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

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S - A KEPT MAN and A WOMAN WHO PAYS HER RENT WITH TIPS

IMDb BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

 

AUDREY HEPBURN BECAME A FASHION ICON WHEN GIVENCHY

DRESSED HER FOR THE ROLE OF A WAIF WHO

REINVENTED HERSELF TO BE A SOCIETY GIRL.

 

The film came out in 1961 and is

considered a Classic Romantic Comedy but it funny?

 

The novel was written by Truman Capote.

Holly Golightly, a character writer Truman Capote is said to have loosely based on his own divorced mother's search for a new husband, is an adventurer in New York City who came from a hard, impoverished background that included being orphaned and then married at 14.  Run away to New York City, she depends on her youth, beauty, and personality, to survive and hopes to live her life the wife of a rich worldy man.  To do that she must dress right, make friends, and be seen in all the right places.  Is she really fooling anyone though when she jams all her posh friends into a plain apartment?

She has a neighbor, a once published author, make that writer, who needs a patron and has one, a rich married woman.  His keeper has furnished and designed his apartment and he has a closet of beautiful suits she has gifted him.  He spends his days on call and awaiting her visits.  He's kept.

 

These two, Holly and the writer, discover they understand each other enough to be friends and to not hold their lifestyles against each other, so in the scene where they actually enter the exclusive and expensive store, Tiffany's, and go shopping, it's humbling that all they can afford is to have something he already owns engraved. They've both had a taste of the life they can't afford on their own to lead but facing reality leads to real, realistic love.

 

The writer's break up with his rich married keeper is cold.  He gives her attitude. She needs to remind him that he was bought.  No love there.  Just sex on call.  (The worst!)  Holly's final goodbye to her ex husband is handled by her with more sophistication, while he leaves no doubt he was Mr. Wrong all along.

 

Holly is nearing prostitution, though she herself doesn't think of the enormous tips men present her so she can tip the washroom attendants at exclusive restaurants they take her to, as being paid for sex or the promise of sex.  She is a unique combination of pragmatic, goal-oriented, and a dreamer.  She has retained some of her innocence.  The film is careful to show her deferring promises, such as that she might actually pose nude, so we don't actually know if she has slept with anyone or is just expert at being an experienced woman who can keep men hoping.  Her men knowingly over tip her and remind her that she owes them.   She uses the money to just make her rent.  Dinner's out keep her from starving though, she sure is skinny.  The  text on the box of the old VHS tape I rewatched this film with calls her a "playgirl," but I think that might be a 1961 word choice.

 

Holly has goals and while she has not entirely escaped her past or lost her ability to feel, her precarious and financially desperate situation begs a resolution.  Snobbed because of her reputation, "settling," for the writer isn't so bad after all.

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BOOK REVIEW : FIFTH AVENUE 5 A.M. BY SAM WASSON on the making of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S STARING AUDREY HEPBURN

AUDREY HEPBURN, the actress who became famous for charity work before her death, starred in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" in the early 1960's. Sam Wasson's new book "FIFTH AVENUE 5 a.m." isn't just about the making of the movie - though that is certainly covered - but also the way the film had impact on notions of modern womanhood.

Was the character Holly Golightly really based on TRUMAN CAPOTE'S real mother in her search for a husband? Was Audrey Hepburn the person, in her role as Holly Golightly, who made the color BLACK as in Little Black Dress, the garment of sophistication?

Page 127 says that Centuries ago, black dye was affordable only to the very rich. Black had been the color of death and worn in mourning. A woman wearing black was trying NOT to be noticed. Then CoCo Chanel designed the little black dress as a must have for sophisticated women.

In "Breakfast at Tiffany's" the character Audrey played was a woman who has had lovers, does not regret it, and does not come to a bad end because of it. So it was the beginning of the sexual revolution when it came out.

It was the time of Helen Gurly Brown's book "Sex and The Single Girl."

C 2017 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights