This third detailed biography of the late (1920-1997) controversial aristocratic British/American courtesan (a euphemism for a high-end prostitute) written by a British journalist and writer is extremely laudatory, unlike the earlier two.
Born to the family of a British baron, she became intermittently wealthy, but spent lavishly on jewelry, art, endowments, New York and Washington homes and travel on private planes.
Never well-educated but apparently beautiful and charming, she used those traits to seduce at least dozens of men, if not hundreds, most of whom I could not keep track of. It seems that their marital status was of no concern to her, and she only married three, Randolph Churchill, LeLand Hayward the theatre producer, and Averill Harriman, divorcing Churchill and and outlasting Hayward an Harriman. Those marriages did not stop her from bedding others, including Edward R. Morrow, Greek shipping magnets, the heir to the Fiat empire, numerous Hollywood stars including Clark Gable, and Gianni Agnelli, and perhaps most notably, Ali Khan who is said to have taught her how to better satisfy men in bed.
It seems that wealth and influence in the circles of power were of some major consideration, and her intermittent wealth became suspect with multiple family feuds and lawsuits.
To the author’s credit, none of the sexual liaisons are described in pornographic detail.
It seems that most of her family and friends among the rich and famous also regarded marriage vows as mere suggestions, and l lost track of the number of extramarital liaisons described, many of them not at all secret, among the glitterati that she travelled with.
There is no doubt that she was bright, energetic and influential, obtaining a posting to Paris as U.S. ambassador late in life where she may have been critical in persuading Bill Clinton to intervene to the the Serbian war. But I suspect that most of her political influence was simply bought, and probably exaggerated.
I learned as much about the lives of the (totally foreign to me) numerous rich and famous jet setters as I did about the individual of the title from reading this book, and it is not at all reassuring.
The author errs in at least two minor respects, Harriman’s leg fracture was undoubtedly a pathological one due to his known metastatic prostate cancer, and not ‘bone cancer”. And I doubt that any head trauma in her youth lead to a lifelong streak of white hair, that does not show up in the jacket photo.
The writing at times is tedious and wordy. I thought on first reading that she had died of a heart attack until she showed up again a few pages later. On rechecking the heart attack was Mary’s but the wording is ambiguous.
4.0/5
Thanks, Andra.
The Passionate Reader 