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.