Behind Every Great Man: The Forgotten Women Behind the World's Famous and Infamous

by Marlene Wagman-Geller

Who said men get to monopolize the glory? Discover the little-known women who have put the world's alpha males on the map.

From ancient times to the present, men have gotten most of the good ink. Yet standing just outside the spotlight are the extraordinary, and overlooked, wives and companions who are just as instrumental in shaping the destinies of their famous―and infamous―men.

This witty, illuminating book reveals the remarkable stories of forty captivating females, from Constance Lloyd (Mrs. Oscar Wilde) to Carolyn Adams (Mrs. Jerry Garcia), who have stood behind their legendary partners and helped to humanize them, often at the cost of their own careers, reputations, and happiness.

Through fame and its attendant ills―alcoholism, infidelity, mental illness, divorce, and even attempted murder―these powerful women quietly propelled their men to the top and changed the course of history.

Meet the untold half of history, including:
- Alma Reville (Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock)
- Elena Diakonova (Mrs. Salvador Dali)
- Winifred Madikizela (Mrs. Nelson Mandela)
- Ann Charteris (Mrs. Ian Fleming, a.k.a. Mrs. James Bond)
- Ruth Alpern (Mrs. Bernie Maddoff)
- And 35 more!

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Feminism, Biography, Womens, Biography Memoir, World History

368 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2015

About the author

Marlene Wagman-Geller grew up in Toronto and is a lifelong bibliophile. She is a veteran high school English teacher in National City, California, and currently lives in San Diego.

Reviews

[Kelly Hubbard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the idea of this book, however I found myself annoyed by the writing style of the author as well as the lack of content. There are a couple chapters that I have marked as I would like to do a bit more research on but mainly I found that the author was reciting the wikipedia page of the women in question. I wanted to know more about their story beyond where they were born, their parents and if they had children or not. I wanted to know how they influenced their husbands, agreed/disagreed with their husbands behind closed doors, etc. Now, to be fair, there were a few chapters that illustrated how these women played a vital role in their husbands life but the remainder failed to bring the woman out of the shadow of her husband.
As for the authors writing style, I can appreciate that Wegman-Geller was trying to be witty but I found the majority of the work to be tedious to read. I kept asking myself, "did an editor even read this?"

In a nutshell---a lot of potential, but fell short of the goal!

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Behind Every Great Man: Forgotten Women Behind the World's Famous and Infamous by Marlene Wagman-Geller was touted as about the women who helped 'propel' their husbands 'to the top'.

I was all for reading about gals like, say, Dolley Madison and Abigail Adams, but who had been forgotten by the historians. (Likely because they were too busy writing about the men.) 28 women nearly forgotten! Including Alma Hitchcock and Emma Wedgewood Darwin!

Wagman-Geller is very entertaining. You laugh out loud, you grind your teeth. But I felt really bad about laughing at these women, many of whom suffered great indignities and suffering because of the love for 'their man,' some of whom are candidates for the Worst Husband of the Millennium Award.

Each woman's biographical sketch consists of a few pages; Mrs Stephen Hawking has 10 pages plus photos. One could find out most of this information Goggling around online. (Of course, you would not have Wagman-Geller's lively narrative.) If you want brief biographies with attitude, this is the book for you.

The author is not above using the women's peccadilloes for laughs, or to arouse one's distaste. Some of these gals were outrageous and some plain evil. Those who were badly used by their husbands deserved a more respectful treatment.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley for a fair and unbiased review.

[nikkia neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much! I learned a lot about history that i didn't know and its helped me understand more of the historical fiction I read also. Everyone needs to read this!

[Cris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is quite bad. Not only is it completely negative about the relationship between men and women, but the author's attempts to be clever actually make it impossible to figure out the facts. The women are portrayed as slavishly attached to their husbands' talent and position, with no will or principles of their own. The men chosen for this book are for the most part philandering, narcissistic and crass. Even those who have been acclaimed for their ethical leadership are portrayed with insensitivity and lack of historical context. The sketch on Kasturba Ghandi called Mahatma Ghandi a male-chauvinist pig. Constance Wilde gets no credit for her principles, though miraculously C.S. Lewis does not get called a chauvinist pig because he marries for honorable reasons. The lesbian relationships in this book are the only ones where tyranny is not the subject of scrutiny. This book will only ring true to wounded people. The rest of us are better off observing any loving couple in their advanced years for inspiration.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the premise of this book the writing was a bit disjointed. The writer seemed torn between styles. Certain sections would lean towards tell-all gossip, which was interesting, and more formal sections, which conveyed information and a sense of timeline. Occasionally I would read an entire section only to realize I'd forgotten the woman's name, because it was only mentioned once or twice. Writing like that, did not highlight the woman herself, and several sections often seemed more dedicated to the man than the woman. I liked the book, but I think it could have used a stronger editing process.

[Cait · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a person who reads all research thesis acknowledgements first to see how people recognise their loved ones, I had very high hopes for this book, but I just couldn't get past the fact that this was such a strange selections of couples to include, and tbh as soon as we had Hitler & Eva Braun I was checked out.

[C.E. Clayton · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Behind Every Great Man” has a great—pardon the pun—premise: highlighting the lives of extraordinary women whose lives and accomplishments have been forgotten in the shadow of their famous—or infamous—husbands. Forty women whose names have been forgotten, some while still alive, is documented in short 5-8 page chapters in a rather light and sometimes humorous manner. But for how perfect this books sounds, how desperately I wanted to praise these forgotten sister’s accomplishments, about 80% of the time, that wasn’t the case.

The author is talented; often non-fiction can be pretty dry and just a slog to get through, even if the subject matter is titillating. I was often entertained and enjoying Geller’s writing style, but where the book fell apart was, sadly, in its subject matter. For one, the chapters were far too short to give some of these women their due, often focusing way, WAY more on how these women stuck by their cheating—and sometimes abusive when drugs or alcohol was involved—men. Which makes their accomplishment, the very thing that history forgot them for, the fact that they didn’t abandon their husbands? Even if these women did so much more than put up with a man’s philandering ways, the way the chapters and information is presented makes it seem as if these women were just slaves for their husbands love. Which, you know, cute I guess? But that’s not the story I’m here for.

There are some women who I’m so glad that the author included as I felt like their accomplishments had 1. Been pushed aside for their husband's due to the time they lived in and 2. I was genuinely learning something. Women like Mrs. Bill Wilson (creator of AA), Mrs. Oskar Schindler (yes, THAT Schindler), Mrs. Jim Henson (co-creator of the Muppets) to just name a few, these women 100% were perfect for this kind of book. But more often, the women included were questionable at best. I enjoyed that some of the wives included were for bad men (like Hitler’s mistress/wife) but others aren’t really worth the page time when the author should, and could have, spent more time on the truly forgotten wives of history and elaborating on their personal accomplishments independent of their “great men”.

What are some examples of the questionable additions, you may ask? Let me tell you: Larry Flynt’s wife (of Hustler fame), Jim Morrison’s wife (of the Doors), and rock star Sting’s wife to just name some. These women didn’t do anything? Other than match their husband toe-for-toe when it came to drug consumption and having sex, I mean. Even if that isn’t true and they made huge contributions to some field, that’s all that was presented in their chapters—the fact that Sting and his wife gave a ton of money to save the rain forest is glossed over in favor of sticking to the tabloids of how the media hated her for taking Sting away from his first wife and maybe breaking up The Police.

But see, that’s my problem. Instead of telling us more about Nelson Mandela’s wife, or Ghandi’s wife and what they did that they should be remembered for, we get a lot of sensational information that feels like its ripped from some tabloid headline. It’s entertaining, sure, but not so when you are looking for a novel that’s an homage to some truly remarkable people. This is still a great concept, and my hope is that there are others out there who give their hand at this and choose to focus on the accomplishments a bit more than Geller did. But good intentions and premises do not a great novel make, unfortunately—and much to my dismay. So this is a 2.5 star for me, because even when I thought the right people were included, all the author shared was their devotion to their husband. Oh well, at least I learned something, kind of?

[Katherine P · Rating 4 out of 5]

The length of the chapters was really perfect. It was just long enough to give us a good understanding of where each woman came from, how she met her famous (or infamous) husband, and what her life was like as a married woman. There was enough to get a sense of the woman without getting overly bogged down in detail. I thought her choices of women was terrific as they were all the wives of people I was familiar with but almost all the names were new to me. I know nothing about Einstein's first wife, or General MacArthur's wife and even less about Ghandi's wife. And poor poor Mrs. Oscar Wilde. The mix of women is fascinating. Some are tragic, some are heartbreaking-ly patient, some are crazy (Gala Dali comes to mind), but they are all passionate women who sacrificed so much to support their husband. Wagman-Geller's voice comes through and you get touches of her opinion on some of the men and dashes of humor which keep the book interesting but still a light read.
Overall: The chapters in the book were addicting. Each time I came to a new chapter I thought "well I want to learn about her. I'll just read one more." I thoroughly enjoyed getting a look at the women behind (or propping up) the famous men!
Full Review: http://iwishilivedinalibrary.blogspot...

[Jennifer Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really great premise but really poor execution. Selection of women was interesting. Bios read like they were written for blog; half the sentences sound like the author wanted to put "lol" after them. The choice of details included were odd at best and there is little to no attempt to put things in historical or chronological context.

Wasted a great idea with really poor writing.

[Rhonda Lomazow · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful read really a must for all the strong women who stand behind their man.you'll laugh &you'll learn history of famous&infamous couples .the good the bad&other ugly.this book would make for a great book club read.

[Pat Lampe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book. The stories were quite brief but enough so that if you were interested, you could find other biographies. I didn't know the background of many of the men she chose, much less their wives. So in many ways this was an introduction. Likeable.

[Sweetpea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from the GoodReads First Reads Program in exchange for an honest review. Both entertaining and educational, I really enjoyed this book.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far so good. This is my first Wagman-Geller book, I like the length of the chapters and her wit. The only thing I hate is the work is not unbiased which almost caused me to put it down.

[Vicki Hoppenrath · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. It was illuminating about many of the women. You realize that many were invisible while their husbands were in the Spotlight.

[Abby · Rating 2 out of 5]

While at times interesting, I am disappointed in this book. I was under the impression that this book would discuss how these women influenced their man's careers or they had some lesser fame that was over shadowed by their husbands. This was not the case. Instead it seemed to highlight how many wives and mistresses were abused and cheated on. It seems like staying with your man and pumping out babies was a lot of these woman's accomplishes. Some chapters seemed to discuss the husbands more than the women as well, which didn't help. I wish this was less of a gossip piece and more focus was about the women and their influence on their husbands or society.

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fascinating read by Marlene Wagman-Geller. This book does not disappoint. I really enjoyed learning about women behind the men who dominate history and who are barely even mentioned as a foot note in their stories. From the sad story of Einstein’s wife who after helping him with his discoveries and then cruelly pushed aside when it suited him to the kinky love life of Mrs Fleming. It’s a varied mix of stories that are both fascinating and at times painfully sad.

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really, I would give this 2.5 stars. There are things I did like about this book, but not enough to say I liked the book. I put this book on my list of missed opportunity books. I LOVE the premise of this book and I was very excited when I found it. I love women's history and find it especially fascinating to read about women who stand in the shadows making history rather than the headliners; so this book seemed right up my ally.
So why was it a missed opportunity? First off, I really disliked the writing style. The short chapters keep the flow going, but they are written more like wikipedia entries and I felt like Wagman-Geller didn't quite have a solid, coherent aim in writing about each woman. It seemed like her premise was to promote these women as women worthy of accolade in their own right, but many of them truly weren't and so her writing style fell flat.
I think an alternate title for the book could be "Behind Every Narcissistic Man is a Codependent Woman". Already appalled by many of these chauvinistic famous men, I was annoyed by their wives who worshipped at their self aggrandizing altars. The book would have come off better if Wagman-Geller wrote from the angle of accepting the tragedy (and possibly psychological instability) of these women rather than celebrating them for doing great things. There were some exceptions of course. I really liked the stories of Rachel Robinson (Mrs. Jackie Robinson), Alma Hitchcock (Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock), Betty Ford, Emilie Schindler (Mrs. Oskar Schindler, who was compelling even if tragic), Betty Shabazz (Mrs. Malcolm X) and a few others.
Finally, my biggest complaint was the authenticity of the stories. Some of the way ideas were expressed made me question how we could possibly know some of the thoughts of these women. Looking through the sources there were a lot of wikipedia and other news articles used rather than primary sources, and that bothered me. But what really sunk it for me was the chapter about Ethel Rosenberg that didn't even hint that she was a soviet spy and made her out to be a victim when there is very clear evidence that she did in fact spy for the soviets. Even if Wagman-Geller is not convinced by the evidence, it should at least be acknowledged. This made me question the authenticity of other stories I was less knowledgeable about.
So, there are things I did enjoy about the book and I am a big fan of having women's stories told, but this book didn't live up to its potential, and for that I give it 2.5 stars.

[Reading Harbor · Rating 2 out of 5]

***Disclaimer: This was a Good Reads Win.***

I was excited to receive this book because I thought it would offer some insightful vignettes as to how some great women helped raise/ support / nurture men. As you know, most of history is written by men - the feminist movement did not start until late, maybe 1920-ish in America and is still non-existent in some parts of the world. Although I would not necessarily consider myself a staunch feminist, I do support history correctly reflecting the significant achievements of women (ex. Rosalind Franklin, Marie Curie, etc)

I thought this book might be interesting in the way that it would highlight some great stories of how women helped contribute to great achievements. Maybe it would showcase that it really takes a team to succeed. Unfortunately, I found that these short stories reflected more of the support role women had to men. The women described were more of paramours to the men. I felt like the stories read more like Wikipedia entries, a bit dry. It was more of like a book of short trysts that really famous guys had with women that are little known about.

So, since this book didn't really match my expectations based off of what I perceived the title and the blurb to indicate it should be about, I am giving it only 3 stars.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the idea behind the book, and the information was good (if incomplete). It was the writing itself that stretched what should've been an afternoon read into three weeks. Some of the cross references and attempts at humor are either awkward or just oddly placed, and even paragraph breaks seem often to be a sentence too soon or too late. The topic will apparently have changed when suddenly a lost statement from the previous topic surfaces, disconnected. These things cause the book to read as a draft rather than a final manuscript. And the line drawings made the whole thing feel a bit too homemade--I would very much have preferred photographs of the subjects. Still, the stories themselves were interesting, and may inspire more investigation. If the writing had been tighter, this might have crept toward four stars.

[Katy Cater · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was not well-written. One thing that really bothered me is that the author attributes thoughts to people. For instance, "He assured her of its success by explaining all women loved furs; she bit her tongue from responding the only time she had ever seen one was on the shoulders of his lovers, a present from him." Maybe this thought was stated in an autobiography or letter, but the presentation seems strange to me. I also feel like the majority of the stories I read were less about the woman than her husband's marital infidelities.
While the premise behind this book is great, and I would love to read a more scholarly presentation of many of these women's lives, I will not be finishing this book.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was very tragic seeing her name carved in a tombstone - her surname, my name not mentioned. I had a sense of the uselessness of all regrets. Life is a very terrible thing." Oscar Wilde In 1963, her family added an addendum to her tombstone: wife of Oscar Wilde.

Gandhi was burdened with lifelong guilt that he had been in the throes of lust with his teenage wife when his father breathed his last, without his son at his side.

As Gertrude Stein lay dying she asked Alice B. Toklas What is the answer? Alice responded: What is the question?"

The Jews he saved. Me he abandoned.

There comes a time to stop submitting and start outwitting.

An affair with Picasso was a catastrophe I didn't want to avoid.

Though we can't make time stand still, at least we can make him run.

[Julia Bragg]

This book had such a potential to tell an amazing story - it really did. However, it didn't tell that story. It was basically like reading each woman's wikipedia page, instead of focusing on their individual accomplishments aside from where they grew up, who their parents are, and their children. This book failed this women just as society "forgot" as the title suggests.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short biographies of women and their famous partners make up this interesting book. While the chapters only give a mini- synopsis of the women and their partners, Geller entices you to want to learn more about these women. Some of the women written about include Eva Braun, Oona ONeill, Winnie Mandela and Constance Lloyd. Fascinating!

[Hope · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the idea of learning more about the women behind the men in history. I don't much like that this book use these women as a cheap excuse to make bad jokes, and can't be bothered to cite the memoirs written by those same women. It's hard to be impressed when all of your research is websites.

[Jillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pop "feminism".

[Kristin Benninghoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

The untold stories

This was a completely fascinating look at the intimate lives of historic couples. A quick and easy read that I really enjoyed.

[Sharmaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite pick of 2016! Witty and humorous i even laughed on the train while reading this

[Kiki Z · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is fascinating in the way watching a trainwreck is fascinating. These women are, as a whole, not the sort of people one should idolize. Either they themselves are questionable people, or they are the sort of women who give up their entire lives and well-being for terrible men who treat them badly. Some of it is the time, all of it is upsetting. I have no idea how much of this is because the author spends very few pages on each woman and only covers the surface, but it makes for some questionable reading. As this review says, "The book would have come off better if Wagman-Geller wrote from the angle of accepting the tragedy (and possibly psychological instability) of these women rather than celebrating them for doing great things."

It was easy to read and the author makes it deliberately breezy (although some of her jokes starting grating on me halfway through) but that's the nicest thing I could say about it. Some of these men strain the definition of great. For one, General MacArthur I doubt has any meaning to anyone outside of the US (or to people not inclined to romanticize the American military). For all I like the Doors and the Bee Gees and Sinatra, I wouldn't consider Sinatra, Larry Flynt, Jim Morrison, Sting, Stieg Larsson, Jerry Garcia, Timothy O'Leary, Wagner, Oscar Wilde, or Robin Gibb high on the list of great men either. (This isn't even the full list, but I'm tired of adding names). Talented but not in the annals of men who changed the world. And we also had the woman who was involved with Hitler, which really didn't need to be in there. Putting him under the title of "great men" feels incredibly insensitive and tone-deaf at best. What are we defining 'great men' as? As far as I can tell, the author is using it as a synonym for famous. I would've preferred more focus on men (and thus their wives) who did something to the world. This just seems like "hey, here's a book on wives of famous men who treated them terribly, constantly cheated on them, and emotionally damaged them. We even have one sapphic couple! But we're still gonna focus on men who think their genius excused them from basic human decency and women with no self-respect who destroyed them to be with them."

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The blog says, “Discover the Little Known Women Who Have Put the World's Alpha Males on the Map”! This is another inspiring book by Marlene Wagman-Geller. In this book she looks at forty women behind famous and infamous men. This includes, Constance Lloyd, Mrs Oscar Wilde, Carolyn Adams, Mrs Jerry Garcia, Alma Reville, Mrs Alfred Hitchcock, Elena Diakonova, Mrs Salvador Dali, Winifred Madikizela, Nelson Mandela’s wife and Ann Charteris, Mrs Ian Fleming.
In Marlene’s prologue she says the well-known saying, “Behind every great man is a great woman”, is actually more than just a saying and is true in many cases. She says that to be included in her book, the women had to be married to a famous man, “who outshone them in the pages of time”.
I enjoyed reading this fascinating and informative book, each chapter looks at a wife of a famous, ‘great man’. I found the chapters about Constance Lloyd, Mrs Oscar Wilde particularly fascinating and the chapter on Winifred Madikizela, Nelson Mandela’s second wife was interesting and really showed how inspiring she was in her own right.
I felt that some of the chapters were more detailed and informative than others, it came across that maybe the author was more knowledgeable about some of the great women than others. However I found the whole book fascinating and learnt about many intriguing and empowering women who I, like many others had never heard about as I only knew them as someone’s wife.
This is the third book of Wagman-Geller’s I have now read and each time I finish the book I feel inspired and empowered, and feel that I have really learnt about some great people. Each book has been well written and easy to follow and obviously well researched.

[Isabella Tiberi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't even get through the first 100 pages. The author's cited sources mostly consist of book REVIEWS, online news articles from the likes of Slate, People, The Daily Beast, a few blanket citations of Wikipedia articles...you get the idea. There are so few primary sources and the entire book reads like a third hand account filled with rumors more than anything actually researched with care and effort.

This writing style is also too glib and casual for me, which lends to it feeling less academic and truthful. Maybe it works better for some readers but it definitely wasn't for me. It feels like a high school English student wrote it as opposed to an English teacher.

Also, for a book centered on feminism and giving the spotlight to women overlooked, the husbands mentioned are given a surprising amount of weight and leeway. Wagner marring a woman half his age who fell for him in her TEENS is barely shrugged over, and Karl Marx cheating on his wife with their maid is written with a cheap joke saying "he pulled an Arnold Schwarzenegger." In addition she follows that with a joke that the maid seemed to take her job of "taking over duties as woman of the house too seriously." Marx's hypocritical exploitation of a woman working below him aside, it's hard to take anything in this book seriously when every other paragraph has some lame half-baked joke like this and handwaves all the negative acts the men do.

I've seen Tumblr posts explain historical anecdotes and little-known bits of history with more nuance, more academic integrity, and less cringy writing.