The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce Price of Fame (Hardback) - Common

Clare Boothe Luce #2

by Sylvia Jukes Morris

“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 the early months of World War II, when, as an eye-catching Congresswoman and the only female member of the House Military Affairs Committee, she toured the Western Front, captivating generals and GIs. She even visited Buchenwald and other concentration camps within days of their liberation. After a shattering personal tragedy, she converted to Roman Catholicism, and became the first American woman to be appointed ambassador to a major foreign power. “La Luce,” as the Italians called her, was also a 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 old age. Price of Fame begins in January 1943 with Clare’s arrival on Capitol Hill as a newly elected Republican from Connecticut. The thirty-nine-year-old beauty attracted nationwide attention in a sensational maiden speech, attacking Vice President Henry Wallace’s civil aviation proposals as “globaloney.” Although she irked President Franklin D. Roosevelt by slanging his New Deal as “a dictatorial Bumbledom,” she impressed his wife Eleanor. Revealing liberal propensities, she lobbied for relaxed immigration policies for Chinese, Indians, and displaced European Jews, as well as equal rights for women and blacks. Following Hiroshima, the legislator whom J. William Fulbright described as “the smartest colleague I ever served with” became a passionate advocate of nuclear arms control. But in 1946, she gave up her House seat, convinced that politics was “the refuge of second-class minds.” After a few seasons of proselytizing on the Catholic lecture circuit, Clare emerged as a formidable television personality, campaigning so spectacularly for the victorious Republican presidential candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower, that he rewarded her with the Rome embassy. Ambassador Luce took an uncompromising attitude toward Italy’s Communist Party, the world’s second largest, and skillfully helped settle the fraught Trieste crisis between Italy and Yugoslavia. She was then stricken by a mysterious case of poisoning that the CIA kept secret, suspecting a Communist plot to assassinate her. The full story, told here for the first time, reads like a detective novel. Price of Fame goes on to record the crowded later years of the Honorable Clare Boothe Luce, during which she strengthened her friendships with Winston Churchill, Somerset Maugham, John F. Kennedy, Evelyn Waugh, Lyndon Johnson, Salvador Dalí, Richard Nixon, William F. Buckley, the composer Carlos Chávez, Ronald Reagan, and countless other celebrities who, after Henry Luce’s death, visited her lavish Honolulu retreat. In 1973, she was appointed by Nixon to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a position she continued to hold in the Ford and Reagan administrations. 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.”

Genres: Biography, History, Politics, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, American History, Society

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Sylvia Jukes Morris was a British-born biographer, based in the United States. Her two volume biography on Clare Boothe Luce is considered to be an example of both excellent research and writing. She spent 33 years on the Luce biography, examining 460,000 items at the Library of Congress that stretched 319 linear feet. She was married to writer Edmund Morris ( The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt) from 1966 until his death in 2019. She passed away from cancer eight months after her husband's death. She was eighty-four years old at the time of her death.

Reviews

[Mark Mortensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I previously had scant knowledge of Claire Boothe Luce and this book provided me with all I needed to know and more.

Born in 1903 in Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem at 533 West 124th Street, as an illegitimate child, Luce evolved quickly into an unabashed social climber seeking fame and fortune. Attractive, very photogenic, well read and highly educated, with great self-confidence she parlayed her talents becoming comfortable with each higher rung on the ladder. She sought to marry for money and was successful in both attempts. Her second husband Henry Luce was the prominent publisher of three major magazines Time, Life and Fortune.

The talented Ms. Luce was drawn to Broadway and with a flair for writing she found early success with three comedies that became movies. She challenged herself in another direction and was elected on her merits to the 38th U.S. Congress. At 39 years old the Republican Congresswoman took the oath on January 4, 1943 to actively serve America during war. From day one the blond power broker drew more photographers and overall publicity than any other representative.

President Franklin Roosevelt called her a: “sharp-tongued glamour girl…”. She maintained her stance against the Roosevelt’s New Deal and the Democrats PAC (Political Action Committee), which she labeled “Party of American Communism”. To her Communism was: “the most deadly blight that has ever hit the spirit of man.”

With WWII raging Ms. Luce would be seated to serve on the prestigious Committee on Military Affairs along with 29 male Congressman. The term “Military Affairs” would soon share a whole new meaning. Her personal affairs and alleged affairs with well known men including active uniformed WWII multi-star generals are to long to list. With her life in constant motion and facing turmoil she found and accepted the Catholic faith. Ms. Luce was reelected to Congress. Following the war newly elected President Eisenhower nominated Ms. Luce as Ambassador to Italy, which was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. She would be close to the Vatican and be also afforded to take a prominent stand against communism in the country formerly run by Mussolini.

Ms. Luce was 56 years old when the dawn of the 60’s decade unfolded. As a member of the well connected jet-set society she was ahead of her own curve often smoking cigarettes enjoying a cocktail and occasionally taking “controlled” LSD trips. Her self-confidence waned to shades of bipolar.

At 605 pages not including the notes and index I feel the book was too detailed and would have profited by consolidation and reduction in length.

I have one lasting take-a-way from this book. My parents were from the WWII “Greatest Generation”. With war raging some of America’s political leaders in Washington D.C. on both sides of the isle lived life in a different circle from mainstream America. President Roosevelt maintained a lasting affair. At the end of 1944 the Associated Press elected Ms. Luce, a married woman with a current tally of many affairs, “Woman of the Year” by a margin of 98-18 over First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. In life missteps happen, but these folks at the top tier of American society apparently had few regrets about open marriages.

Claire Boothe Luce was a player in every sense of the term, who chartered her own path living a real life soap opera on the world stage complete with personal tragedy not mentioned in this review.

[Mark Skousen · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce," by Sylvia Jukes Morris (wife of Edmund Morris, the Reagan biographer) is the second volume of a voluminous biography of the famous and attractive congresswoman, playwright, ambassador, and wife of Henry Luce (Time magazine publisher). The previous volume, "Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce" came out in 1997. Both published by Random House, both beautifully designed and written, with exquisite black-and-white photographs published throughout the two volumes. I was so taken with the second volume that I ordered the first, and they look handsome together on my book shelf. Together they are a work of art. I just wished an audiobook was available. Morris is her official biographer; she was approved by Clare Boothe before she died in 1987 at the age of 84, but you wouldn't know from the "tell all" nature of the history--Boothe was an illegitimate child, had numerous affairs, was divorced, tried psychedelic drugs and was never a consistent conservative. And yet she is today the darling of the conservatives -- the Heritage Foundation gives out the Clare Booth Luce Award every year to the outstanding conservative. I asked Ed Feulner, the founder of the Heritage Foundation, if he had read it, and he said it was on his night table, and he hoped to get to it soon. I hope it doesn't give him nightmares.

[Betty Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this voluminous Part II was a better read than Part I, I would have liked more analysis of what drove this Republican woman of note to convert to Catholicism, routinely take LSD, indulge in multiple affairs/one night stands, and abandon so many people, homes, and causes. I like fashion, but way too much focus on her outfits and trivial conversations. My mother really admired her - she was her Congresswoman when we lived in Connecticut. I wonder if she knew the rather lurid details of her life?

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clare Booth Luce, wrote two books, four plays, two of which were smash hits being performed 50 years after their writing. The film adaptation of one was the second highest grossing movie of 1939 after Gone with the Wind. She served two terms in the House during which time she secured the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act and wrote and passed the bill that legalized the naturalization of people from India. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee she advocated for desegregating the military eight years before Truman did so.

She was the first female ambassador to a great power, Italy, and personally resolved the issue of Trieste between Italy and Yugoslavia. She experimented with LSD, learned to scuba dive in her 60s and advocated for oceanic conservation, convincing LBJ to reverse his defunding of oceanographic research. She was an early advocate of weakening the Communist block by engaging China economically and introduced Nixon and Kissinger at a cocktail party she held. She sat on a national intelligence advisory board from the Kennedy Administration through the Reagan Administration. When her husband, Henry Luce, the founder of Time/Life died, her income from her own royalties and work was greater than the income from what he left her. An absolutely mind blowingly accomplished woman.

This is an astounding biography, not quite Robert Caro, but close. The author had access to Luce and all of Luce's private papers including her diaries and private correspondence. She was an extremely complicated woman, born to an unwed couple, something the biographer learned, her mother lied to her, and abandoned by her father at age 7 to destitution, her rise was meteoric and she stayed at the top and remained influential in national affairs nearly to her death. When she died she left 6/7th of her fortune to finance STEM scholarships and professorships for women. Absolutely incredible.

[Tracie Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Price of Fame by Sylvia Jukes Morris

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS -PRINT: COPYRIGHT: (January 1, 2014) 6/17/2014 ; ISBN 978-0679457114; PUBLISHER: Random House; LENGTH: 752 pages [Info from Amazon]
-DIGITAL: COPYRIGHT: (January 1, 2014) 6/17/2014 ; PUBLISHER: Random House; LENGTH: 752 pages FILE SIZE: File size ‏ : ‎ 17375 KB [Info from Amazon] *Note: There are photos here. If you listen to the audio, don’t forget to check out the digital if you are like me and like to have an idea of who is who visually.
*AUDIO: COPYRIGHT: (January 1, 2014) 3/2/2015; PUBLISHER: Audible Studios; LENGTH: 23:29:00; Unabridged. [Info from Amazon]
(Film: No).

SERIES
Clare Booth Luce, Volume II

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
-SELECTION: I don’t recall how I decided to listen to this.
-ABOUT: This part II of a two-volume set on the life of Clare Booth Luce. I hadn’t heard of her before, but I imagine most adults in the 40’s through the 60’s had. If they hadn’t heard of her as an actress or a play write, then they’d heard of her as the first female congresswoman, or as an Ambassador.
-LIKED: I loved learning about the person and intricate details of the times in which she lived. I was glad I knew at least some of the people mentioned. While it made for a long book, especially once one realizes it’s Part II, I did love the thoroughness.
I also loved the section at the end where the author inserts herself into the story.
It held my interest all the way through.
-DISLIKED: I didn’t dislike anything about the way it was written. While Clare sounds like an extremely interesting and admirable person, and one I have compassion for, she sounds like someone who, had I met her, would not have given me the time of day, even if we were the only two people trapped in an elevator.
-OVERALL: I thoroughly enjoyed this book and wish the author was still around to send fan mail to. I have moved on to Part 1, “The Rage For Fame”.
AUTHOR: Sylvia Jukes Morris:
” Morris was born in Worcestershire, England and educated at Dudley Girl's Grammar School and London University. She taught history and English literature in London before marrying Edmund Morris in 1966 and emigrating to the U.S. two years later. After a period of freelance travel and food writing, she published Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Portrait of a First Lady, the first-book-length biography of Theodore Roosevelt's second wife, in 1980; the book was based on hitherto private family documents. Reviews were positive; Annalyn Swan in Newsweek called it "marvelously full-blooded [and] engagingly written." The Christian Science Monitor said the book represented "craftsmanship of the highest order," and R. W. B. Lewis in The Washington Post Book World, called it "an endlessly engrossing book, at once of historical and human importance." The Modern Library reissued the biography in the fall of 2001.” [ ___Amazon.com ]

“Sylvia Jukes Morris was a British-born biographer, based in the United States. Her two volume biography on Clare Boothe Luce is considered to be an example of both excellent research and writing. She spent 33 years on the Luce biography, examining 460,000 items at the Library of Congress that stretched 319 linear feet. She was married to writer Edmund Morris ( The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt) from 1966 until his death in 2019. She passed away from cancer eight months after her husband's death. She was eighty-four years old at the time of her death.” [__Goodreads]

NARRATOR: Elisabeth Rodgers:
“ Elisabeth S. Rodgers is an actress and audiobook narrator, living and working in New York City.

After graduating from Princeton University, she came to New York and completed a two year program
at William Esper Studio, where she studied with Maggie Flanigan. She has also studied extensively with
Tim Phillips. Her audiobook narration training came from Robin Miles, who has also directed her in
several productions, as has Paul Ruben.

She has recorded over 200 books for a multitude of publishers, including Audible, AudioGo (formerly
BBC Audiobooks America), Benefit Media, Blackstone Audio, Brilliance Audio, Hachette Audio,
Harper Audio, MetaBook, Recorded Books, and Talking Book Productions.

Her onstage work - ranging from Shakespeare to children's theatre, original/experimental theatre, and
corporate training events - has taken her everywhere from City Center in the Big Apple to regional stages
in New York, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, Oklahoma, Georgia, Minnesota...
and even Tanzania.” [__elisabethrodgers.com]

Elisabeth did an excellent narration here.

GENRE: Nonfiction; Biography; American History; Women’s Studies

LOCATIONS: Multiple

TIME FRAME 20th century

SUBJECTS: Society; Politics; Theater; Celebrities; Publishers; Writers; Clare Boothe Luce; Henry (Harry) Luce; Foreign Relations

SAMPLE QUOTATION: From Chapter 2 Globaloney:
“Although a Senate committee reiterated Clare’s misgivings about freedom of the skies the following day, press reports of her speech focused disapprovingly on the gibe of “globaloney.” Even Fortune, Harry’s most sedate magazine, dubbed it “an ill-mannered crack.” Time gave space to her detractors, including Henry Wallace, who huffed, “I am sure the vast bulk of Republicans do not want to stir up animosity against either our Russian or English allies.” Eleanor Roosevelt weighed in with, “Well, are we going to have a peaceful world or aren’t we? All nations should have free access to the world’s travel lanes.”31 The writer Dawn Powell, who had depicted Clare as a ruthless self-promoter in her 1942 novel, A Time to Be Born, remarked in her diary that Mrs. Luce, in attacking the Vice President, had “made such evil use of her new Congressional power.”32

Of 183 nationwide press clippings about the speech gathered by Clare’s staff, only 70 were favorable.33 A friendly columnist lamented that “it had to be left to a pretty woman to make the most-needed he-man speech on foreign policy that has been heard from either floor of the House since the war began.” Mrs. Luce, he wrote, was so well-known “for pulchritude, chic, wit and wisecracking that these got the headlines instead of the sound doctrines expounded and the grave warnings sounded.”34

RATING: 5 Stars

STARTED-FINISHED 7/2/2023 – 7/21/2023

[Jack Haren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a long read. Certainly a very deep dive into the life of a most prominent 20 th century figure. It is difficult to gain a comfortable and easy understanding of this women because the narrative obscures your line of insight with so much detail. At times it was a challenge to stay with it. Her life was so populated with the Giants of the latter half of the century that it sustained my reading interest. The presidents, generals, bishops, ministers and celebrities who held the world stage in these turbulent years drift in and out of the pages of this book. Having lived through many of these same years I enjoyed the opportunity to gain further insight into my impressions of them. Satisfied read. It paid the added dividend of widening my world perspective

[Mary Ann Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written biography of a remarkable although deeply flawed woman. From congresswoman to ambassador she commanded a reputation in Washington as being outspoken and quite intelligent in spite of her lack of formal education. She was extremely narcissistic and insecure but the author allows for her difficult upbringing to balance her foibles. At times the book drug on with details but over all it was an enlightening adventure about a formidable woman. I recommend this book to biography lovers!

[Edith Andersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clare Boothe Luce was ahead of her time in her outspokenness and behavior. She was not a follower and stood up for what she believed. She gained power, contacts, wealth and great influence, yet felt she had never accomplished anything special. It's hard to wrap your head around her perception, but in another way she was a very lost soul never able to find what would bring her real peace, reading Price of Fame is a journey into the lives of the one percent.

[diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was worth reading as I got an insight into the political world of the 40's and 50's. She seemed to live a privileged world and didn't mind stepping on toes. Most interesting were: her beliefs that Marxism should be stopped at all costs, her spiritual battles within herself and her visits to the WWII campaign and the concentration camp. Would definitely recommend as she was a politician of her own mind; neither left nor right, R nor D.

[Suzanne Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as interesting as the first volume.

[Linda Bennett · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a little confused about this book. I finished reading it; however, many times along the way, I thought of not finishing. Now that I read other reviews, I am seeing references to this being Volume II. I have no idea how to find Volume I; I have looked for it. While reading this volume, it occurred to me that it seemed to start after her marriage to Henry Luce and made many references to her earlier life; and I found that sort of unusual. If there indeed is a Volume I, that would explain why I seemed to be coming in at the middle.

The author failed to show me any of Clare's personality. I finished the book, which is too full of footnotes, knowing lots and lots of facts but no feeling for the women about whom I had heard so much.

Many years ago, I saw the movie The Women and was enthralled; so I have been curious for a long time about Clare Boothe Luce. I knew she was a writer, a politician and an ambassador; I did not know that she had been journalist. I thought she was someone to admire; however, after reading this book, I have changed my mind.

Clare was very intelligent and evidently very beautiful. She manipulated people especially men. For someone so "low born", so she had little empathy for others in that station of life. I guess she accomplished much but at the cost of loneliness and many failed relationships especially her marriages. Most important of all, she failed as a mother.

Maybe I should read other books about Clare Boothe Luce to get a different perspective. After spending so much time with this particular book about her, I should probably take a long break before pursuing her more.

[Carol Brennan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clare Booth Luce was a venal, superficial standard American provincial who was the first Republican poster girl. She was the daughter of a golddigging Manhattan escort whose antisemitism did not prevent the mother from extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars out of her wealthy Jewish "boyfriend" even after she landed a Connecticut doctor-husband. You just cannot believe what a total grasping bitch CBL was as well as a voluminous diarist who literally kept a record of every single thought that popped into her head as well as copies of every single letter she ever sent, apparently. But it gave Morris so much to work with! After CBL lured Henry Luce, founder of Time magazine, into leaving his wife and children for her, she tried to help him with some layouts on the honeymoon and he became frosty after realizing what a terrific editor she was and would be forever impotent with her from that day forward. Her mother eventually drove her Buick into an oncoming train in Florida one night after leaving the greyhound racetrack.

[Joseph J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rest in Peace Sylvia. Your two volumes on this complicated and many times unlikable woman justify the years you spent working on the subject. You bring yourself into the final years, even bringing your elderly and ailing subject breakfast in bed! And that final formal dinner of Clare's: a dessert of a dove bar on fine china! A phenomenal two volumes encompassing Catholicism and adultery, politics and the stage and THE WOMEN. A worthy follow up to Edith Kermit Roosevelt, still THE BEST first lady bio written. You and Edmund will be missed.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

The biographer was so enraptured by her subject that it distracted from Clare Booth Luce's story. I don't think we needed a minute-by-minute account of Luce's experience with LSD or to know exactly what kind of dress she wore to a dinner party. (Ice blue satin, for the record, and dripping with diamonds.) I. Was. So. Bored.

Luce gained her fair share of accolades and enemies, and she was a fascinating woman to be sure. Maybe someone possessed of more objectivity would have done a better job.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong conclusion to the overall amazing biography of a remarkable, complicated, contradictory, power-house of a human. Read it as a primer into a world gone, a grand summary of American 20th Century history, or just for insight into a once universally famous and continually fascinating woman, Clare Boothe Luce.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thoroughly interesting woman

[Melissa Bishop · Rating 4 out of 5]

She lead an interesting life in a time when women were considered to be of no more use than to be decoration for the men around them.

[Kevin Eggleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating life, good biography.

[P Teall Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 - Despite what must have been years of hard work by the author, this book is a slog through time and facts, without much illumination of the person Luce or her importance.

[patrick Lorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very through look at the life of Clare Booth Luce. She was a person that I had never heard of when reading history books from the 40’s through the 60’s, bur her life was amazing nun the less. She wrote 4 Broadway comedies, 3 of those became hits and were made into movies. She wrote a screen play for 20th century Fox studio, and was the wife of the publisher of Time, Life, and Fortune, magazines. She also wrote articles for Life and Time, and when Pearl Harbor was attack she had a front page story on Life magazine on General Macarthur and her tour of Asia and how she thought Japan was going to try to take over the Pacific. In 1942 she was elected to the House of Representatives, and also won a second term in 1945. In 1944 she made a tour with other Representatives of the European front mainly the Italian front that she felt along with others had been forgotten after D-Day while men were still fighting. She along with the Tour also looked in on the hospitals and other areas. She was the only female from either house to make the trip, but for her she had already been to the Pacific theater once and in Africa both times reporting for Life Magazine, so this really was not out of her comfort zone. The author goes into detail about some of her speeches in the House and being Republican, not always agreeing with what came out of the White House she was critized for most her comments. Some of them seemed very hateful and would not be written by newspapers today or spoken by members from the House. But by her being female it was like open season, and what was really difficult for me was that some of the comments were coming from women who were in the House, or Congress, and really not listening to her speech but just going off what was said out of the newspapers. Especially when she was trying to still push forward equal rights for women. They made up over 80% of the job force but were not given the same benefits as men. She also pushed for the same rights as men when it came to the G.I. bill for there were many women serving the Nation as well. Though she would be put down her arguments towards those bills got the women added. While she was in office there is a chapter about the death of her only child a daughter who was killed in a car accident, very tragic. She makes another visit to the European Theater towards the end of the war and is actually one of the people to see first-hand of the brutality of the camps, she went to Buchenwald, and after her tour she would give a speech in the House about the cruelty that she saw. When she left office she went back to writing and then May of 1953 thru April of 1956 she would be the American Women to be Ambassador to Italy or any important post. After that she would only in name become Ambassador to Brazil. She would go on to support every Republican and give speeches when asked. In 1983 she was the first female to be awarded the Presidential Freedom Award by President Regan. She passed away in 1987 at the age of 84, with an estate over 31,625,454 dollars. Most given to charities and a large amount 50 million to academic program designed to encourage the entry of women into technological fields traditionally dominated by men. She also gave money to schools to set up programs for women studies, and much more. this book has a lot of information and the author has done a massive amount of research and though this is a long book it is worth the read. I got this book from net galley.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sylvia Jukes Morris is a fantastic writer, which is why I couldn't put down this or the previous volume of this biography. What an amazing person Clare Boothe Luce was, and by that I mean, what an extraordinarily narcissistic and selfish person.

[David R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morris presents a chatty but insightful biography of a rather outsized member of the political order from the 1940s to the 1980s. Luce married well (to Time-Life magnate Henry Luce) and won a pair of terms in the US House of Representatives in her thirties, and from that beginning gamed the system for all it was worth. In a style rather worthy of chatty society pages (I grew weary of itemizations of Luce's clothes) Morris unveils a fairly unlikable woman with an undisciplined tongue, drug and alcohol abuse (she was an LSD tripper in the 1950s!), and pretentious cultural affectations. All along are hints that had Luce just stuck with politics (for example, running for Senate in 1950) a presidency might have inevitably been in the officing, say, in 1952 or 1960. But the candidate would have been too alienating. Overall, a strange biography.

[Jane Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the second volume in this biography of Clare Boothe Luce. It was very interesting reading about her role as a US Ambassador to Italy in the early 1950's but it also revealed how truly shallow a person Clare was and how nothing would make her very happy in the second half of her long life. Her conversion to the Catholic Church was interesting but like all of her passions was short lived due to her soullessness. Clare met and associated with interesting people which made her life interesting but I do believe that the death of her only daughter Ann left her without anything of real substance or value in her life. I recommend this book for it's historical details but I was disappointed in the woman Clare Boothe Luce by the end of the book.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely interesting 2nd of 2 volume biography of a very ambitious woman - Clare Booth Luce. I knew little about her. She rose from little to become quite accomplished over her lifetime. She had difficulty though finding happiness and satisfaction in most of her quests and relationships. She was often melancholy & required constant adoration & attention from those around her & was often cruel & selfish to her loved ones. This volume tended to get quite wordy and dragged at times, but was an interesting survey of historical happenings during her lifetime. I flew thru first volume but took 3 months to finish this one. Still a very worthwhile read.

[Skyqueen · Rating 5 out of 5]

So very interesting! Want to read the first book now, "Rage for Fame: The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce". For Clare to have such a damaged, average past, she was able to get past it and make many positive changes for the military and women and our Country. She truly broke the glass ceiling in many ways. A remarkable, captivating life adept in many areas who persisted over several health maladies and gave us many witty quotable quotes.

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 2nd volume of an epic and intimate biography. Price of Fame picks up where Rage for Fame left us - Clare Boothe Luce on the verge of a political career following her work in journalism at the onset of World War II. CBL bewitched many with her beauty, charm, wit, and intellect. And she knew how to deploy each to her advantage. A truly fascinating woman who maneuvered herself into pivotal moments in global and national politics throughout the 20th century.

[Pooch · Rating 4 out of 5]

This bio is related through the lens of Mrs. Luce's depression and melancholy. This reader wonders if another biographer with a less personal connection to the subject might have imbued the story with the zest and zing of this highly accomplished woman.

As it is, one is left with a sad sense of heaviness.

[Susan Dermond · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to read this in conjunction with watching Ken Burns' series on the Roosevelts. Clare was a most remarkable woman--briliiant, intellectual, and also a sort of femme fatale. She knew history's movers and shakers; she had numerous men in love with her...but she ended up lonely and unhappy.

[False · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't even going to read this. After all, I had read books on La Luce before. Coming out of a bastard birth and born into poverty in Harlem, she sure clawed her way to the top, but at what price. She flirted and seduced the men, cold shouldered the wives (which hurt her in the long run,) and in the end? A nice study in power and wealth.

[Tamara Willems · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second volume impeccably researched and beautifully presented, of an extraordinary dynamic woman who more than earned her place in American history. After two volumes and more than 1300 pages, I found it hard and a little sad to say good-bye to the Honourable Clare Boothe Luce. Thank you Sylvia Jukes Morris for this wonderful biography of a formidably accomplished woman. I loved it!