10/09/2017
A formidable mother teaches her daughters to rise in the world by putting cold calculation before romance in this canny family portrait. Taraborrelli (Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot) traces the fraught relationship between First Lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis and her rivalrous celebrity sister Lee Radziwill as they dueled for popularity, men, and the approval of their mother Janet Auchincloss, an imperious matriarch who manipulated them as sternly as Joseph P. Kennedy did his offspring. Auchincloss’s battle between heart and head—she married first a charming, virile womanizer, then a stolid, impotent plutocrat to secure her finances—laid the template for her daughters: Kennedy Onassis rehashed it by rejecting merely affluent suitors (usually at her mother’s insistence) to marry into the “real money” of charming, womanizing J.F.K. and Aristotle Onassis (after wrestling him away from an affair with Radziwill—always the lesser marital strategist—and negotiating a $5 million prenuptial payment for her hand). Taraborrelli’s gossipy narrative revels in luxurious decor, stunning outfits, and soap-operatic fights (“Janet just hauled off and slapped her daughter across the face, twice”) in this entertaining saga of how wealthy, fashionable women got that way. Photos. (Jan.)
"Taraborrelli's gossipy narrative revels in luxurious decor, stunning outfits, and soap-operatic fights in this entertaining saga." - Publishers Weekly
A dazzling audiobook biography of three of the most glamorous women of the 20th Century: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, her mother Janet Lee Auchincloss, and her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill.
“Do you know what the secret to happily-ever-after is?” Janet Bouvier Auchincloss would ask her daughters Jackie and Lee during their tea time. “Money and Power,” she would say. It was a lesson neither would ever forget. They followed in their mother's footsteps after her marriages to the philandering socialite “Black Jack” Bouvier and the fabulously rich Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss.
Jacqueline Bouvier would marry John F. Kennedy Jr. and the story of their marriage is legendary, as is the story of her second marriage to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Less well known is the story of her love affair with a world renowned architect and a British peer. Her sister, Lee, had liaisons with both of Jackie's husbands in addition to her own three marriages-to an illegitimate royal, a Polish prince and a Hollywood director.
If the Bouvier women personified beauty, style and fashion, it was their lust for money and status that drove them to seek out powerful men, no matter what the cost to themselves or to those they stepped on in their ruthless climb to the top. Based on hundreds of new interviews with friends and family of the Bouviers, among them their own half-brother, as well as letters and journals, J. Randy Taraborrelli paints an extraordinary psychological portrait of two famous sisters and their ferociously ambitious mother.
Jackie, Janet & Lee will drop listeners directly into the gilded, tangled web of secrets surrounding one of the most recognizable families in American history.
More Praise for Jackie, Janet & Lee:
"Riveting. For all the sisters' dramatics, the true star of this particular show is decidedly neither the directionless Lee nor the determined Jackie. It is, in fact, the third figure in the book: Janet Bouvier Auchincloss...Taraborrelli brings her to splendid renewed life. His trick of turning incidents into highly colored tableaus threaded with dialogue makes excellent use of well-trodden material."- New York Times Book Review
"More gossipy than "Page Six," J. Randy Taraborrelli's latest celebrity biography, Jackie, Janet & Lee, compellingly narrated by Ann Marie Lee, bring you up close and personal with the ever fascinating, superrich and superpowerful clan of Janet Auchincloss...Though I started listening with a jaded ear, I found myself mesmerized by the intriguing, intricate details of the trials and tragedies in these women's lives." - BookPage
"Taraborrelli's gossipy narrative revels in luxurious decor, stunning outfits, and soap-operatic fights in this entertaining saga." - Publishers Weekly
A dazzling audiobook biography of three of the most glamorous women of the 20th Century: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, her mother Janet Lee Auchincloss, and her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill.
“Do you know what the secret to happily-ever-after is?” Janet Bouvier Auchincloss would ask her daughters Jackie and Lee during their tea time. “Money and Power,” she would say. It was a lesson neither would ever forget. They followed in their mother's footsteps after her marriages to the philandering socialite “Black Jack” Bouvier and the fabulously rich Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss.
Jacqueline Bouvier would marry John F. Kennedy Jr. and the story of their marriage is legendary, as is the story of her second marriage to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. Less well known is the story of her love affair with a world renowned architect and a British peer. Her sister, Lee, had liaisons with both of Jackie's husbands in addition to her own three marriages-to an illegitimate royal, a Polish prince and a Hollywood director.
If the Bouvier women personified beauty, style and fashion, it was their lust for money and status that drove them to seek out powerful men, no matter what the cost to themselves or to those they stepped on in their ruthless climb to the top. Based on hundreds of new interviews with friends and family of the Bouviers, among them their own half-brother, as well as letters and journals, J. Randy Taraborrelli paints an extraordinary psychological portrait of two famous sisters and their ferociously ambitious mother.
Jackie, Janet & Lee will drop listeners directly into the gilded, tangled web of secrets surrounding one of the most recognizable families in American history.
More Praise for Jackie, Janet & Lee:
"Riveting. For all the sisters' dramatics, the true star of this particular show is decidedly neither the directionless Lee nor the determined Jackie. It is, in fact, the third figure in the book: Janet Bouvier Auchincloss...Taraborrelli brings her to splendid renewed life. His trick of turning incidents into highly colored tableaus threaded with dialogue makes excellent use of well-trodden material."- New York Times Book Review
"More gossipy than "Page Six," J. Randy Taraborrelli's latest celebrity biography, Jackie, Janet & Lee, compellingly narrated by Ann Marie Lee, bring you up close and personal with the ever fascinating, superrich and superpowerful clan of Janet Auchincloss...Though I started listening with a jaded ear, I found myself mesmerized by the intriguing, intricate details of the trials and tragedies in these women's lives." - BookPage
Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill
Jackie, Janet & Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169168563 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Macmillan Audio |
| Publication date: | 01/30/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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