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DREAMS THAT MONEY CAN BUY - The Tragic Life of Libby Holman
Dreams That Money Can Buy The Tragic Life of Libby Holman
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1985
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
June 2, 2019
Recommended to me by Sketchbook following a discussion about Jane and Paul Bowles. I had a Bowles (both of them) fixation in the past and thought I knew quite a bit about their lives, however, when Sketch mentioned Libby Holman as being a very important friend and benefactor of the Bowles, I really could not recall Libby being mentioned in their respective biographies. Sketch then recommended 'Dreams that Money can Buy' by Jon Bradshaw and I am really glad he did.
After first being lukewarm about the biography, I really started to like it as I moved on. The book starts out as a rather star crazed sort of pulp book, but it greatly improves as it gets along. Libby was one of those people who were larger than life and couldn't help to be that way. Witty, smart and too much alive for her own good, she was drinking and partying in a grand manner. Perhaps it helped that she was a manic depressive of the first order, thus often bursting with energy. She seemed to have been as witty as Mae West and people absolutely loved her. However, in whatever stage of her life, death and suicide surrounded her. Her first husband was killed by a bullit through his head, her second husband killed by overdose, her only son killed really young in a mountaineering accident. She was initially suspected of the murder of her first husband, an heir to the multimillions of Reynolds family of the tobacco imperium. She was acquitted, but not wholeheartedly and on the condition that the case might be reopened. It induced jokes from friends, such as one saying that Libby was 'between murders' when she had no relationship at a certain moment. Furthermore, there were suicidial friends aplenty around her, such as Montgomery Clift who was a great friend of hers. So, there was always darkness surrounding all that extreme gaiety. It fitted her character.
She was a wonderful friend to Jane Bowles, often travelling to Tangiers to stay with them. A monthly transfer of money was sent by Libby to Jane and Libby paid most of her medical bills. Paul Bowles sometimes wrote music for Libby's musical performances. Both the Bowles stayed with her for long periods when they were in the States. Libby left Jane a substantial amount of money in her last will.
So, yes, I liked this biography of a woman I never heard of. I now have to leaf through the Bowles' biographies to look for her. I am sure I will find her mentioned a lot. I just did not know who she was, so I forgot.
So, Sketch, thanks for the recommendation. That was a pretty sensational read, fun and sad at the same time!
After first being lukewarm about the biography, I really started to like it as I moved on. The book starts out as a rather star crazed sort of pulp book, but it greatly improves as it gets along. Libby was one of those people who were larger than life and couldn't help to be that way. Witty, smart and too much alive for her own good, she was drinking and partying in a grand manner. Perhaps it helped that she was a manic depressive of the first order, thus often bursting with energy. She seemed to have been as witty as Mae West and people absolutely loved her. However, in whatever stage of her life, death and suicide surrounded her. Her first husband was killed by a bullit through his head, her second husband killed by overdose, her only son killed really young in a mountaineering accident. She was initially suspected of the murder of her first husband, an heir to the multimillions of Reynolds family of the tobacco imperium. She was acquitted, but not wholeheartedly and on the condition that the case might be reopened. It induced jokes from friends, such as one saying that Libby was 'between murders' when she had no relationship at a certain moment. Furthermore, there were suicidial friends aplenty around her, such as Montgomery Clift who was a great friend of hers. So, there was always darkness surrounding all that extreme gaiety. It fitted her character.
She was a wonderful friend to Jane Bowles, often travelling to Tangiers to stay with them. A monthly transfer of money was sent by Libby to Jane and Libby paid most of her medical bills. Paul Bowles sometimes wrote music for Libby's musical performances. Both the Bowles stayed with her for long periods when they were in the States. Libby left Jane a substantial amount of money in her last will.
So, yes, I liked this biography of a woman I never heard of. I now have to leaf through the Bowles' biographies to look for her. I am sure I will find her mentioned a lot. I just did not know who she was, so I forgot.
So, Sketch, thanks for the recommendation. That was a pretty sensational read, fun and sad at the same time!
September 21, 2024
Broadway singer Libby Holman was in a perfect state. She'd just married the much younger tobacco heir Smith Reynolds, 20, and now, after a party, he was dying - in their bedroom - from a gunshot (1932). She couldnt remember anything but she did remember that grande dame actress Blanche Yurka was in the house. Libby's pal Tallulah cracked, "Of course she did it. It was the only way to get Blanche Yurka out of the house."
A sexy, modestly talented blues chanteuse, Holman costarred in 3 hit Bwy revues w Clifton Webb in the late 20s. (She introduced the song, "Body and Soul"). The death of Reynolds (who seems to have had sex issues) haunted her for the rest of her life. As a crowned head of Cafe Society, she reveled in affairs w men and women. Her most devoted heiress lover was Louisa Carpenter, a DuPont. This 'Little-Me' saga should keep you rolling yer eyes, but it's curdling sociology.
Her life, though pulp material, is Biblical : her second husby took an overdose; her beloved son (from Reynolds) was killed in a mountain-climbing accident. Too much plot, you say ? Too many verses ? She lost Clifton Webb's friendship by calling his bossy mum a cunt. She wasted no time claiming Monty Clift as personal property. They doted on doctors, prescription drugs, milk and raw meat. Libby (1904-71) herself, then in her 3d marriage, was found dead in what the author suggests were mysterious circumstances. Always generous, she gave money to all sorts of people (the dying Jane Bowles) and Causes (civil rights).
Late in life, she drank far too much and became involved with her pretty secretary who one night smashed the blaring house record-player and several records because she couldn't sleep. Now that was going too far. Before firing her, Libby rumbled: "Who do you think you are ? -- ME?"
Here is The American Dream with - and without - its "eternal adolescence," as Graham Greene has lamented. At death, her estate was valued at $13.2 million.
A sexy, modestly talented blues chanteuse, Holman costarred in 3 hit Bwy revues w Clifton Webb in the late 20s. (She introduced the song, "Body and Soul"). The death of Reynolds (who seems to have had sex issues) haunted her for the rest of her life. As a crowned head of Cafe Society, she reveled in affairs w men and women. Her most devoted heiress lover was Louisa Carpenter, a DuPont. This 'Little-Me' saga should keep you rolling yer eyes, but it's curdling sociology.
Her life, though pulp material, is Biblical : her second husby took an overdose; her beloved son (from Reynolds) was killed in a mountain-climbing accident. Too much plot, you say ? Too many verses ? She lost Clifton Webb's friendship by calling his bossy mum a cunt. She wasted no time claiming Monty Clift as personal property. They doted on doctors, prescription drugs, milk and raw meat. Libby (1904-71) herself, then in her 3d marriage, was found dead in what the author suggests were mysterious circumstances. Always generous, she gave money to all sorts of people (the dying Jane Bowles) and Causes (civil rights).
Late in life, she drank far too much and became involved with her pretty secretary who one night smashed the blaring house record-player and several records because she couldn't sleep. Now that was going too far. Before firing her, Libby rumbled: "Who do you think you are ? -- ME?"
Here is The American Dream with - and without - its "eternal adolescence," as Graham Greene has lamented. At death, her estate was valued at $13.2 million.
November 16, 2016
I have a penchant for books about women in history. I shelf them under Notorious Women, and boy, is Libby Holman notorious!!! Death follows in her wake. Drunkenness, blues, sex all in the 20s and 30s. THIS is what I want in a biography! Great job, Bradshaw
September 5, 2013
Libby Holman was an original - the first girl to smoke on
campus and her fly away unruly hair and bright red lip-sticked
lips made her noticed wherever she went. Although she didn't
come from a theatrical family (but still one with major
skeletons in the cupboard) she was possessed of a throaty,
distinctive singing voice and gravitated toward the theatre
where after college she went almost directly into Rogers and
Hart's "The Garrick Gaieties" and from then on she was never
between jobs for very long. For a few years she was the toast
of Broadway, she made the songs "Moanin' Low" and "Body and
Soul" standards. Then it all came crashing down when during
the run of "Three's a Crowd" she impulsively married Smith
Reynolds, heir to the Reynold's tobacco fortune and a smitten
stage-door-johnnie and plunged herself into a life long
nightmare.
The plot of a hundred who-done-its (it was even turned into
a movie with Jean Harlow who, being a good friend of Libby's,
felt it was in very bad taste) - six months after their marriage
and at a week-end house party, Reynolds lay dead of a gunshot
wound, Libby had fled with her latest lover and gossip said
father of her unborn child. Of course Libby was the chief suspect
but it never came to trial and Libby was forever haunted by her
ambiguous situation. A few more years of fighting through the
courts saw Libby's son finally acknowledged as the heir and the
inheritor of $7 million but her career was in ruins and as
the melodramatic blurb puts it "almost every man she was ever
associated with died a violent death".
It sounds a sensationalist book but in Jon Bradshaw's capable
hands it makes a riveting read. The main impression one gets is
that she was a bitter woman with too much time on her hands and
always at the back of her mind - just what had she accomplished
in her life? Her sarcasm and moods drove away the few friends who
had stayed loyal - Clifton Webb (a pretty colourful character
himself) had known her for years but a chance nasty remark about
his mother and he never spoke to her again. She was a tyrant who
was attracted to weak, subservient men and there are telling
insights about Phillips Holmes, his brother Rafe and Montgomery
Clift. It was only when she married abstract artist Louis
Schanker, a man as screwy and masochistic as herself that she met
her match.
As in all meticulous biographies there is a complete discography
and a Broadway chronology.
campus and her fly away unruly hair and bright red lip-sticked
lips made her noticed wherever she went. Although she didn't
come from a theatrical family (but still one with major
skeletons in the cupboard) she was possessed of a throaty,
distinctive singing voice and gravitated toward the theatre
where after college she went almost directly into Rogers and
Hart's "The Garrick Gaieties" and from then on she was never
between jobs for very long. For a few years she was the toast
of Broadway, she made the songs "Moanin' Low" and "Body and
Soul" standards. Then it all came crashing down when during
the run of "Three's a Crowd" she impulsively married Smith
Reynolds, heir to the Reynold's tobacco fortune and a smitten
stage-door-johnnie and plunged herself into a life long
nightmare.
The plot of a hundred who-done-its (it was even turned into
a movie with Jean Harlow who, being a good friend of Libby's,
felt it was in very bad taste) - six months after their marriage
and at a week-end house party, Reynolds lay dead of a gunshot
wound, Libby had fled with her latest lover and gossip said
father of her unborn child. Of course Libby was the chief suspect
but it never came to trial and Libby was forever haunted by her
ambiguous situation. A few more years of fighting through the
courts saw Libby's son finally acknowledged as the heir and the
inheritor of $7 million but her career was in ruins and as
the melodramatic blurb puts it "almost every man she was ever
associated with died a violent death".
It sounds a sensationalist book but in Jon Bradshaw's capable
hands it makes a riveting read. The main impression one gets is
that she was a bitter woman with too much time on her hands and
always at the back of her mind - just what had she accomplished
in her life? Her sarcasm and moods drove away the few friends who
had stayed loyal - Clifton Webb (a pretty colourful character
himself) had known her for years but a chance nasty remark about
his mother and he never spoke to her again. She was a tyrant who
was attracted to weak, subservient men and there are telling
insights about Phillips Holmes, his brother Rafe and Montgomery
Clift. It was only when she married abstract artist Louis
Schanker, a man as screwy and masochistic as herself that she met
her match.
As in all meticulous biographies there is a complete discography
and a Broadway chronology.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 19, 2015
How must you live your life?
It sometimes depends on what you have and what you decide to do with it. Libby Holman had beauty and could enchant so she married rich and had the fortune (or misfortune, depending how you look at it) of having her rich spouse die before they could have a second child and leaving a substantial part of his wealth to her (or, more precisely, to their only child—who likewise died young, while mountain climbing).
She had fame, money, the best houses, food, lovers but the tragic comes when it wants to visit you and so it is the tragic which defined her life interspersed, nevertheless, with momentary pleasures.
Still, better that being poor and forgotten with no biography!
March 23, 2012
A wonderful biography of Libby Holman, a Broadway star and jazz baby of the 1920/30s, who is basically unknown today. She was an singer with a gut-bucket voice whose singing style was one that was more reflective of the female black singers of the time. She was seductive and sexy though not a conventional beauty and men were mesmerized by her. She took advantage of that and married the heir to the RJ Reynolds tobacco fortune. Shortly after their marriage, he committed suicide....or did he? The questions and suspicions haunted her throughout her life. She was surrounded by tragedy as her only child died in a climbing accident and several of her family and friends took their own lives.
Her escapades were legendary and she lived life to the fullest while suffering from various mental problems. The author has painted a sometimes unflattering, though basically unbiased picture of a fascinating woman who for a short time held the Broadway mavens in thrall. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Broadway business of the Roaring Twenties.
Her escapades were legendary and she lived life to the fullest while suffering from various mental problems. The author has painted a sometimes unflattering, though basically unbiased picture of a fascinating woman who for a short time held the Broadway mavens in thrall. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Broadway business of the Roaring Twenties.
Read
April 1, 2018I only read a quarter of this, maybe a third, so I'm not rating it. Libby Holman was a singer and actress in the late 1920s who married Smith Reynolds of the super rich tobacco Reynolds. He dies under odd conditions, and tabloid scandal ensues. That is as far as i got.
November 14, 2017
A few months ago, I read a biography of Montgomery Clift for the second time, the first being in the mid-1980s. In that book, his close relationship with Libby Holman was spoken of. I wondered just who this Libby Holman was, apart from her connection to Clift. And then I remembered that when I had read the Clift bio the first time, I’d also purchased Jon Bradshaw’s Dreams That Money Can Buy, The Tragic Life of Libby Holman. I’d actually read it those many years ago, but I’d forgotten most of what I’d read. So I picked it up once again, and it was a revelation. The subtitle tells it all. Libby Holman was a young woman who made a big splash on Broadway in the 1920s as a torch singer. Then she married an heir to the Reynolds Tobacco fortune. Upon his death, she became a very rich woman. But that death was always clouded in mystery: Was it suicide? Was it accidental? Did his wife kill him? Those questions are never answered in this book, but asking them sets us up for what’s to come. Holman’s life was filled with death and tragedy, but, despite her deep depressions, she managed a long life. She was someone I’d liked to have known. She could be reckless at times; she could be Puritanical at times. But through her highs and lows, she remained mostly exuberant. Her friends—some of the most radiant stars of the times—loved her and stood by her, even when she did not stand by them. She weathered three unhappy marriages, had numerous affairs with both men and women (Clift among them,) birthed one child, and raised two others, never allowing anyone to say they were adopted even though that was exactly the truth. She gave lavish parties, maintained three residences, gave generous gifts to her friends, and managed to cut ties with long-time friends she felt had wronged her. She supported equal rights, was a great friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife Coretta Scott King, gave generously to human rights causes, and left a large chunk of her estate to Boston University. Her own death remains a mystery. Labeled a suicide, Bradshaw makes a good case that it certainly could not have been that. He intimates that her then current husband may have murdered her. But that’s something we’ll never know (unless something new has been found since this book was published almost thirty years ago.) And knowing is not important. What this book proves is that the world was richer because Libby Holman was in it.
November 18, 2007
One of my favorite true crime books - the saga of torch singer Libby Holman and the death of her drunkard husband, Zachary Smith Reynolds, heir to the R.J. Reynolds fortune. If this all sounds a bit familiar, it's because Hollywood poached bits and pieces for Reckless with Wm. Powell and Jean Harlow (who of course had her own dead husband scandal to contend with) and Written on the Wind with Lauren Bacall and Robert Stack. We'll never know what happened in that bedroom in North Carolina in 1932, but at least we can speculate. To find out if Holman gets off, read this book.
January 26, 2008
Read this during my "Biography/1920's Hollywood obsession." I think I should read it again. Libby Holman was one of those actresses who use to practically RULE the world, and then they were just forgotten about. I don't know...that fascinates me. Yes, I love Sunset Boulevard.
Currently reading
January 18, 2022it is sad that this book sensationalizing the life of the brilliant, activist, philanthropist, and singer-actress Libby Holman has too often been the source of information about this amazing woman. It was panned by the N.Y. Times and others when it was first published.
It was known that Bradshaw had a personal vendetta against Libby and those around her, for not assisting him in writing this book. He would say, "People are stupid. I can write anything and they would believe me." Apparently they did.
I was one of those to whom he spoke seeking information.
Florence, niece of Libby Holman
It was known that Bradshaw had a personal vendetta against Libby and those around her, for not assisting him in writing this book. He would say, "People are stupid. I can write anything and they would believe me." Apparently they did.
I was one of those to whom he spoke seeking information.
Florence, niece of Libby Holman
December 30, 2024
I read this years ago, and it's fantastic. Libby Holman graduated from my high school, was an exceptional talent who was intellectually and socially advanced far beyond the decades in which she lived. She had a fabulously scandalous life which ended far too soon. Check out this book and her music. She is fantastic!
June 24, 2017
The author was wonderful in providing facts about the life of this heiress . The story just became sadder and sadder . A tale of the greed of those who learned to prey on her need for companionship . With all the money she lived for over 15 years in a single ordinary hospital room .
August 15, 2024
Great read about a very interesting life.
May 31, 2008
I loved the first two-thirds of this book: all Jazz Age Flaming Youth stuff and glamorous Broadway Showbiz stuff and real-life Country House Murder Mystery stuff. Libby Holman was quite the insecure diva, someone who (I think) felt that she fluked her way to fame and fortune at a very young age and spent the rest of her life trying to become more than just a very rich and notorious woman. She gathered a great cast of characters around her, including Clifton Webb and Tallulah Bankhead and (most interestingly) Montgomery Clift. But I did find myself skimming through the last third of the book, eager to be done with it. It got pretty dark and depressing there at the end -- as show biz biographies tend to do, I'm afraid. I still love to read them, though.
August 23, 2009
I found this book in a bargain bin while traveling in Ohio. The story is a true and fascinating one. It is about the life of Libby Holman, a torch singer born in Ohio who marries into the R.J. Reynolds fortune. The twists and turns of her life and personality make for great storytelling. This is a book begging to be made into a movie today because it offers so many interesting aspects including glamor, scandal, mystery, and tragedy.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews