Diana & Jackie : maidens, mothers, myths / Jay Mulvaney.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mulvaney, Jay.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Diana, Princess of Wales, 1961-1997.

Diana.

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy, 1929-1994.

Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy.

Princesses--Great Britain--Biography.

Princesses.

Great Britain.

Presidents' spouses--United States--Biography.

Presidents' spouses.

United States.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xiii, 319 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Diana and Jackie

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2002.

Summary:

History Has Seen Only a Few Women so magical, so evanescent, that they captured the spirit and imagination of their times. Diana, Princess of Wales, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were two of these rare creatures. They were the most famous women of the twentieth century -- admired, respected, even adored at times; rebuked, mocked, and reviled at others. Though separated by nationality and a generation apart, they led two surprisingly similar lives. Both were the daughters of acrimonious divorce. Both wed men twelve years their senior, men who needed "trophy brides" to advance their careers. Both married into powerful and domineering families who tried, unsuccessfully, to tame their willful independence. Both inherited power through marriage and both rebelled within their official roles, forever crushing the archetype. And both revolutionized dynasties.

Yet in many ways they were completely different: Jackie lived her life with an English "stiff upper lip" -- never complaining, never explaining in the face of immense public curiosity. Diana lived her life with an American "quivering lower lip" -- with televised tell-alls, exposing her family drama to a world eager for every detail. These two lives have been well documented but never before compared -- and never before examined in the context of their times. Jay Mulvaney, author of Kennedy Weddings and Jackie: The Clothes of Camelot, probes the lives of these two twentieth-century icons and discovers: The nature of their personalities, forged from the cradle by their relationships with their fathers, Black Jack Bouvier and Johnny Spencer. Their early years, and their early relationships with men. Their marriages, and the truth behind the lies, the betrayals, and the arrangements. Their greatest achievement: motherhood. Their prickly relationships with their august mothers-in-law, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II. Their lives as single women and working mothers. Their roles as icons and archetypes. Graced with previously unpublished photographs from many private collections, and painstakingly researched, Diana & Jackie presents these two remarkable and unique women as they have never been seen before.

Contents:

Prologue: Two Weddings 1

1. Gilded Daughters of Privilege 11

2. Darling Daddy (and Mummy Dearest) 25

3. Separation Anxiety: Children of Divorce 39

4. A Girl at an Impressionable Age 53

5. Maidens 67

6. The Men They Married 77

7. Courtship and Engagement 93

8. Wedded Wives 111

9. The Mothers-in-Law: Elizabeth Windsor and Rose Kennedy 123

10. The Windsors and the Kennedys 139

11. Mothers 151

12. Supernovas 173

13. Smashing the Archetypes: The Rebels Within 189

14. The End of the Dream 203

15. Myths 215

16. Two Ladies, Alone 233

17. Owning a Piece of the Myth: Two Sales of the Century 251

18. Second Loves 265

19. Touched by the Sun 277

Epilogue: Two Funerals 287.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [307]-308) and index.

ISBN:

0312282044

OCLC:

49663040