The follow-up to Rage for Fame- The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce, Price of Fame tells the story of the full flowering of the life of an American icon- the beautiful, brilliant, tormented and ambitious Clare Boothe Luce.
Sylvia Jukes Morris was born and educated in England, where she taught English literature before immigrating to America. She is the author of Rage for Fame- The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce and Edith Kermit Roosevelt- Portrait of a First Lady. She lives in New York City and Kent, Connecticut, with her husband, the writer Edmund Morris.
“ ‘Throughout her life she had aimed for the best of everything and
usually gotten it,’ Sylvia Jukes Morris writes. . . . Clare Boothe
Luce was an
actress-editrix-playwright-screenwriter-congresswoman-ambassador-presidential
adviser. And as the wife of Henry Luce, father of the Time empire,
she was the clever half of the predominant power couple of the
mid-twentieth century.”—Maureen Dowd, The New York Times Book
Review
“In Price of Fame, the second volume of her stellar biography of
[Luce], Sylvia Jukes Morris takes up the story she began in Rage
for Fame, published 17 years ago. Both books are models of the
biographer’s art—meticulously researched, sophisticated,
fair-minded and compulsively readable.”—Edward Kosner, The Wall
Street Journal
“Sylvia Jukes Morris’s brilliant biography . . . tracks the last
half of its subject’s life with dexterity. . . . Luce was as
serious about her faith as she was about civil rights. But Morris
never lets us forget that she was also a wit par excellence. . . .
Read the gems sprinkled throughout Price of Fame.”—Peter Tonguette,
The Christian Science Monitor
“There’s a thrilling kind of energy in watching this ruthlessly
self-made life take shape, an energy that is matched and reversed
in Price of Fame, as celebrity just as ruthlessly takes its
toll.”—Joanna Scutts, The Washington Post
“Morris’s cool portrait is eminently fair, depicting Luce’s faults
and fine points with equal detachment.”—Wendy Smith, The Daily
Beast
“Clare Boothe Luce [was] one of the twentieth century’s most
ambitious, unstoppable and undeniably ingenious characters. . . .
This full, warts-and-all biography hauls her back into the
limelight and does her full justice.”—Janet Maslin, The New York
Times
“It is the author’s steady, sensitive handling of the material,
told with humor and objectivity, that makes this biography so
poignant and profound. . . . [Price of Fame] is nothing short of a
triumph.”—Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, The Washington Times
“Morris’s shrewd portrait shows a woman of extraordinary contrasts.
. . . She presents a clear-eyed assessment of Luce’s strong,
egotistical personality.”—Publishers Weekly
“With this second and concluding volume of her biography of Clare
Boothe Luce, Sylvia Jukes Morris completes the tantalizing saga of
a woman who helped define the ‘pushy broad’ in a century when men
made the rules. . . . The result is an impeccably researched and
thoughtfully written epic that crackles with the energy that
defined her subject.”—Amy Henderson, The Weekly Standard
“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. . . : ‘charm, humour, coquetry,
intellect, ambition.’ [She was] a woman gifted with intelligence
and drive, but marred by narcissism and scarred by a constant sense
of loneliness. There is a moving account of Luce’s conversion to
Catholicism and a persuasive analysis of her role as ambassador to
Rome in resolving the post-war status of Trieste.”—The
Economist
“Morris, who was given exclusive access to Luce’s diaries and
papers, published her first biographical volume of this remarkable
woman’s life [in 1997]. It concluded with Luce’s election to
Congress. This long-awaited sequel tells about the political and
personal events in the last half of the subject’s life, thoroughly
describing traumatic losses, romantic dalliances, and marital
struggles that consumed both Luce and her husband for nearly all of
their remaining years together. . . . Readers who liked Rage for
Fame and longed for more about this talented, determined woman will
enjoy the full attention the author devotes to this work. Those
interested in mid-century political history, too, will find much to
reward their perseverance in this long but fascinating
biography.”—Library Journal
“If Clare Boothe Luce, with her lowly origins and blinding
ambition, hadn’t existed, she might have sprung fully formed from
the imagination of Henry James. . . . Sylvia Jukes Morris has
written [a] clear-eyed account of this complicated and
self-contradictory figure, one who had everything a person could
wish for and still experienced great unhappiness. . . . This is a
fascinating, close-up look at a woman whose prodigious gifts were
used in the service of her appetites for wealth, fame, and power .
. . a stylish striver whose blond ambition has not yet been matched
in its scope by any woman who has come after her.”—Daphne Merkin,
BookForum
“Believe me, the ‘good stuff’ is here, in this second volume. In
dazzling, devastating spades. . . . What makes Price of Fame so
riveting is that one literally doesn’t know what to make of Clare
Boothe Luce. . . . My jaw dropped over and over again. . . . Her
soul was restless, unquiet. But despite dark moments of despair—and
the fact that many who knew her and loved her, found her
essentially a tragic figure—she carried a genuine life force.
[Here] is one of the most fabulous, intimate biographies I have
ever read. If you’re interested in the twentieth-century history of
this country, seen through the eyes and actions of a remarkable
woman, this book is for you. If you crave tales of psychological
unhingement amid the best of everything, you won’t be disappointed
either!”—Liz Smith, Chicago Tribune
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