Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce
“Delicious . . . InPrice of Fame,the second volume of her stellar biography of Ann Clare Boothe Brokaw Luce (1903–87), Sylvia Jukes Morris takes up the story she began inRage for Fame,published seventeen years ago. Both books are models of the biographer’s art—meticulously researched, sophisticated, fair-minded and compulsively readable.”—The Wall Street Journal “Fascinating . . . Clare Boothe Luce has a lot to answer for. As the grande dame of the Republican Party, she introduced Richard Nixon to Henry Kissinger at her 1967 Christmas cocktail party. Asla belle dame sans merciof Manhattan’s smart set, she took whatever she wanted from life without regard to moral consequences. . . . Luce’s pathological need to invent and reinvent herself, her restless, acquisitive drive to conquer new worlds and her cascading calamities end up providing plenty of vivid material.”—Maureen Dowd,The New York Times Book Review “Price of Famebegins seductively (how else?) in 1943, as Luce, the newly elected Republican congresswoman from Connecticut, arrives in Washington, with her battable eyes, sharp elbows and all. . . . The book is rich with detail [and] includes an evisceratingly funny account from C. L. Sulzberger, then the chief foreign correspondent ofThe New York Times,on what an evening chez Ambassador Luce was like. . . . Long and detailed, it captures her professional manner as well as anything else in this book does, starting with how her carefully maintained exterior conceals ‘the most arrogant conceit and the most ruthlessly hard-boiled self-assurance it has ever been my privilege to come up against.’ . . . This full, warts-and-all biography hauls [Luce] back into the limelight and does her full justice.”—Janet Maslin,The New York Times“Vivid . . . There’s a thrilling kind of energy in watching this ruthlessly self-made life take shape, an energy that is matched and reversed inPrice of Fame,as celebrity just as ruthlessly takes its toll. . . . The biography offers a detailed picture of the evolution of U.S. politics and culture from World War II into the Reagan era. . . . In a culture where the rage for fame feels inescapable, [Price of Fame] might just help us to weigh its costs more accurately and count the blessings of obscurity.”—The Washington Post“Exhaustively detailed (and well-written) . . . In her youth, Clare Boothe Luce was a Depression-era Carrie Bradshaw, a go-getting, sexually freewheeling quipster who reveled in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan; by World War II, she had degenerated into a modern-day Cersei Lannister, entitled, power-hungry and morally hypocritical. This sea change is one of the more memorable aspects ofPrice of Fame. . . . Morris chose her title well. Clare paid a heavy price for her fame. Whether she lost her soul after gaining the world, undoubtedly she suffered amid the splendor.”—The Miami Herald“Price of Famecontinues the second half of [Clare Booth Luce’s] amazing story, clearly capturing the successes and pathos of a narcissist infused with shame and self-hate. . . . A running theme throughout Clare’s life is her shimmering sexuality—a lethal cocktail of luminosity, charm, intelligence and wit. . . . It is the author’s steady, sensitive handling of the material, told with humor and objectivity, that makes this biography so poignant and profound. The author’s skill at delving deep into sources was eventually rewarded by Clare herself, who confessed she felt closest to Ms. Morris ‘because you know everything.’ However, it is the late Librarian of Congress, Daniel Boorstin, who said it best: ‘How often does it happen,’ he asked, ‘this coming together of a great subject and an ideal biographer?’ That observation beautifully applies toPrice of Fame,and it is nothing short of a triumph.”—The Washington Times“Moving . . . Beauty was an asset Clare Boothe Luce used to her political (and financial) advantage. But so, too, were the other characteristics summed up by Sylvia Jukes Morris in this second and final part of her exhaustive biography of one of the most remarkable women of twentieth-century America: ‘charm, humour, coquetry, intellect, ambition.’ . . . [Morris] had unparalleled access to her subject before Luce’s death in 1987 and to her papers (all 460,000 of them) in the Library of Congress. The result is a portrait of a woman gifted with intelligence and drive, but marred by narcissism and scarred by a constant sense of loneliness.”—The Economist“Compelling . . . [a] brilliant biography . . . After finishingPrice of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce,few readers will find a term as dull as ‘The Honorable’ to be befitting so spirited a personage. ‘The Beguiling’ or ‘The Buoyant’ would be more like it—or maybe, for the woman who negotiated both the boards of Broadway and political office, ‘The Groundbreaking.’”—The Christian Science Monitor “Raised by her mother to manipulate men and compete with women, Luce was fundamentally cold. Lovers were chosen for their looks or status; admirers were welcomed so long as they remained entirely admiring. . . . Narcissism, the need for an audience, and a willingness to use people are hardly uncommon traits in politicians, and it’s to Luce’s credit that she had enough empathy for others to be a staunch, early advocate of independence for European colonies abroad and full civil rights for African-Americans at home, positions not generally held by those who shared her hardline anticommunist views. . . . Morris’s cool portrait is eminently fair, depicting Luce’s faults and fine points with equal detachment.”—The Daily Beast“Morris’s shrewd portrait shows a woman of extraordinary contrasts: a celebrated beauty and wit who inspired giddy love letters from generals; a sharp thinker and writer. . . . Morris, who once lived with Luce and had access to her diaries, evokes her subject’s charisma without unduly succumbing to it; she presents a clear-eyed assessment of Luce’s strong, egotistical personality that does full justice to this fascinating icon.”—Publishers Weekly “Sylvia Juke Morris’s epicPrice of Fameis a thrilling account of one of the twentieth century’s most intriguing and ambitious society figures. This second installment is every bit as compelling as the first. The life of Clare Boothe Luce illuminates the complex forces and fierce crosswinds behind the rise of the modern American woman.”—Dr. Amanda Foreman, bestselling author ofGeorgiana: Duchess of DevonshireandA World on Fire “By the time she was 40, Clare Boothe Luce (1903–1987) had been an actress, Broadway playwright, war correspondent, managing editor ofVanity Fairand Republican congresswoman from Connecticut. . . . Blonde, beautiful and glamorous (Morris includes details about Luce’s sumptuous wardrobe at every occasion), she took many lovers, with a special preference for men in uniform. . . . Desperately, she needed to be the center of attention. . . . Morris perceptively reveals the nightmare in this evenhanded and intimate portrait.”—Kirkus Reviews