Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce

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The long-awaited 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. "I hope I shall have ambition until the day I die," Clare Boothe Luce told her biographer Sylvia Jukes Morris. Price of Fame, the concluding volume of the life of an exceptionally brilliant polymath, chronicles Luce's progress from her arrival on Capitol Hill through her career as a diplomat, prolific journalist, and magnetic public speaker, as well as a playwright, screenwriter, pioneer scuba diver, early experimenter in psychedelic drugs, and grande dame of the GOP in the Reagan era. Tempestuously married to Henry Luce, the powerful publisher of Time Inc., she endured his infidelities while pursuing her own, and remained a practiced vamp well into her crowded later years, during which she strengthened her friendships with Winston Churchill, Somerset Maugham, John F. Kennedy, Evelyn Waugh, Lyndon Johnson, Salvador Dali, Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley, Ronald Reagan, and countless other celebrities. Sylvia Jukes Morris is the only writer to have had complete access to Mrs. Luce's prodigious collection of public and private papers. In addition, she had unique access to her subject, whose death at eighty-four ended a life that for variety of accomplishment qualifies Clare Boothe Luce for the title of "Woman of the Century." Praise for Price of Fame "The twentieth-century history of this country, seen through the eyes and actions of a remarkable woman . . . one of the most fabulous, intimate biographies I have ever read."-Liz Smith, Chicago Tribune "The epic Price of Fame is a thrilling account of one of the twentieth century's most intriguing and ambitious society figures."-Amanda Foreman, bestselling author of Georgiana- Duchess of Devonshire "Delicious . . . In Price of Fame . . . Sylvia Jukes Morris takes up the story she began in Rage for Fame. . . . Both books are models of the biographer's art-meticulously researched, sophisticated, fair-minded and compulsively readable."-Edward Kosner, The Wall Street Journal "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 "Poignant and profound . . . nothing short of a triumph."-Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, The Washington Times "Compelling . . . a brilliant biography."-Peter Tonguette, The Christian Science Monitor

Reviews

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 biographers artmeticulously researched, sophisticated, fair-minded and compulsively readable.Edward Kosner, The Wall Street Journal

Sylvia Jukes Morriss brilliant biography . . . tracks the last half of its subjects 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

Theres 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

Morriss cool portrait is eminently fair, depicting Luces faults and fine points with equal detachment.Wendy Smith, The Daily Beast

Clare Boothe Luce [was] one of the twentieth centurys 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 authors 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

Morriss shrewd portrait shows a woman of extraordinary contrasts. . . . She presents a clear-eyed assessment of Luces 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 Luces 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 Luces diaries and papers, published her first biographical volume of this remarkable womans life [in 1997]. It concluded with Luces election to Congress. This long-awaited sequel tells about the political and personal events in the last half of the subjects 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, hadnt 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 doesnt 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 despairand the fact that many who knew her and loved her, found her essentially a tragic figureshe carried a genuine life force. [Here] is one of the most fabulous, intimate biographies I have ever read. If youre 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 wont be disappointed either!Liz Smith, Chicago Tribune

Author Bio

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.