Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (ebook)

Argumento de Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (ebook)

God had a talent for creating exceptional women--Helen of Troy and Cleopatra come to mind. So does Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, who lives again in this "warts-and-all" portrait. It's being released on the 20th anniversary of the tragic death, in 1994, of the icon who changed America's beliefs about what a woman of style, power, and influence could accomplish "behind the throne" of men whose careers changed the course of history.

During her tumultuous life, she zealously guarded her privacy and her secrets, but in the wake of her death, more and more revelations have emerged about her frustrations, her rage, her passions, her towering strengths, and her delicate fragility, which she hid from the glare of the world behind oversized sunglasses. Within this posthumous biography, a three-dimensional woman emerges through the compilation of some 1,000 eyewitness testimonials from men and women who knew her over a period of decades.

The public epitome of charm, grace, and elegance, the private, chain-smoking Jackie was known for her sharp wit and her acid tongue, dissing some of the great men and women she encountered. Examples include such figures as Nancy Reagan (?I heard she used to give the best head in Hollywood when she was a starlet at MGM?); Queen Elizabeth II (?pompous, stuffy, a heavy trip, and seriously pissed off at me for turning on Philip?); or Martin Luther King, Jr. (?a terrible man and a tricky, phony, skirt-chaser and race baiter?).

This outspoken testimonial to the flimsier side of Camelot, defined by the 2015 BEACH BOOK AWARDS as BEST BIOGRAPHY OF THE YEAR, contains a cornucopia of gossip and intrigue, including details about Jackie's scandalous love affairs with her two brothers-in-law (Bobby and Teddy), and her penchant for movie star seductions (Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, William Holden).

Also detailed are her famous feuds with Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Maria Callas; her almost unknown love affairs with Spain's greatest matador and with Peter Lawford; her night in Georgetown coping with LBJ's aborted seduction; her friend Rudolf Nureyev's pursuit of both her and Bobby; her interchanges with Lem Billings, JFK's homosexual ?First Friend? whom Bobby defined as ?Jack's other wife?); her blood feud with Christina Onassis; her sibling rivalry with Lee Radziwill; her illicit affair with a senator nicknamed ?Gorgeous George; her love-hate relationship with Frank Sinatra; and her Italian fling with Fiat's kingpin, Gianni Agnelli, who taught her all about La Dolce Vita during the summer of 1962.

Conceived in direct and sometimes defiant contrast to the avalanche of more breathlessly respectful testimonials to the life and legacy of ?America's Queen,? this book is the latest installment in Blood Moon's endlessly irreverent BABYLON series.

?Porter and Prince's voodoo has never been better. A highly entertaining if somewhat barbed biography of the American Queen of Camelot. And a perfect book companion for a vacation at the beach.??To begin by bastardizing a Cole Porter lyric: What is the voodoo that they do so well??The ?they? in question are Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince, the partners behind Blood Moon Productions and such biographies as Inside Linda Lovelace's Deep Throat; Pink Triangle (a joint biography of Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Gore Vidal); and the Blood Moon masterpiece, Those Glamorous Gabors, a pop culture masterpiece giving deep insight into the shallow lives and multitudinous loves of Zsa Zsa and company.?The ?voodoo' is the secret recipe behind all the Blood Moon products, the peculiar blend of love and lust with which Mr. Porter and Mr. Prince approach their subjects?to say nothing of the completely unique structure of their books, 700-page tabloids. Reading about the Gabors, for instance, is like reading a decade's worth of Enquirer articles, all dishing the dirt on those Hungarian darlings, joyously, even recklessly.?The fact that the authors have chosen to issue their exhaustive biographies in the form of dozens and dozens of bite-sized pieces, all organized into something like a linear format, creates books that are as addictive as they are entertaining. Chapters dissolve in the mind like candy cotton, leaving a sweet, sweet residue.?The Blood Moon voodoo continues in the authors' latest work, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams. In Wildest, as in the authors' other books, celebrities pile up on the pages like flights fighting to land at O'Hare as a blizzard approaches.?The narrative includes, obviously, the girl who sang ?Happy Birthday? to JFK: Mr. Porter and Mr. Prince's account of the single meeting between Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe stands as one of the book's most notable anecdotes?at once completely fascinating and utterly, shockingly tasteless.?In other words, in terms of tabloid biography, it's the Hope Diamond.?And while television's Mad Men famously referred to the two as polar opposites?Marilyn representing the coarsely sexual with Jackie standing for all that is refined and glorified in womanhood?the authors here suggest that the two had more in common than readers might think.?Each of the women were, of course, both loved by and deeply wounded by John F. Kennedy. Both were, in their way, infantilized women; both depended upon men, like JFK, for their sense of identity; and both sought the protection of rich and powerful men. Both even spoke in baby whispers, although, of the two, Jackie was granted a life long enough that she ultimately outgrew both her whisper and her mid-century concept of womanhood.?Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is in many ways the successor to all the other Blood Moon biographies. But in an important way the book breaks new ground and presents special challenges to its authors.?The issue, of course, is one of subject matter.?In deciding to write about Jackie, the authors are, in large part, abandoning their authorly Hollywood cynicism and their willingness to repeatedly trash the subjects of their biographies.?In selecting the First Lady of an assassinated president for a new biography, they are choosing to expose the life of one of the most famous women in the latter half of the 20th century.?And so there is a bit of a balance in the reportage here that was not needed in the books on Linda Lovelace, Zsa Zsa and Vidal, and company. But here, along with the breathless narrative that traces the arc of a life that rose so very high (the Beyond Her Wildest Dreams of the title is both apt and revealing of Jackie's character?a complex woman who embraced fame and power and wealth, but who, at the same time, remained focused, rational and remarkably sensible) as she grew from a courtesan-in-training (daughter of roué ?Black Jack? Bouvier and his society-seeking wife, Janet) to a fully actualized single working woman of the 70s.?While myriad other books have been written about these moments and the others that defined the end of Camelot and the beginning of a wounded new America, none are more heartfelt in their appreciation of Mrs. Kennedy. And of what journalist Mary McGory later said of the First Lady: ?Mrs. Kennedy held the nation together while she broke its heart.??Does Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams err from time to time on the side of tabloid tastelessness? Indeed it does. There are photographs that perhaps would not have been printed in other biographies and chapters that revel in gossip that is missing from other, more formal biographies.?But Wildest is, like Blood Moon's other books, a biography that cannot be put down. To dip in is to quickly become immersed. And to become immersed is to be deeply, inextricably entertained. ?Although the book covers territory that has been much traveled by other biographers and historians, Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince have written a book all their own, no apologies made, no stones unturned. And perhaps their voodoo has never been better.?

"Love Triangle: Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman & Nancy Davis may find its way onto many a Republican Reagan fan's reading shelf; but those who expect another Reagan celebration will be surprised: this is lurid Hollywood exposé writing at its best, and outlines the truths surrounding one of the most provocative industry scandals in the world. ?There are already so many biographies of the Reagans on the market that one might expect similar mile-markers from this: be prepared for shock and awe; because Love Triangle doesn't take your ordinary approach to biography and describes a love triangle that eventually bumped a major Hollywood movie star from the possibility of being First Lady and replaced her with a lesser-known Grade B actress (Nancy Davis). ?From politics and betrayal to romance, infidelity, and sordid affairs, Love Triangle is a steamy, eye-opening story that blows the lid off of the Reagan illusion to raise eyebrows on both sides of the big screen. ?Black and white photos liberally pepper an account of the careers of all three and the lasting shock of their stormy relationships in a delightful pursuit especially recommended for any who relish Hollywood gossip.?

One of the world's leading celebrity biographers, Darwin Porter , a devoted Kennedyphile, began his career working for Florida Senator George Smathers, JFK's best friend and confidant. Porter helped launch the popular Frommer guidebook series with Danforth Prince , a former staff member of The New York Times. and current president of Blood Moon Productions.0