of the family are as dynamic as the men, in spite of the Commodore's opinion of them. Included in the book are little known figures, such as the Commodore's much put-upon wife and daughters. I found this book hard to put down and highly recommend it, especially in the newly available paperback form. ... Read more

Book Description

JOE JAMAIL has been...
—The lawyer who won the biggest lawsuit in history, Pennzoil vs. Texaco, with $11 billion verdict...
—Has been responsible for the national recall of three dangerous products—Remington 600, Honda All Terrain 3 Wheelers, and the prescription drug Parlodel...
—Dubbed "King of Torts" by Time and Newsweek and "Trial Lawyer of the Century" by Texas Monthly and California Trial Lawyers... 
—The lawyer who has over $12 billion in jury verdicts and over $13 billion in verdicts and settlements.
—The lead counsel in over 200 personal injury cases where recovery was in excess of $1 million...
—Described by his own mother as the kind of boy she didn't want her sons playing with...

He has been called , a savior, a philanthropist, a "good ‘ol boy," and a SOB—but one thing Joe Jamail has never been is boring! ... Read more

Reviews (5)

The Other Reviewers Are Obviously NOT from Texas!
Mr. Jamail's book is terrific. Yes he's a little full of himself but his results are real and he has accomplished a lot in his legal career. He's also had a few major financial scores that have put him in a very unique class of lawyer. This is a fun book with many stories about individual cases that made an impression on Joe and thus inspired him to fight for his client.

Enertaining
I found Joe's book entertaining and easy to read. His passion for his clients and job is a trait not held by most in the law profession.

Jamail is a jerk
Joe Jamail's book is a microcosm of his superiority complex. He thinks he is above the little man and this book reeks of his own feelings of self-importance. Why anyone would want to read this piece of garbage is beyond me.

Jamail is a jerk and his book sucks.
Joe Jamail is an arrogant jerk. He has the audacity to claim he is above the little man and superior. His book sucks and reeks of self-importance.

Great, quick read...entertaining
Joe's account of his life is told in the great prose of a trial lawyer. I really liked this book, if you want a look into this "larger than life" man, buy it. You pay! ... Read more

Reviews (13)

Fascinating
This book was a real eye-opener. Old Joe Kennedy cared about one thing: his pocketbook and how fat he could get it. And power, of course, but money is power, right? A more ruthless, cut-throat man has never lived. He used people and discarded them without blinking an eye. Some pie-in-the-sky Kennedy fans want to think the Kennedys went into politics, I mean public service, for virtuous reasons. When Joe Kennedy Jr. died over the English Channel, Joe Sr. turned to "Jack" Kennedy and handed him the responsibility of becoming president. It wasn't a choice, it was a demand. Why did Jack make Bobby his attorney general after he became President, even though Bobby didn't have the experience for the job? The old man demanded it. Jack, as a grown man, and already a Senator, had to ask his father for money to go out with a girlfriend. He controlled his children by controlling their access to his money.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. After you read this book, you'll know that the title is very appropriate.

Only fair
Kessler slams Joe Kennedy for sport. The book at times reads like a tabloid or a Fox newscast. At one point he describes Joe's job of reselling defaulted morgatges as making his living off the backs of other's misery...c'mon...

Another time he writes "the terms of the trusts (of the Kennedy children) have been the subject of constant speculation in the press. The terms--revealed here for the first time--provide for the family until all members of the first generation have died." Then he goes on to specifically note who got what and in which circumstances. Tediousness disguised as big news. It's always fun to peek into the window of the lives of famous people but the slant of this book was distracting.

good investigative work !!
A very fine book exposing the Kennedys. I am somewhat surprised that such immoral things could happen in free and democratic U.S. In any event, justice has been done. No Kennedy is likely to be President in the near future. Jo's manipulative and power-hungry character did not serve him well. The early and untimely deaths of his three sons gave him more sorrow and grief than anything else.

A bit too uncharitable; okay read
I have read a few books by Ronald Kessler. It is a recurring theme that I find myself irritated by how uncharitable Kessler is. Unless Kessler honestly believes that The FBI ("the Bureau") did nothing right and that Joseph Kennedy was an absolute villain. Kessler has a tough time saying anthing good about Joseph Kennedy, The FBI or most of his other topics. I think Kessler's novels need balance and fairness. Maybe only the negative and scandalous is stimulating or salable but the novels leave me feeling annoyed.

Essential to know the Kennedys
It is a good and fair book, well written and researched. To read this book is so essential to know and understand - really - an important american family like the Kennedys, apart from the mith that this cool man, Joseph Kennedy, helped much more than anybody else in the family to create and foster. There are some dark sides, but the truth is one thing and the legend is another and of course if you prefer the latter leave this book on the shelf and go on dreaming. ... Read more

Reviews (30)

DNA test prove that Anna Anderson was NOT Anastasia
I read this book about 15 years ago and found it fascinating. Fortunately or unfortunately, the "riddle" has been solved: DNA tests run subsequent to the book's publication prove with virtual certainty that Anna Anderson was not Anastasia, so the "cat's out of the bag" before you read the first sentence. It's actually a shame because I did very much enjoy the book before the information came out.

Kurth Convinces
How far will one go to disbelieve scientific data? I guess I'm finding out because after reading Kurth's "Anastasia," I do believe that the woman known as Anna Anderson/Frau Tschaikovsky was indeed Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaievna, survivor of the executions of the Romanov family at Ekaterinburg in 1918.

[This book was written before the DNA testing was done, which makes it somewhat anachronistic, but doesn't diminish its readability and the fundamental story of the woman many thought to be the surviving Romanov.]

Kurth follows "Anastasia" from her attempted suicide in Berlin through her death (the version I have has an afterword that addresses that event), with some tantalizing background of the last days of imperial Russia that were fascinating. Anastasia divided the royal houses of Europe into definite camps, those for and against, with both sides passionate.

All along, Anastasia, as retold by Kurth, reveals compelling knowledge of her identity as the Grand Duchess. She recognizes other European royals by the sound of their voices. She has the exact same foot deformity as the grand duchess, with the same (unusual) color eyes, same height, build and hair color. She knows personal details of life at court that only those there could know.

One really fascinating aspect of the book is how Anastasia said she escaped Ekaterinburg after the executions and the scars on her body, which are inline with the bloody end of her family. (She said Grand Duchess Tatiana Nicholaievna fell on top of her, shielding her from fatal wounds, but that she had a bullet wound in her head behind her right ear and she was also stabbed. She was rescued by a Bolshevik soldier who realized that she lived and couldn't bury her, a man named Tschaikovsky. He took her out of Siberia, all the way to Bucharest in a horse cart, where she was briefly married to him and bore a child before Tschaikovsky was shot in a street brawl. She left the infant and Bucharest for Berlin, hoping to find her mother's family. That's where she threw herself in the canal and was institutionalized, and the story began.) She had problems with handwriting after she was found, problems learning how to tell time and she refused to speak Russian for many years, saying it was the last language she heard in Ekaterinburg, but she understood it perfectly, and sometimes uttered phrases of Russian that were definitely idioms that only a native speaker would know.

Kurth's retelling of the two trials in Germany to prove her identity are two chapters loaded with convincing information, including a witness who said he saw her alive at Ekaterinburg after the others were shot.

But, she was never victorious and, contrary to the film "Anastasia" with Ingrid Bergman, she never got to meet her grandmother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (formerly Dagmar of Denmark).

A side note that was compelling about this book is how it shows that all those richie-royals in Europe are related to each other. I was very naïve about that and found the realization bizarre.

Kurth clearly believed the woman to be Anastasia and in the book, Kurth convinces. I recognize that he's sympathetic to the "Anastasians" and knew the woman personally, but I have to say, I'm a believer. It's not just that one is sympathetic with "the invalid" as many referred to her (she wasn't very likeable for long; she was moody and held grudges, was demanding and volatile), but because the evidence of handwriting similarities and physical similarities rather sealed the deal for me.

WONDERFUL
This book will have you wondering about the mystery long after you finish reading it. Do I believe in Mr. Kurth's story? You can call me the biggest idiot that has ever walked this earth but my answer is a simple three letter word...YES. I have 31 books and counting on the Romanov's and their lives and this one is one of my favorites. Why? Or more importantly, why do I still believe? Read the book and have an open mind. You will find the answers there. There has been so much talk over the results of the DNA. Everyone calling Anna Anderson a liar, an actress or even much worse. My question is, how can anyone just pick up memories and never be wrong? What about a deformity of the feet? The hair, height, eyes? What about the ears? Ears are like fingerprints. They are very distinct with each person and they never change. I could go on and on about the positives as they far out way the negatives. What about the burial in Russia? The body they have buried as Anastasia is 5 feet seven inches. Anastasia was just over 5 feet. Anyone looking at any Romanov photo can clearly see that she was by far the shortest of all of the daughters. I think if Russia can lie about who is buried in their own homeland, then perhaps someone else can lie about the DNA evidence. Read the book and come to your own conclusion.

She Knew Too Much
Mr. Kurth's book has been out for some years now, so there is little that can be added at this point except that he did a marvelous job in presenting Anna Anderson's story to the world. This work is so thorough, in fact, that it convinced many non-believers that she was truly Grand Duchess Anastasia. In my opinion, the facts presented here far outweigh the dubious DNA tests that supposedly proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Anna was not Anastasia.

Firstly, IMHO, the DNA studies were used to try and hide the fact that Anastasia survived. The reasons behind this lie in the political realm, and this is not the forum to address these issues. However, time after time, Kurth provides us with information from and about Anna that only someone who actually lived through the life and times of the royal family would know. Although she made some errors (memory fails us all at times), it's the small details, such as Anna being overheard humming one of Anastasia's favorite tunes, that really strike the reader as having a great deal of validity. The fact that her Aunt Olga retracted her view about Anna's authenticity hints at family pressure, rather then a change in the belief that this was her niece.

Kurth's writing style is always interesting, and for those who are truly intrigued by this woman and the possible survival of one of the Grand Duchesses (and there are incidents beyond the scope of Kurth's work that also point to this very real possibility), the book is a must read. I found it hard to put down. I read it twice--once before the DNA results were made known and then again after it was announced that she was not the Grand Duchess. The evidence provided by Kurth far outweighs the results of tests that could be easily manipulated.

To sum up--Anna Anderson simply "knew too much". Even if coached, the wealth of her knowledge would have been impossible for a simple working class girl to learn from even the greatest of teachers. I hope Mr. Kurth was not swayed from his previous beliefs, for he has presented in this work some of the best evidence for this woman who lived through the glory of Imperial Russia and the living hell that followed.

a great actress or a grand duchess?
The first 20 pages of Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Andersen are very interesting and make you want to keep reading. But Kurth is obiviously on a follower of Anna because instead of writing a true non-fiction (instead of stating facts) he has to find situations that prove Anna Andersen is Anastasia; expecially in the first trial chapter where he stresses that the judge was being unfair; which made him sound like a child whining (but, but. . .) Even with these small annoyances, the book was very enjoyable altogether. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Natalie Wood (1938-81) came from the last generation of movie stars shaped by the Hollywood studio system, and Suzanne Finstad gives her life the all-out showbiz celebrity bio treatment in this compulsively readable book. As Finstad sees it, Wood was tortured by the conflict between her real self, born Natasha Zakharenko to Russian immigrants, and the glamorous "Natalie Wood" persona created by her ambitious mother. Wood admired rebellious actors like James Dean, her co-star in Rebel Without a Cause, but she wanted the mink coats, sexy cars, and huge salaries Warner Brothers doled out for appearances in forgettable pictures like Sex and the Single Girl. Working in films from age 6, she learned early that the way to get ahead was to please the grownups, a lesson she never really unlearned, even in her wild teens. She ditched a fiancé‚ deemed unsuitable by the studio, to marry suave rising star Robert Wagner, despite warnings from friends that he was bisexual; their first marriage ended when she found him "in a compromising position with another man," but they reunited in 1972 to become Hollywood's golden couple once more. But her attraction to more challenging artists remained; her friendship with Brainstorm co-star Christopher Walken sparked the drunken quarrel that in Finstad's account led to Wood's drowning off Wagner's boat. (Chillingly, she had a lifelong fear of water.) Numerous quotes from practically everyone who ever knew Wood evoke Tinseltown's gossipy atmosphere, and Finstad's overwrought prose (she describes Wood as "bound to her mother, as if Maria were a snake coiled around her neck") sustains an appropriately high-pitched mood. Suicide attempts, reckless driving, excessive drinking, rape by an unnamed Hollywood star are all chronicled in detail that might be distasteful if the author weren't so sympathetic towards her vulnerable heroine. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Reviews (73)

natural beauty
I am fan of Natalie Wood since I saw, as a child, movie "Splendor in the grass". She was beautifull and so much different then the other "star-system" actresses. A long time I could not find some interesting article regarding her life and tragic death so I was surelly suprised when I read "Natasha". I have read it in one breath. I have read it earlier that she was famous in all the hollywood parties and that she was rebel. Thats why I was suprised when I`ve read that she was connected to her family and children. Maybe she was captivated by her mentally abused childhood as the author presented, and she was searhing for true love. I was very suprised when I heard the editors preview regarding the bisexual activity of Robert Wagner. The author was just indirectly show us the possible, "shocking" divorce reason of their first marriage. I was more suprise that she returned to him after that "compromised position" she saw.

The book is very interesting but only thing it is not such clear to me is RJ. According to the author, they were really in love and he was quait and nice man. But Finstad is not paid so much attention to him, as he was not interested her. What is still question for me is that relationship with C. Walken on that day when she drowned. Is in Hollywood really ordinary thing to be bisexual?

Very well done
I thought this biography of Natalie Wood was very well researched and quite absorbing. I see from other reviews that people criticized Finstad for her over-dramatic prose and repetition, but I found myself so interested in the story that I didn't notice these things while reading. Well, Natalie lead a dramatic life, so maybe some flowery prose isn't entirely out of place.

I read on a Natalie Wood website that her oldest daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner, has dismissed the book as "trash," saying the information was just "gathered from a lot of gossip columns," although in the same breath she admits she hasn't actually read the book. Actually, Finstad interviewed a large number of people who were close to Natalie both personally and professionally, from the time she was a small child, and the text is very well documented with her source notes. Such complete documentation is rarely found in Hollywood biographies these days, and is very impressive, in my opinion.

All in all, I agree with Natalie's sister Lana that this book is "comprehensive, moving, shocking and riveting," and recommend it to both long time and new Natalie Wood fans.

A waste of time
This book is trash. It exploits and sensationalizes the life of one of Hollywood's most charming and fascinating people. There's a reason the Wagners didn't participate in the production of this biography. I'm certain Finstad's disregard for the truth is it. Of course Lana Wood likes this bio. She was always as out to get her sister as the tabloid press!

If you have any respect or admiration for Natalie Wood, don't buy this nonsense. Rent her movies instead.

A Moving Tale
Noel Coward used to perform a song he wrote called "Don't Put Your Daughter On the Stage Mrs Worthington". It's a pity Natalie Wood's mother didn't take note when she first started coaching her little daughter to be nice to people (men mostly) so they would put little Natasha in movies. There is something obscene about about a child denied a childhood and normal emotional developement in order for a mother's selfish ambitions to be fulfilled - especially when that little girl is from then on the family bread winner. Suzanne Finstad's book was a best seller and deservedly so.No stone was left unturned to sus out the real Natalie Wood, her desire to be a great actress, her friendship with James Dean who represented acting as a serious craft, something Natalie had not been exposed to before. Her relationship with Warren Beatty, her two marriages to Robert Wagner and the real reason for the the fist marriage breakup with Wagner, and even a detailed account of the last day of her life and tragic death.
The ruthlessness of movie directors is aptly displayed here too, men driven by a need to bring the picture in under budget -resorting to behaviour that in one instance nearly cost Wood her life and in others displaying total insensitivity.
Natalie Wood amazingly survived the nightmares of her youth and was universally well liked by those who knew her and worked with her. She strove to have a normal life without ever really knowing what that was, and was a deeply caring, compassionate human being as, wife, mother and friend to those who loved her.
Suzanne Finstad interviewd hundreds of people, family, friends and colleagues who shared their vivid recollections of a great lady who was - Natalie Wood.

Attention-Grabbing look at the life of Natalie Wood
If you are interested in the life of Natalie Wood, this is the book for you.

The book starts off by telling the story of Natalie's mother Maria and she came from Russia to China and then to the United States with her first husband and daughter Olga in the early 1930's. It then goes into how Maria met Nicoli Zakharenko and had Natalia or Natasha as Natalie was called.

The book then goes into the early childhood of Natalie Wood living an idyllic life in Santa Rosa California playing with her best friend Edwin Canavari before leaving for Hollywood to be a movie star after appearing in Happy Land.

The book then goes into Natalie's early life in Hollywood, being rejected for many parts before being cast in Tomorrow Is Forever playing a Austrian orphan raised by Orson Wells after the Nazis kill her parents.

The book then goes into how the producers changed her name from Natasha Gurdin to Natalie Wood and the struggles Natalie had to find a part until at the age of six being cast in not one, but three movies shooting at the same time. The author tells about Natalie's adjustments to playing a New Yorker in Miracle On 34th Street, an English Child in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir as well as an orphan in Driftwood.

The next part of the book is jam-packed talking about the different rolls that Natalie played in a short time. The book also describes how an accident on the set of her movie Scudda Hoo Scudda Hay changed the way she felt about her mother and acting forever. During a scene Natalie was supposed to cross a bridge in the pouring rain and the bridge was supposed to fall and she was supposed to land in the water underneath. Somebody dropped the bridge too soon and Natalie's left wrist was broken.

The next section of the book details Natalie's relationship with men, making more movies and her increasing fixation on a man she met when she was 12 and told everybody that she was going to marry-Robert Wager. During her teens Natalie rebelled against her mother and started dating boys-sometimes men and more than one at a time. During her teens, Natalie was even engaged to several of these fellows. When she was 15 though she started on an affair with 46-year-old Nick Ray and constantly bugged him to be in his new movie Rebel Without a Cause. He was reluctant to cast her though, but after a car accident with one of her girlfriends and Dennis Hopper (whom she was also sleeping with) Ray gave her the part. Ironically, the part that made her a star might not have had the same impact except for the untimely death of lead actor James Dean. The book also describes a very traumatic event in Natalie's life. The rape she experienced at the hands of a very famous movie star.

When Natalie was 18, she had a plan to meet and marry Robert Wager. Her plan was to have his agent become her agent as well. This plan worked. They met at a party shortly after Natalie turned 18, but nothing came of it, they danced and that was it. A year later however, they met again and sparks flew. They spend that night on his boat. Several months later, they were married. The marriage did not last very long and they slit up after only five years.

The next part of the book Natalie is again catapulted into stardom with the movie West Side Story. Even with this, though Natalie is depressed because she could not get her marriage to RJ (Wagner's nickname) to work. She dates several men before meeting and marrying Richard Gregson and having daughter Natasha. Natalie is not happy at this point and separates from Richard before doing Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice. Soon after Natalie broke up with Richard, she re meets Wagner and they remarry in 1972. Shortly afterwards they have a daughter named Courtney or as Natalie called her "The most wanted baby in the world."

The last part of the story Natalie is contented. She is married to the love of her life the mother of two and the stepmother of one (Wagner's daughter Kate) and is making movies. Fast forward to Thanksgiving weekend 1981. The Wagners go out on their new boat The Splendor with Natalie's recent costar Christopher Walken. The threesome spend the weekend drinking and on Friday night Natalie disappeared after a fight with Robert. Wagner and Walken waited at least 1.5 hours before calling the coastguard to tell them about the disappearance and at about 8:30 the next morning Natalie was found not far from the boat dead of hypothermia. The author of the book make a point several times that RJ was stupid to wait that long to contact the coastguard because of the fact that Natalie was deathly afraid of water and had since birth, a fact reiterated constantly in different stories and events told about in the book. ... Read more

Reviews (17)

Sensitive & Enlightening
This is an excellent follow-up to the author's first paperback edition. I enjoyed this handsome, hardcover version and its wealth of new photos and illustrations. The artist's depictions looked like actual photos. This edition fleshed out more details of Marilyn's last weeks without dwelling on murder-theories.

Well-researched with new information, this book avoids re-hashing what has already been written. It is a page-turner and must-have for any Marilyn fan. Now I feel as though I really know Marilyn, and I've read nearly every biography written on her in the last fifteen years.

Using Marilyn's last days in the house as a context for a biography is a novel approach to understanding this icon. Vitacco-Robles wove together Marilyn's past as it related to the events during her last year. Marilyn's last year always fascinated me, and I was really interested in learning more about her months in the home in Brentwood. The book is the end-all for anyone who ever secretly wished to visit the home and see inside. It is now hidden by a huge gate to deter fans like me!

The last chapter focused on Frank Lloyd Wright designing a home for Marilyn & Arthur Miller. I was not aware of this. Marilyn wanted a large nursery for the children she never had and a study for the husbanc whom she later divorced. I was amazed that the home was eventually built in Hawaii as a golfing resort.

Vitacco-Robles is a therapist who works with abused children. He knows his subject well and is sensitive to Marilyn's emotional troubles created by her horrendous childhood. As a male biographer, I think Vitacco-Robles does Marilyn justice with his sensitive writing and fresh perspective.

Yes, it's the latest in a long line of biographies about this remarkable woman, but one of the best!

Clarification on this second edition version
I've been confused about the second edition of this book and the sales information on this site. Having spoken with the publisher, Iuniverse, I learned that the hardcover edition offered here is actually a "second edition" released in October 2003, although the release date printed is still listed as 2000. This is because it is a "re-do" under the same title previously released by the publisher. The new second edition cover for the paperback and hardcover depicts Marilyn standing beside the gates of her home and sell respectively for $20.95 and $30.95. The first edition was only published in paperback with a different cover for $11.95. I understand that vendors would continue to sell the first edition paperbacks until supplies depleted. I have both the first edition and second. The second edition contains new images, new chapters, re-worked chapters and information not included in the first. The quality of photo and illustration reproduction in this new version are far superior than in the first. All around, it is a better product and a great, new look at a lasting legend!

A MUST- HAVE FOR ANY MARILYN ENTHUSIAST!!
When I first received my copy of Cursum Perficio: Marilyn's Brentwood Hacienda, I wasn't sure what to expect. Much to my surprise, I was enthralled and fascinated by the details of Marilyn's final months, so eloquently chronicled by Gary Vitacco-Robles. Void of any media hype and speculation about the cause of her death, Vitacco-Robles explores how Marilyn searched and found the perfect place to call home...a respite from the choatic life she led in the media spotlight.
You will journey with her as she went on shopping sprees for furnishings and ornaments in a quest to make the only home she ever owned a reflection of herself.
The book contains a vast collection of actual photographs, as well as impressive photo-recreations of the home's interior as it looked in 1962 and now.
I applaud Vitacco-Robles for a superb testamant to the woman so many longed to know. This book reveals a whole other side of Marilyn that has never been revealed.
A MUST HAVE for any Marilyn enthusiast!

Clarification on this second edition version
There has been some confusion about the second edition of this book and the sales information on this site. According to the publisher, Iuniverse, the hardcover edition offered here is actually a "second edition" released in October 2003, although the release date printed is still listed as 2000. This is because it is a "re-do" under the same title previously released by the publisher. The new second edition cover for the paperback and hardcover depicts Marilyn standing beside the gates of her home and sell respectively for $20.95 and $30.95. The first edition was only published in paperback with a different cover for $11.95. The publisher says that vendors will continue to sell the first edition paperbacks until supplies depleted. The second edition contains new images, new chapters, re-worked chapters and information not included in the first. Having seen this book, the quality of photo reproduction in this new version are far superior than in the first. It also includes professional, "photorealistic-style" illustrations by artist Brandon Heidrick depicting the interior and exterior of Marilyn's home and furnishings. The images serve as a "virtual tour" of Marilyn's last home similar to the author's website.

A must for Norma Jeane lovers
I bought this book, and I really like and enjoyed it. The author is also such a nice man, he offered to sign my copy for me if I sent it to him.

The production quality of the photos in the previous paperback edition were not great (not Gary's fault, he's as upset as anyone) but I managed to download great color ones from the net so that's a non-issue. The new edition has fixed all that and added more. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Marilyn.

If you love Marilyn, you have to have this book. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Doris Duke was anugly person with aboring life
Doris Duke was an ugly person with a boring life.

Tedious biography in need of a good editor
Doris Duke enjoyed being a recluse and keeping out of the spotlight.Reading this book by Ms. Mansfield, it appears Duke did a good job atmaintaining her privacy.Most of the information appears to be drawn fromold newspaper articles, magazines, and other public documents.There isvery little first hand information except for the occassional quip byZsa-Zsa Gabor (!) -- a rival for one of Doris' many paramours.Asmentioned in a previous reader's review, this book goes off on manytangents regarding folks other than Duke -- as if the author was requiredto produce a specified number of pages.I found myself skipping over manypages at a time.Perhaps biographies are supposed to reveal deep, darksecrets, but clinical descriptions of Doris' lovers' genitalia seem a bitexcessive.Skip this book and watch the made-for-tv movie with MissBacall.

If I could choose no stars I would
It was a poorly written, disorganized book.Not worth the paper it was written on or the money spent on it.

Informative & historical, but not very enjoyable to read.
I read the book because I had seen the miniseries on TV and was interested in more information.It included a lot of facts and was interesting from an historical perspective.However, I didn't think it was particularlywell written from a literary perspective.It was also hard to followbecause it jumped around.It included a lot of information that wasinteresting, but not directly related to the subject.Sometimes it seemedlike it went off on tangents.Overall I would rate it average, it wasinformative, but not very enjoyable to read. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Andy Warhol would have approved of close friend Lee Radziwill's autobiographical picture book, Happy Times. A sort of postmodern photographic journal crossed with a lovey Hello! spread, Radziwill's book offers a visually lush, mildly gossipy, somewhat surreal document--solely in photographs and brief reminiscences--of the younger Bouvier sister's unique brand of celebrity. As Radziwill explains in her introduction, friends had urged her to write a biography for years, but she felt doing so would "involve me in too many other lives." So she opted for a biography that focuses only on her "happy times" (hence the book title), and these, she says, happened mostly in the 1960s. The resulting slim volume is essentially a collection of gorgeous photographs, scattered haphazardly like a scrapbook, interspersed with Radziwill's selective memories and little handwritten comments. With a somewhat unconvincing naiveté ("memories should be of happy times"), each chapter is devoted to a particular "happy time" but in no special order. We have summers in Montauk with Mick and Bianca, Christmas with the young Kennedy family, a tour of India with her sister Jackie, whole chapters devoted to each of Radziwill's many exotic homes.

Assuming the reader knows most of the big events of her life, Radziwill offers little in the way of context of these happy times, and it's this element that ultimately gives the project a surreal, celebrity-by-association feel. You wonder why you're reading this random assemblage of country-house photos and memories of Truman Capote; or, considering so much of the book is taken up by photos of the Kennedys, why you should especially care about Lee Radziwill. But it isn't without its charm, and as you flip through the book, Radziwill's breathless gratitude for her own good fortune becomes contagious. The book's final chapter, hand-drawn by Lee and sister Jackie in 1951, documents a summer trip to Europe. An odd inclusion but ultimately fascinating, it's the essence of Happy Times: you're not exactly sure what you're looking at, or why--but isn't it lovely? --Marisa Lencioni, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Reviews (18)

It's not supposed to be about Jackie!
You have to like, or at least be interested in Lee Radziwill in order to appreciate this book. You have to realize that it's a Lee Radziwill book, not a Jackie book, or a Kennedy book, or even a Truman Capote/ socialite circle book. Its title suits it perfectly. This book represents what we'd all like to have one day: a sparkling documentation of the happy times of our lives with no mention of, in Lee Radziwill's case, the considerable bad times. It's unfair to criticize this book for what it never was meant to be.
If you've read the DuBois biography, you will recognize a lot in this book. Unfortunately the DuBois biography focuses exclusively on the negative, documenting every last derogatory comment anyone ever made about Lee Radziwill. I think Happy Times proves that Lee Radzwill is far more graceful than the world seems to think.
This is a beautiful book. Great photography, creative format, interesting narrative. A real treasure!

Lee Radziwill Happy Times - Surprisingly Enjoyable
I have to confess to being an addict to all things Kennedy and Jackie, especially. I bought this thinking it would be loaded with Jackie information, previously unknown. Well, I was wrong, but in the process I believe I got a truer image of her younger sister. I always had envisioned Lee living entirely, and jealously in her sister's shadow. It appears to me that after reading this book that we have done this woman a disservice. She has led a fabulous life in her own right. English estates, Beach Houses, cruising on Yachts. I found it interesting and I noted that Lee seems to have pretty impressive taste herself and was a little more conservative. (The Philadelphia Story Years notwithstanding) I was pleasantly surprised. I think it's time we allowed this woman her own space. Imagine being compared to your sister the First Lady for over half your life!

Pretty, Happy pictures of Pretty, Happy people
While this may not enhance your literacy, it is a beautifully put-together photo collection of a nostalgic period in our nation's history: the collective love-affair with the Kennedy family. Dress up that coffee table in Martha's Vineyard with this one.

What is the point!
...I bought this book thinking it would be about Jackie & Lee. It was all about Lee. Awful book. No substance. A waste of money...

NO SUBSTANCE - NO REAL INSIGHTS
I wish I could have given this book zero stars. I saw Lee Radziwill in a TV inerview when she was plugging her book - and - she offered no insights or substance then either. She was evasive with most questions and even avoided others. The book is so hyped and delivers nothing that we don't already know. I agree with some of the previous reviewers - the only reason people have bought this book is because Lee was Jackie's sister. Outside of that fact no one is really interested in Lee Radziwill's life. ... Read more

Book Description

A portrait of a great
American dynasty and its
legacy in business, technology,
the arts, and philanthropy

Meyer Guggenheim, a Swiss immigrant, founded a great American business dynasty. At their peak in the early twentieth century, the Guggenheims were reckoned among America's wealthiest, and the richest Jewish family in the world after the Rothschilds. They belonged to Our Crowd, that tight social circle of New York Jewish plutocrats, but unlike the others -- primarily merchants and financiers -- they made their money by extracting and refining copper, silver, lead, tin, and gold.

The secret of their success, the patriarch believed, was their unity, and in the early years Meyer's seven sons, under the leadership of Daniel, worked as one to expand their growing mining and smelting empire. Family solidarity eventually decayed (along with their Jewish faith), but even more damaging was the paucity of male heirs as Meyer and the original set of brothers passed from the scene.

In the third generation, Harry Guggenheim, Daniel's son, took over leadership and made the family a force in aviation, publishing, and horse-racing. He desperately sought a successor but tragically failed and was forced to watch as the great Guggenheim business enterprise crumbled.

Meanwhile, "Guggenheim" came to mean art more than industry. In the mid-twentieth century, led by Meyer's son Solomon and Solomon's niece Peggy, the Guggenheims became the agents of modernism in the visual arts. Peggy, in America during the war years, midwifed the school of abstract expressionism, which brought art leadership to New York City. Solomon's museum has been innovative in spreading the riches of Western art around the world. After the generation of Harry and Peggy, the family has continued to produce many accomplished members, such as publisher Roger Straus II and archaeologist Iris Love.

In The Guggenheims, through meticulous research and absorbing prose, Irwin Unger, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize in history, and his wife, Debi Unger, convey a unique and remarkable story -- epic in its scope -- of one family's amazing rise to prominence.

Reviews (2)

This book has multiple stories that each make great reading
I can think of several reasons to read this fascinating story of an iconic American dynasty.A reader might want to know why the name Guggenheim is on a number of important art museums around the world and want to know how they got there.Another might know about the glory days of the seven brothers when they ruled copper mining and smelting.Another might know about the flamboyant Peggy Guggenheim and want to get more context for her life.Then there is Harry Guggenheim and his participation in and support of early aviation (he actually participated in air combat in BOTH world wars), his support of Robert Goddard's early rocketry research, and his friendship with Charles Lindbergh.

Personally, I am fascinated by multi-generational family stories.How was the success that founded the dynasty achieved?How is the next generation formed to continue that success?Because business changes, the family will have to adapt.Can they continue the success?How do they hold things together or why does it fall apart?Splits within the family are inevitable simply because people will want to establish their own lives apart from somebody else's path.

This book has a huge cast of characters because there were so many people coming in and out of this family.There is a great deal of divorce, faithlessness in the marriages that do occur, a shocking amount of suicide, and proof that money, fame, hedonistic sex, and intoxicants do not lead to happiness.This book does tell the story of certain members of the clan more fully.The story of the seven sons of Meyer Guggenheim (who founded the dynasty a $5,000 dollar investment in a mine in Colorado) is quite fascinating.

One of the sons, Ben, went down with the Titanic.The strongest son and the one who became the head of the family after Meyer was Daniel.However, another brother became a United States Senator, and all of them made their contributions to the family dynasty.Even so, the youngest brother, William, did split with the family and that has had repercussions to the present day.

Solomon lived the longest of the seven brothers and it is his name on the spiraled Frank Lloyd Wright museum in New York.The story of how that museum came to be is itself reason to read this book.What a strange cast of characters brought that loved and derided institution into being.

The second generation was ruled by Harry Guggenheim, younger son of Daniel.He led an amazing life, however unsuccessful in marriage.He was an early pilot in WWI and created a private foundation that accomplished a great deal to make commercial aviation safe and reliable (if not profitable).One of his friends was Charles Lindbergh and through Lindbergh's advocacy, he funded Robert Goddard's early work in experimental rocketry.He raised thoroughbreds and his horse, Dark Star, won the 1953 Kentucky Derby.Through his third wife he founded Newsday and ended up running that for many years and sold it at a huge gain.You will find his life very interesting and its pains awfully sad.

Of course, the most famous of the Guggenheims nowadays is the art collector and flamboyant socialite, Peggy Guggenheim. The book recounts her life and struggles.Her demons were many and it ends up being a sad story.Even her art collection, her life's triumph, is surrounded with a pathetic air because of the way her obsession with it walled her off from so much else in life.

There is so much more that this story has to offer that I will simply urge you to take the time to read about these lives and what happens to people, both ordinary and extraordinary people, when they find themselves in possession of a dream of great wealth.It seems that too often they end possessed by the money and it ends up doing them as much personal harm as it does anybody any good.

Of course, being miserable without money is fairly easy to accomplish as well.By the fourth and fifth generation most of the family has settled into comfortable lives in the various reaches of the middle class.Many do not have much personal connection to the Guggenheim story and that is also a very interesting story that this book tells.

Fine job, and recommended to everyone interested in business, American social history, and dynastic families as well as those personally interested in the Guggenheims.

A Book With Everything
Most family biographies are hard to read and even harder to follow, as the generations begin to amass, narrative thrust seems to take a vacation.So it is with great pleasure that I can report THE GUGGENHEIMS by Irwin Unger and Debi Unger "good to the last drop."The authors begin with a panoply of anti-Semitism in Europe and make it clear just how limited career prospects were for Jews of the second millennium, when they were forbidden all but the very lousiest jobs, and the jobs most guaranteed to annoy their Christian "brethren" (such as collecting rents and taxes).Unike the other great Jewish families of "Our Crowd," the Guggenheims made their money primarily from mining, in the farawy and exotic paradise of Chile (mostly in copper, and silver and lead as well).By the turn of the century (1900) they were well on their way towards their legend.

The biography has sweep and a certain falling grandeur, but I liked best the authors' marvelous pen portraits of the many younger Guggenheims.I liked finding out that Gladys Guggenheim wrote two cookbooks and was named "nutrition commissioner" of New York by Thomas Dewey in 1934.There's the shocking battle between the sisters Hazel and Peggy, over who could score with the most men sexually--when each got up to a thousand, the numbers started to blur.I bet!And then the terrible story of Hazel's 1928 rooftop tragedy.She had taken her two little toddlers, Ben and Terrence, up to an unlikely section of her apartment's roof garden, and somehow the two tykes tumbled off t their deaths.She was suspected as being some kind of Alice Crimmins-type Medea, but the family turned up a window cleaner nearby who claimed to have witnessed the whole thing and said Hazel was innocent and had indeed tried to save the kids!

Who remembers now that Harry Guggenheim, the bigwig of the third generation of Guggenheims, once owned Dark Star, the horse that beat Native Dancer to the 1953 Kentucky Derby?Harry and his wife, Alicia Patterson, started NEWSDAY, the Long Island paper, and he seemed to share her with the Democratic also-ran Adlai Stevenson with whom she fell quite desperately in love.

The Ungers also tell the story of Diane, Harry's daughter, who sought escape from hr family in an unlikely place, the postwar "folk music boom" that led her to Ireland, of all places, where she began an intrigue with young Liam Clancy, then a teen and not yet famous for sparking the Clancy Brothers + Tommy Makem.Diane changed her name and began recording her own folk music, which made me curious to hear what she did with her career.She seems to have been kind of a Peggy Seeger, and just as adventurous.

The last half of the book brings forward Solomon, whose legacy was the Guggenheim museum, and Peggy, the art dealer who married Max Ernst, discovered Jackson Pollock, and invented "Art Of This Century."In each case, the Ungers surpass all previois biographical treatments of their very complicated subjects.Peggy in particular comes to life, not as a freak or a groupie, but as a woman with a particular historical and aesthetic missionwhich she graciously fulfilled.Good for them.I expect this book will do quite well, and may restore some of the tarnished luster of the Guggenheim name.In any case you'll be reading it all night long trying to get to the end before morning. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

Diana & Dodi: A Lust Story
A supremely sycophantic book "written" by Dodi's boy Friday (butler, valet, masseure, personal trainer, gofer...). All the perfumed prose cannot hide the skeleton of the story: two people who'd seen each other for about six weeks, dated seriously for about four of those, and were united in their stuffed animals and living well off of other people's money. No mention is made of Dodi's fiance, who was stashed on a nearby yacht during the first two weeks of D&D's six week "love" affair. This is definitely the Fayed public version of what happened between mid July and August 31, 1999.

Sweet and sad - a last, loving look at Diana
Whether or not Dodi and Diana would ever have married is something no one will ever know and this book may be wishful thinking - what is poignant and moving is the loyalty and affection Delorm shows for his boss and the Princess of Wales. Even more moving, though, is the little look we have at the Princess being a real person - smiling, laughing, eating and relaxing - an image never quite delivered by the hundreds of lovely - but very dressy - photos in existence. I had expected to find this book superficial and self-serving but it is anything but. Instead we have a haunting and all too short visit with Diana - and a confirmation that all the love and grief at her passing was perfectly fitting for a truly lovely, truly gracious woman who left far too soon. Her short time with Dodi -whether the start of a lifetime romance or simply a sweet summer interlude - was clearly one of great pleasure for the Princess. We should be grateful to Rene Delorm for sharing his memories of Diana - for allowing us to see her as we all imagined she would be if we had met her ourselves- funny, sweet, lovable and loving. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

One of the sweetest Diana books - a delightful read.
I've probably read all or nearly all the books on Diana. Somehow I'd missed this one until a friend gave it to me as a gift. While I didn't give it 5 stars for its great literary qualities, I thought that for Diana fans, it delightfully delivered the goods - it is a pleasing intimate portrait with plenty of detail (food, clothes, toiletries, habits) yet with a real sense of affection, humor and respect.

Setting this apart from most Diana books is the uniquely likeable voice of the narrator. Delorm is a class act, a man who respected and liked his boss, Dodi Fayed, and who seems to view everyone from his wealthy employer to his fellow cooks, butlers and masseuses with generosity of spirit and an open mind. This is a refreshing contrast with the self serving busybody tone of Patrick Jephson's Diana book, or any of the royal "experts" who simultaneously envy, fawn and snipe.

The author's joie de vivre and eye for detail turn this book into a lovely little vacation on a yacht, along with two people we might have enjoyed knowing very much. And unlike many books published after their deaths, it does not lay on the pathos, but instead is more of a celebration.

All in all, this is an intimate book you can enjoy without feeling like a voyeur, and a very welcome read for anyone who misses Diana. She sounds like a lot of fun.

A great escape read in these glamour-free times. Highly recommended.

A simple, but affectionate, recollection
Rene Delorm, Dodi Fayed's former Butler, was clearly devoted to his former employer and this affection shines through these memoirs.

The scene is well set with a brief thumbnail sketch relating how his and Dodi's paths originally crossed, before the more eagerly-awaited period is focussed upon. Never overstating his case, Delorm recounts the beginnings of Dodi's affair with the Princess of Wales with disarming candour and seems to me conscious of the temptation to embroider upon his recollections or, worse still, hypothesise on what the future for the couple may have held. This temptation he scrupulously avoids and it is to his credit that he refers only to what he saw and heard and shies away from hearsay and speculation.

While necessarily anecdotal in content, the book gives a charming, if simplistic, insight into their last days together and makes an interesting addition to the huge library of titles dealing with the demise of Diana and Dodi, by one who was well-placed to observe their intimacies. Paul Burrell, Diana's Butler, (whom she referred to as her "rock") is arguably in a better position to reveal her state of mind in these last weeks but has, to date, sensitively deferred from comment. Delorm's book, though, is an affectionate and poignant recollection and his grief on hearing the devastating news is tangible.

Diana and Dodi A Love Story
This book was very warm, discreet and also revealing of a mgical romance. Anyone that loves Diana will be extremely happy with this book.

In this book you can feel that Diana is being a real person- happy, smiling, laughing, eating, and falling in love, relaxing- an image she never got by hundreds of people- it is sad that her life was cut so short. She was a lovely, gracious woman who left way to early in life. Her time with Dodi- was to start a lifetime of romance that was ever so sweet. that was cut very short too.Now we will never know if they were to ever marry or not.

I am a greatful of Rene for sharing his memories with the world of Diana- allowing people to see and to hear about her romance. ... Read more

Book Description

Covering the well-known and public areas of Burt Bacharach's life, as well as those aspects that have previously been hidden from the media, this book examines a celebrated career spanning 50 years. Covered in detail are Bacharach's previously undocumented early life; his work with lyricist Hal David; his golden years composing hit after hit; his numerous relationships with women and his four marriages, including those to Angie Dickinson and Carole Bayer Sager; and his recent collaborations with Elvis Costello and Noel Gallagher. ... Read more

Book Description

Meticulously combining previously scattered accounts with abundant fresh research, AFTER CAPONE provides a comprehensive and arousing portrait of underworld boss Frank Nitti and his gang's far-reaching power emanating from Chicago in the 1930s. The last word on the life of the cunning mob boss, his life experiences, the people around him, and organized crime in Chicago after Al Capone, this in-depth analysis, based on many years of research and supported by original sources from state and federal archives, is the definitive reference on Nitti's violent life and times.

AFTER CAPONE traces Nitti (born Francesco Raffele Nitto—his name was misspelled on early bond and arrest warrants, and the press always seemed to pen him as "Frank Nitti") from his Italian origins and entry and rise in Chicago's underworld mob to his near-fatal shooting by city detectives, his strange death, and the ultimate downfall of those associated with him. In addition to dispelling popular notions as that Nitti followed Capone to Chicago and was Scarface's cousin, author Mars Eghigian provides an all-encompassing view of Nitti's criminal activities, which stretched farther beyond Chicago than those of any other organized crime family until that time.

Following Capone's incarceration and his eventual release from prison on income tax charges, Nitti was the driving force that expanded the Chicago mob's operations. Moving away from the illegal booze that was the gang's mainstay during Prohibition, he led the mob into the legitimate distribution of alcohol after repeal, labor union racketeering, and attempts to control illicit gambling from coast to coast.

AFTER CAPONE is the first book to present the complete, never-before-told story of one of America's leading crime kingpins. A fascinating and chilling account of mob power, it stands as proof that sometimes fact is indeed stranger than fiction. ... Read more

Book Description

Queen of Diamonds is the story of Evalyn Walsh McLean, a remarkable and flamboyant woman of the early 20th century.Her husband, Ned McLean, wealthy publisher of the Washington Post, purchased the Hope Diamond for her, and she delighted in flaunting a jewel that many considered to be cursed. She and her husband were close friends with President and Mrs. Warren G. Harding, and the couples attended some of the most glittering parties and social events of their time. Queen of Diamonds tells a tale of rags to riches and back to rags again, for Evalyn lived her last years cash poor. She was forced to sell her fabled stone to jewelry magnate Harry Winston, who donated it to the Smithsonian, where it is now one of the most popular museum exhibits in the world.

Evalyn Walsh McLean originally wrote her autobiography, entitled Father Struck it Rich, with the help of Boyden Sparkes in 1936.Out of print for decades, it is now beautifully edited, updated, revised and reissued.The new book includes additional material about Evalyn's later years and a photo section. It has been produced under the auspices of her great grandson, Joseph Gregory,and his research coauthor and collaborator, Carol Ann Rapp. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

queenof diamonds the fabled legacy of evalyn walsh mclean
I have been a biography reader for many years and I can surly say that after reading this wonderful book about a lady who gave more to others then herself must have been to good to be true. Reading stories like this, reminds me when I was a little boy when my mother and grandmother would sit around a table and tell me about their lives. Most of all when their lives went to rags to riches to rags again like Evalyn did. I could not put Queen of Diamonds down. I'm so glad that a great grandson has taken a true story and is able to share his memories to everyone. It's wonderful and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone who wants to read a good story. I applaude him. A MUST TO READ AND TO HAVE TO SHARE TO OTHERS. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A Wonderful Book!
Looking for Jackie is a really great book!!! It shows some of America's biggest icons in fashion history. It shows some of the First Ladys including Jackie O. It also includes some of Hollywood's biggest names! I thought Craughwell-Varda did a wonderful job on this book. A must have for anyone who enjoys looking at historic fashion!

JACKIE? O NO! WHAT A TERRIBLE FIT THIS TOME IS
O! Can't poor Jackie O ever finally rest in peace? Now comes author Kathleen Caughwell-Varda's photo-packed coffeetable book that spends too many pages "looking" for the women who, like Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis, broke barriers and influenced their eras, from the 1800s to the present. The relatively unknown are here (Julia Gardiner Tyler, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte) as well as the essentials (Crawford, Swanson, Kelly.) Yawning yet? Save the money and go buy a pillbox hat.

fascinating & informative
Ms.Varda's book is one of the most beautiful books on fashion I've ever beheld. The essays on women, from Betsy Bonaparte to Alice Roosevelt, are fascinating and elegantly written. The illustrations are gorgeous(full-page facsimiles of paintings,wonderful photographs).This would make a fantastic gift for anyone interested in women's studies, as well as fashion.

A Veritable Plethora of Photographic Progression
After reading this book, I feel that I have a better understanding of the complexities surrounding the female icon, whether it be modern,victorian, or beyond. Craughwell-Varda tapped into a well that until now, I did not appreciate. A wonderful book, with spectacular illustrations.

Hip look at the history of chic in the U.S.
Using glamorous photos, paintings, letters and anecdotes, Craughwell-Varda has turned out a winner of a book on American fashion icons: Jackie, Dolley Madison, the Duchess of Windsor. The author deftly mixes juicy details-Julia Gardener Tyler was a shopaholic-with intellectual discourse on how the way these women dressed changed politics, movies and fashion. A great gift for your favorite fashionista, and a coffee-table book that shows brains as well as beauties. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Alistair Cooke writes in the preface to this collection of 23 biographical sketches, "Most of these pieces tend to find, and rejoice in, what is best about their subjects." That is not to say that the distinguished British print and broadcast journalist (resident for many years in America) is starry-eyed about the men and women he profiles: George Bernard Shaw was a crank; Frank Lloyd Wright a prima donna; General George Marshall an appalling public speaker. Yet Cooke's smooth prose and keen insights explore the larger issues his subjects' stories raise and invite readers to appreciate the people who have made a difference. Franklin Roosevelt's visionary leadership was possible because of a gentleman's agreement with the press inconceivable today: they never printed a single photo of him in his wheelchair. FDR's vice president, John Nance Garner, was a Southern politico who understood only power and back-scratching: "There is one man left who is like him," Cooke wrote in 1967, "Lyndon Johnson"--cogently and simultaneously nailing LBJ's strength and weakness. Politicians and statesmen preponderate here (Cooke's Winston Churchill portrait is justly famous), but the author covers writers (P.G. Wodehouse, Robert Frost), performers (Gary Cooper, Duke Ellington), and columnists (James Reston, Erma Bombeck) with equal shrewdness. --Wendy Smith ... Read more

Reviews (3)

A Good Read
Prior to buying this volume of Alistair Cooke's writings, I knew him only as the former host of Masterpiece Theater, with his career as a journalist being only something I had heard about. The essays collected here are from various periods of Mr. Cooke writing career (1957 through 1999) and include a diverse group of people, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Irma Bombeck, Gary Cooper, Barry Goldwater and Eleanor Roosevelt . Each essay is rather short, averaging about ten pages. I read a comment by a reviewer that Mr. Cooke was excellent at creating a "portrait" of his subjects. While this is probably true, "Memoirs of the Great and Good" aims more at anecdotes and episodes, that Mr. Cooke elaborates upon, rather than having the detail and depth of a short biography. Many were written upon the death of the subject, so they are valedictory in tone. The essay about FDR relates an occurrence that happened to Mr. Cooke when he encountered the President as he was arriving to give a speech at Harvard. The last piece is a book review of "The Last Lion" by William Manchester, a biography of Winston Churchill, that gives us an insightful look into the early years of Churchill.

In sum, I found these essays to be thoughtfully written and compulsive to read. It was surprising to realize how quickly I went through the book.

A Partial Review
"Memories of the Great and the Good" is a collection of essays that, as much as introducing the more casual and less public sides of nearly two dozen luminaries, reveals the evolution of America and of Alistair Cooke. The pieces stretch from 1951 through 1999 and the most useful advice, repeated both in discussing Churchill's love of war and hatred of the idea of women's suffrage, and in dismissing the alleged racism of golfer Bobby Jones, is to beware the "shame of seeing a man out of his time." One reporter recently dubbed Cooke the Dorian Gray of journalism, perhaps both for having been silver-haired and apparently the same age for as many decades as not, and because it is difficult to tell to what time the man himself belongs.

Even though he is my grandfather, I can be no help on that score; in recent years I have seen the replacement of a knee and an angioplasty (both of which he has mentioned in his weekly BBC "Letter from America") leave him as sprightly as I have ever known him.

Each essay reflects the time of its creation, whether that was 1967 or 1999. The 1974 piece on Duke Ellington mentions a visit to the bandleader's flat "on the swagger side of Harlem," and comments, "There is such a place," the Duke being at the top of "the hierarchy of Negro social status." Yet the 1999 piece on FDR is most memorable for an account of the unexpected, unseen, and contemporarily unpublishable view of the president being carried out of a car and limping, assisted, into a giant hall. By urging the reader to look at his subjects in their times, he sometimes implicitly admonishes himself for failing to do so. "Wodehouse at Eighty," for one, shows the father of Jeeves unquestionably out of his time, an anachronism as viewed--and, to be honest, caricatured--by Cooke, in his early fifties at the time. In other essays he steps almost too much into the times and shoes of his subjects, for example when mirroring the outlook of Erma Bombeck, whose career "was that of her generation--brace yourselves!--mother and housewife." While many of the pieces attempt and succeed at portraying the individuals 'in their time,' a large number of the pieces were written far after 'their times' as obituaries, which should not be surprising as Cooke shares with every nonogenarian the fact of having seen an extraordinary number of players both step onto the stage and then take their bows and make their exits some time later.

Combined with this historical span, what is truly worthy about this book is that, like his earlier "Six Men," it displays the extraordinary degree of access which he, as a foreign correspondent par excellence, enjoyed with a dizzying array of figures. George Bernard Shaw is in a behind-the-scenes committee discussing the pronunciation of proper "BBC English." "The General"--Eisenhower-- sits on his back porch, commenting on his golf and waiting for Cooke's t.v. crew to reposition themselves. And Duke Ellington is in his boxers and a towel, devouring breakfast at two p.m. These are the kind of stories that I've heard come out over drinks in his study, or on Christmas afternoon in Vermont, as if they were the most pedestrian, ordinary experiences.

On October 2, 1999, a fascinating sixteen-minute interview about the book was broadcast on Weekend All Things Considered, recorded in that self-same study in New York. NPR's finest have come to call, just as Cooke did on Wodehouse or Ike; as Cooke thus becomes a living museum of the twentieth century, I wonder if his plea is partly that he himself not be viewed out of his time. In the interview, he posits that America and Americans have, in asserting our 'rights,' lost track of the collective societal duties to which they correspond. With this I must respectfully disagree; we must recognize that these courtesies, if they existed, were only accorded to a small, privileged establishment. Thus, I far prefer a society where anyone can enforce his rights, to one that relies on a collective sense of duty from which many could never benefit. In any case, "Memories of the Great and the Good" offers a rare look, at Cooke (long an icon of Britain to Americans and in icon of America to Britain) and at many of the most important actors on the stage of the twentieth century. I truly hope you will enjoy it.

Alistair Cooke's Insights on Renown Figures
I purchased this book for my 13 year old son for Christmas, and took the liberty of reading it. I read Cooke's sections on George C. Marshall, Winston Churchill,Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Bobby Jones because I was familiar with all of them from other works. Cooke writes in a breezy style, butI believe he captures the noble, transcendent charateristics of each man.I enjoyed each sketch thorougly. His vignettes are all perceptive. I hope that this might spark my son's interest in reading more about these figures. Overall an excellent, quick read. ... Read more