The riveting adventure of a red-haired country girl who became, in
Smith's characterization, the last of the great courtesans and an
internationally recognized diplomat. Pamela Harriman's life is the
stuff of romance novels. The seductive heroine dallies with a
series of rich and well-born lovers, including not only first
husband Randolph Churchill, but American diplomat Averell Harriman,
broadcasting legend Edward R. Murrow, millionaires Jock Whitney,
Aly Khan, Gianni Agnelli, and Elie de Rothschild. Not the least of
her admirers (but not her lover) was Winston Churchill, who was
genuinely fond of his daughter-in-law. She in turn played on the
Churchill name to bolster a brilliant career on the international
social circuit, further enhanced by her marriage to American
theatrical producer Leland Hayward. Widowed by Hayward, she married
former lover Averell Harriman. After Harriman's death and with his
legacy, she used her charm and social skills to become the "den
mother" of the Democratic Party, earning an appointment as
ambassador to France. Relying on many of the same sources but
without the sour bite of Christopher Ogden's 1994 Harriman
biography, Smith (In All His Glory: William S. Paley, 1990) gives
us a portrait of a woman who has left many wounded in her wake
(including her neglected son), but who has spent her life, as she
wanted to, at the center of power and wealth. She brings Harriman's
story up to the present, with a detailed portrait of her
acrimonious feud with the other Harriman heirs. Attractive but not
beautiful, charming but not witty or well educated, how did Para do
it? As many of her famous predecessors, like Pompadour and de
Maintenon, did: With extraordinary determination and by catering to
her man. Sure to ruffle the feathers of feminists, but a convincing
depiction of an era not very long ago when the only route to the
top for a woman of average ability and above-average ambition was
in the wake of a man. (Kirkus Reviews)
This extensively research biography, based on interviews with 400
sources, shares the life of Pamela Churchill Harriman-the grand
daughter-in-law of Winston Churchill and a woman who consistently
managed to be where the action was. Premier biography Sally Bedell
Smith tells the explosive true story of the woman behind the public
facade. From her early years as a British debutante to her last
days as the U.S. Ambassador to France, Harriman dealt with more
powerful figures than nearly anyone else in the twentieth century,
and in the process, she achieved her own fame in their reflected
glory.
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