THE SWANS OF FIFTH AVENUE by MELANIE BENJAMIN : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT BOOK REVIEW

An artful fictive recounting of the interactions between author Truman Capote and his "Swans," which in this case includes Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman, as well as Slim Keith who was married to Leland Hayward before Pamela married him, Babe Paley, and other ladies who did lunch in the pre-Beatles 1960's in New York, I was just fascinated with how author Melanie Benjamin reimaged in all.

Known to have betrayed his long friendship with Babe Paley, as well as the other women, by using them as characters in a "fictive" novel that was exposed first as a magazine article, Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" fame and participation in high society ended with his alcoholism and inability to write any more. In Swans of Fifth Avenue these women's friendships sometimes seem unlikely, as is their tolerance and ultimate understanding of Pamela.  She is dining out with the woman whose husband she went after. In the end, though estranged, both Truman's and Babe's death bed scenes include loving memories of each other.  Meanwhile, after Babe's death we learn that womanizing husband Bill Paley had a long time affair with Babe's best friend Slim.  And hints that Gloria Guinness had been a mistress makes me want to start researching her.

But about Pamela

EXCERPT:

"Babe would never do that," Slim admonished her.  "Babe Paley would never apply lipstrick at the table."

"She never had to," Pam marveled.  "How is that possible?  I've never seen Babe's lipstick ever smear or fade."  Slim, she noticed, had apparently applied her makeup with a trowel, and now it was sliding down her face, like melted frosting. Poor Slim.  She did look like the wreck that she was; the bitter, resentful wreck who sill behaved as if she was Leland's rightful widow.

But Pam was simply not to blame.  Men, the dear boys, did need to be taken care of, and American women were particularly bad at that, so intent on having their own fun.  Babe really was the only American woman of her acquaintance who knew how to keep a husband.  Whereas British women, well, they were born knowing how to take care of men, their own - and everyone else's.

Pamela had grown up possessing the gift of how to soothe and flatter and caress and purr and then ignore, just when the flattering and caressing got to be a bit too much.  She knew how to cast a wide net and keep things friendly, no matter how distastefully they might end, so that she would be able to use one lover to help another, politically or in business.  These men were grateful to her, and had paid her handsomely, set her up very well, and for a long time, after that disaster of a first marriage to Randolph Churchill....   But then one day she realized she was well into her thirties and known only as a courtesan, not a wife.  And in the twentieth century - the prosaic, unromantic twentieth century - wives were more highly prized than mistresses.  So she looked around and saw a husband who wasn't being cared for, and determined to rectify that.  Yes, well, it was rather a shame that the husband happened to belong to a friend of hers.  But that was water under the bridge in her opinion.


Pages 88 and 89 - Reflected Glory by Sally Bedell Smith

Notes: the person who does lipstick at the table is Marella Agnelli.  Of course Pamela has had a long mistresshood with the man who married Marella.  So this scene seems to me to be especially unlikely, even if Pamela liked to stay friends with her exes.  But you never know!

Missy

PAMELA DIGBY as well as AGNELLI and HARRIMAN : SOME GREAT ARTICLES TO READ AROUND THE SUBJECT

http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/guest-diary/2016/the-courtesan-and-the-consort  EXCERPT: Still, men of the World War II generation were enthralled by her as most ached with Churchill-envy, and knew she was the closest they’d ever get to the great man himself. Women, usually, felt over-matched, and they resented her. Not simply because she ignored them, but because she had a past — a vivid, exotic sex-filled past — which had allowed her to accrue wealth from a variety of rich lovers, most of whom were married.

***

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/04/to-war-in-silk-stockings-kathleen-mortimer  THIS ONE IS ABOUT AVERILL HARRIMAN's DAUGHTER, who was friends with Pamela.

EXCERPT:
Daughter of aristocratic titan Averell Harriman, Kathleen Harriman Mortimer was born to wealth, beauty, and blueblood values. But when her father plunged into the politics of World War II as President Roosevelt’s special envoy to Britain and later the ambassador to Russia, she went with him, going from working as a wide-eyed ingénue reporter to enchanting both Churchill and Stalin. After Mortimer’s death last February, and with exclusive access to her previously unknown scrapbooks, Marie Brenner excavates the heiress’s backstage pass to history, including Averell’s affair with Churchill’s daughter-in-law, the legendary Pamela, who would be his last wife. (This article originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of Vanity Fair.)

***
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/08/agnelli200808

THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT THE AGNELLI FORTUNE... Agnelli being one of Pamela's men who kept her, as well as the keeper of Bruna Palombo (a Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto)
EXCERPT: The Agnellis are a study in dysfunction. Gianni, the international titan and epic playboy of a father, turned the family company, Fiat, into a business machine that transformed postwar Italy into the world’s fifth-strongest economic nation and himself into a colossus of power, privilege, and style. His wife, Marella, a Neapolitan princess turned model, photographer, and taste-maker, who was immortalized by Richard Avedon as one of the world’s most beautiful women, and who became one of Truman Capote’s close confidantes (known as his “swans”), was portrayed by Isabella Rossellini in Douglas McGrath’s 2006 film about Capote, Infamous. Attempting to hold her own in the face of her husband’s sexual wanderlust, Marella once told a biographer, “For Gianni, a woman is to be conquered, not to be loved.”

PAMELA HARRIMAN OBITUARY from THE NEW YORK TIMES "An Ardent Political Personality"

NEW YORK TIMES: PAMELA HARRIMAN OBITUARY

EXCERPTS: Pamela Harriman, the United States Ambassador to France, a leading figure in the Democratic Party and for decades one of the most vivacious women on the international scene, died yesterday at the American Hospital in Paris of complications of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 76.

Mrs. Harriman, who was preparing to relinquish her post and return to Washington, suffered the hemorrhage on Monday at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, where she had gone for her usual swim.

...

One of her biographers, Christopher Ogden, was beguiled himself when he described her on the night in November 1992 when she welcomed Bill Clinton, the new President she had helped to elect, to a dinner reception at her Georgetown house.

"She looked fabulous, almost breathtaking,'' he wrote in his book ''Life of the Party.''

''Her smile can appear too practiced but tonight it was wonderfully wise and guileless,'' he wrote. ''Her voice was low with a sexy, croaky catch.''

FUNERAL of PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL HAYWARD HARRIMAN

A FRENCH CHRISTMAS

PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL HAYWARD HARRIMAN - A WOMAN OF ACCOMPLISHMENT

Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, the woman who was called the Courtesan of the 20th Century, started out as an unsuccessful debutante with no real money compared to her peers, embarrassed by her clothing, yet in life set herself apart.

She went on to become a Democratic Party fund raiser.

The woman who was know to say little, to speak only when spoken to, or only to uphold her man, who only reflected the status of a man, started giving political advice.

The woman who lived more than half a century before she felt she had enough money controlled grants given by the W. Averell and Pamela C. Harriman Foundation and the Mary W. Harriman Foundation.  She gave out large sums of money every year to effect public policy.

The woman who lacked a good education but for a "finishing school," who was expected to marry well and retire to a predictable life in the English countryside, proved to have been someone who learned well from life. She had studied others well.

Influential in President William Jefferson Clinton becoming elected to the nation's highest office, she was rewarded when he named her United States Ambassador to France.

PAMELA HARRIMAN - LIFE OF THE PARTY - Washington Post


Another book you might want to read about Pamela.

GYPSY ROSE LEE UPDATE - A NEW DOCUMENTARY

DAILY MAIL : STRIPTEASE ARTIST GYPSY LEE - DOCUMENTARY

Our Mistress of the Month for September 2018, news is that Gypsy's only child, son Erik Preminger, is behind a new documentary about his mom.  Go to the article that includes a video!

EXCERPT: The event was hosted at the Hollywood Heritager Museum and after the screening, Preminger, 74, was joined by burlesque start Dita Von Teese, who has cited Gypsy as one of her inspirations, for a Q and A.

Preminger is Gypsy's only child and he was constantly by her side until the age of 17, traveling with her to gigs and helping her change between acts backstage.

PAMELA CHURCHILL HAYWARD REUNITES WITH HER LONG AGO LOVE AVERILL HARRIMAN

While debutant Pamela Digby was unhappily married to her first husband, Winston Churchill's son Randolph Churchill, and Randolph was away at the war, she had an affair with William Averell Harriman, called Ave.  He was unhappily married too and old enough to be her father.  He was the first man to have kept her. Though he soon returned to the United States and his marriage, he was a very wealthy man and another man, Lord Beaverbrook, acted as a negotiator and a go between to fund Pamela's apartment in London and expenses. These payments went on for three decades, though he may not have always been paying attention to his finances.

When Pamela Churchill Harriman, newly widowed, arrived back in the United States after a trip to Europe to visit her son, Winston, a visit to France, and a cruise, she was invited to a dinner in Washington D.C.  She spotted Ave, now 79 and a widow.

No one could make his life easy again - except Pamela. They quickly reignited old passions.  They were married eight weeks after their reunion.

She set out to redecorate and claim her own turf.  She expanded their staff.  They had a private jet.  Now became truly wealthy in her own right for the first time.
They married when she was 51. He died when she was 66.

Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, the woman who was called the Courtesan of the 20th Century, who started out as a dumpy debutante with no real money compared to her peers, had set herself apart.

She went on to become a Democratic Party fund raiser.

The girl who was know to say little, to speak only when spoken to, or only to uphold her man, started giving political advice.

The woman who lived more than half a century before she felt she had enough money controlled grants given by the W. Averell and Pamela C. Harriman Foundation and the Mary W. Harriman Foundation.  She gave out large sums of money every year to effect public policy.

The girl who lacked a good education but for a "finishing school," proved to have been someone who learned well from everyone she was involved with.

Influential in President William Jefferson Clinton becoming elected to the nation's highest office, she was rewarded when he named her United States Ambassador to France.

10th ANNIVERSARY of MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT

A whole decade ago, I had the idea for this blog, and began posting.  It took a while before I began with the Mistress of the Month magazine idea, but for a while I was just warming up.  Through these years there have been times when I thought I was going to run out of interesting Kept Women and Kept Men to feature or write about.  I haven't.  At the moment, I have no plans to stop blogging but I would love your suggestions.  Check out the list of persons and subjects  I've covered in the past which is called Archive in PAGES.  Do you know of someone I haven't covered that you can recommend?  Links, books - tell me what you know!  Leave a comment; all comments are read by me first and then published if they keep to my comments policy!

THANKS FOR READING MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT!

Missy

PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL in the 1950's - MORE MISTRESSING and FINALLY ANOTHER MARRIAGE

Pamela believed that putting pressure on a man - any man - would make him leave, but she wasn't past making him jealous - or trying to.  

Her son, Little Winston, was growing up. She went on a cruise with Greek ship owner Stavros Spyros Niarchos and Winston was included. By the mid 1950's her son was going to probably the best school for rich children there was and is - Le Rosey ( Institut Le Rosey ) in Switzerland. At thirteen Winston went on to Eton. He got to spend time with his remarried father. Her son had gotten used to changes in his mother's circumstances and being moved about. By the late 1950's Pamela was still unmarried.  Elie De Rothschild was still in her life but it was going nowhere.

Pamela had a hysterectomy and now had abdominal scars and afterwards she started gaining weight again. There is some mystery attached to her decision to have this surgery, perhaps as a preventative or cancer. She was going to have to fight to keep her figure. Time was passing.  \She made a decision to give up on Elie De Rothschild.  And when she did so, she did so with gusto. It may have had to do with the fact that Little Winston was turning 20, an adult. She sold her apartments in London and Paris and headed for the United States. 

In the States she met a Hollywood director, Leland Hayward. He was married a few times already and then to Slim Keith, an heiress to a half million from her father.  Their marriage was no longer romantic. (Slim was the inspiration for actress Lauren Bacall's fashion.) He had children from previous marriages. He and Pamela fell for each other. They were married on May 4, 1960, hours after his divorce from Slim was final. Pamela now called herself Pamela Churchill Hayward and began her new role as the wife of a producer. She was never going to be a nurturing step-mother.

But Pamela also decided to be a working woman and decided to own her own Jansen Boutique in New York, even though she had no retailing experience.  She was a good salesperson, hired good people, and stocked it with real antiques as well as good reproductions to appeal to designers and their clientele. She made a modest profit.  She had her own money from inheritances and the generosity of men that she'd been kept by and some income too, but still she spent Leland Hayward's money.  Hayward had a long successful carrier that began to diminish as he aged.  Slowly they began to sell off collections of art and other possessions, saying they were moving to the country and downsizing. They still managed to vacation and live well. Pamela spent some of her own money too. Society had been impressed with Pamela in this last incarnation. She had been loyal and a good wife.

Then Leland had a stroke that partly paralyzed him. He died March 18, 1971, only 66 years old, thus ending a marriage of a bit over a decade.  She was 51 and had no real money left. Though she inherited half the estate, the rest going to his children.  She knew she had to move on again. 

Pamela went back to Europe and stayed with her son Winston in his tiny apartment.  She soon realized she was finished socially in Europe.  She also felt herself to be more of an American.  She went to France, then on a cruise, but she returned to America.

And that is where she soon met a man from her long ago past, who would become her third and final husband!

C 2019 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot All Rights Reserved
Sally Bedell Smith's book Reflected Glory is the primary reference for this post.

A VISION

PAMELA CHURCHILL and WALLIS SIMPSON, the DUCHESS OF WINDSOR - FAST FRIENDS

Both Pamela Churchill and Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, had been shunned by British society despite their social status - Pamela's was born with, Wallis' acquired with marriage. They were both divorced women. And Wallis had been a Mistress before she was a wife. (Page 180)  Though Pamela was twenty-four years younger than Wallis, they had much in common. They both coaxed their beauty, dressed exquisitely, and learned to entertain in beautiful surroundings. The Duchess was kind and affectionate to her young-enough-to-be-a-daughter friend.

Alexander Liberman ( who worked for Conde Nast Magazines such as Vanity Fair) said of Pamela in  the 1950's "She was  part of a very grand tradition of mistresses kept on a grand scale."  But British aristocrats made fun of Pamela, just as she'd been made fun of by some of her peers as a debutante. And as always she kept a game face, acting as if she were not bothered or even knew.

For all her energy, her championing of her men, Pamela didn't have much of a sense of humor. While not putting pressure on a man, she would try to make one jealous with another.  She shared many a man with his wife - and perhaps other women too - let them end the relationship - and stuck around for the friendship.

Wallis Simpson was our Mistress of the Month for  January 2010 and is also mentioned in August 2018's Mistresses of the Riviera,

HOW CAN SHE KEEP HIM?

PAMELA CHURCHILL and BARON ELIE DE ROTHSCHILD - A BANKING FORTUNE LOVER

Having not married Gianni Agnelli, in 1954 Pamela Churchill was the lover and kept companion of Jewish Banking fortune's Eli de Rothschild.  He thought of her as a "European Geisha"  (Page 168) rather than a Courtesan.  As she had with other men, she catered to him, did everything his way, and learned about the things that interested him.  You could say that Pamela reflected the men she was involved with. The married Eli had many mistresses but overall he was rather cheap with her. She had her own money and he thought it was great that Gianni Agnelli had provided so much for Pamela that he didn't have to!

She was not entirely dependent on the men who kept her. 

"Her technique was straightforward. "Darling, I saw the most beautiful bracelet today,"  She would tell Elie. "Would you go by and take a look and see if you like it?"  (Her might not.)  Still, Pamela made Eli feel honored to provide for her. (Page 170) 

Mistresses were OK with Eli's wife Liliane but since Pamela wanted to marry Eli she felt it was her duty to make this mistress's life difficult.  Let go from the job of being a muse of sorts to a man once again, Pamela played as if she were carefree rather than hurt. Maybe she wasn't. Maybe she didn't love him. She now worked to maintain her skin and figure and bought couture clothing.  She kept herself and waited for her next conquest.

C 2019  All Rights Reserved.  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
Sally Bedell Smith's book Reflected Glory is the primary reference for this post.

SEEING SELF

PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL and GIANNI AGNELLI - SHE WANTED TO MARRY HIM BUT HE DIDN'T LEAVE HIS PREGNANT WIFE

He was 27.  She was 28.  He invited her to leave the house of Aly Khan, where she remained even though she'd been left behind.  Her affair with Aly was over.  She went on a cruise with Gianni Agnelli to Capri.  Soon he installed Pamela in his own villa which was not so far from the one she'd been left in that belonged to Aly.

Like Aly, Gianni was a man who saw women as conquests. It wasn't love that motivated him. But Gianni had met his match in that it wasn't love for her either. At least not right away.  

She carefully worked to have him.  Pamela established herself as a symbol of a man's importance. She was good at marketing herself. She had connections every man in business wanted. She helped him network - and that included Americans in the United States. She was an outstanding hostess.  She could easily entertain on short notice.  She was there for him. 

A big plus for Pamela was that Gianni took interest in her son, little Winston, named after his grandfather, the legendary Winston Churchill I. Gianni bought her an apartment in Paris, small but with wonderful views.  It was a grand place made special by hiring an esteemed decorator to make it beautiful. The decorator even purchased silk woven for Queen Marie Antoinette to upholster. To give you some idea of Pamela as Mistress's spending, an estimated $10,000 a year was spent just on fresh flowers for the apartment. In 1950 she gave up her London apartment that was rented by Averill Harriman and Agnelli got her another one which was larger, less glamorous, but one more to decorate exquisitely.

Gianni Agnelli gambled and partied. Some say that he always had other women and that his relationship with Pamela was not so much about sex, that she earned her keep by providing him contacts. However in Paris she was accepted as his mistress even though this also probably meant that she could not be considered a potential wife.

A chameleon who changed herself - even her accent - with each new important man in her life, Pamela was quiet and often spoke only to uphold her man to be admired by others.

Then she became pregnant and Gianni had her abort.  Her marriage to Randolph Churchill was in the process of divorce.  They couldn't have married even if he wanted to.  Anticipating that her Protestantism was an obstacle, in the spring of 1950 she converted to Catholicism. She had her marriage to Randolph annulled by the Catholic Church, saying she had been young and foolish, which was granted in 1953. This so she and Gianni and she could marry in the church as his family expected.  

She turned thirty.

What was the problem? His family, especially his sisters, were opposed to her. She knew it was over but she did not move on. His family introduced him to Princess Marella Caracciolo di Castagneto.  He married the Princess three months pregnant. 

But once again Pamela Churchill kept the friendship.

She was 33 when it was over.  Now what?

C 2019 All Rights Reserved  Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
Note: The primary reference for posts on Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman is Sally Bedell Smith's book Reflected Glory.

POLO

PAMELA DIGBY CHURCHILL HARRIMAN - MISTRESS TO PRINCE ALI SALMAN AGA KHAN

This month we continue our focus on Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman which began last month.  Digby was her maiden name. Churchill was her first married name which she kept; the name of her son by Randolph Churchill was named Winston after his grandfather. Harriman was her surname for her last, third marriage. Called The Courtesan of the 20th Century, this month we begin on her 20 year career as a Kept Woman.  Pamela proves to us that you can make the most of yourself and even become an important player in politics.  You can go from a not so terrific start to a very terrific finish.

In June of 1947, Pamela was in Paris when she met a man who some called an International Playboy, Aga Khan. (Prince Ali Salman Aga Khan had as a mistress the model Bettina when he died. Bettina Graziani, born Simon Micheline Bodine, was our Mistress of the Month for June 2015.) Aga was popular in English society. His mother was Italian and he was born in Italy. He was educated in England.
He had many conquests that included the wives of his friends.  He traveled constantly and seemed to have endless energy.  He was generous when it came to travel and accommodations to his friends though not with money or presents.  

In July of 1947 Aga and Pamela were known to be lovers.  The rumors were strong that he loved to give pleasure to women while holding back himself, that he liked to drive them crazy with passion for him. Pamela had the energy to keep up with this man. He afforded her travel on his private plane. She visited his house on the Riviera.  (See Mistresses of the Riviera, month of August 2018.)

Maybe Pamela Churchill was only a part of his harem, but her relationship with Aga Khan allowed her to mix with International society, where she continued to learn to be a social sophisticate and catered to powerful and monied men, while keeping herself open to the idea of an eventual husband.

Their relationship didn't work out. But Pamela stuck around after things cooled between them. It became a classic Pamela Churchill move.  She didn't take his big hint that it was over.  He even left her at one of his houses and didn't come back.  But also classic of Pamela was that they remained good friends.  And because she waited where she could meet more men, she did.  Gianni Agnelli.


C 2009 Mistress Manifesto Blogspot  All Rights Reserved
Primary reference for these posts is Sally Bedell Smith's book Reflected Glory.