The Curse Of Beauty: The Scandalous and Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America's First Supermodel

(Hardback)

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A riveting, scandle-filled biography of the most famous nude model in America, Audrey Munson (1891-1996) whose beauty brought her extraordinary success and great tragedy. Many readers will recognize Audrey Munson, even without knowing her name. She was America's first supermodel. Munson's beauty, though, was also her curse, exactly as a fortune teller predicted in her youth. Her looks won her entry to high society, but at a devastating cost. In 1919 she became a recluse, eventually being admitted to an asylum whre she remained until her death. This is her story.

Reviews

"Audrey Munson was famous for posing naked and being cloaked in scandal. The Gilded Age model and silent-film star dated Americas richest bachelor, was the toast of the 1915 Worlds Fair, and inspired scores of painters and sculptors in the beaux-arts style. This proto-celebrity vanished long ago but her neoclassical features and figure live on in allegorical monuments and paintings across the United States. In a new biography, The Curse of Beauty, journalist James Bone investigates the tragic muse who bared it all, attempted suicide and spent almost 65 years in an asylum." Wall Street Journal
"Decades before Christy, Naomi, and Cindy, photography was still in its infancy when Audrey Munson became Americas first supermodel. She lives on today in the timeless sculptures she inspired. But her story wasnt all beautiful. James Bone is a crackerjack journalist and tells her thrilling and ultimately tragic tale in this compelling book on her rise and descent into madness." Michael Gross, author of Focus, Model, 740 Park, and House of Outrageous Fortune
"In The Curse of Beauty, James Bone delivers the vivid true story of Audrey Munson, the muse of the twentieth century. Her life shows us the rollicking triumphs and surprising costs of being The World's Most Perfectly Formed Woman." Bill Dedman, coauthor of the No. 1 bestseller Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune
"A must-read biography of one of the most intriguing and alluring figures of the art world, a woman who disappeared from history yet still surrounds us in our magnificent public monuments, including the two colossal figures by Daniel Chester French that welcome me at the Brooklyn Museum every day." Anne Pasternak, Shelby White and Leon Levy Director, Brooklyn Museum
"James Bone knows everything there is to know about Audrey Munson, her life, her career, and the often incredible, scandalous, and outrageous activities of those around her. She was 'The Real Miss Manhattan,' and, thanks to James Bones magnificent biographical study, she becomes The Real Audrey Munson." Anthony Slide, former resident historian of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and author of Its the Pictures That Got Small

Author Bio

James Bone is the former New York bureau chief of The Times of London newspaper. For almost a quarter of the century, he covered every major event in New York: Whether it was a celebrity scandal or a mafia trial, a Wall Street fraud or a record art sale, a high society wedding or a terrorist attack, he was there. He comes from a family of generations of artists on both sides, some of whom were active at the same time as the sculptors and painters in this book. He has reported from dozens of countries and some non-countries, from Afghanistan to Antarctica. His most recent posting was as The Times correspondent in Rome, Italy.