Forty years on, Vickers has now completely rewritten and revised his original biography, updating it with previously unavailable material and drawing on his own personal research all over Europe and America. Intrigued and compelled to unmask the truth of her mysterious life, Vickers visited her over the course of two years, eventually publishing Gladys, Duchess of Marlborough, a biography of her life - and his first book - in 1979, two years after Gladys's death. Gladys was to spend her last years in the psycho-geriatric ward of a mental hospital, where she was discovered by a young Hugo Vickers. She became a recluse, and the wax injections she'd had to straighten her nose when she was 22 had by now ravaged her beauty. But life at Blenheim was not a success: when the Duke evicted her in 1933, the only remaining signs of Gladys were two sphinxes bearing her features on the west terraces and mysterious blue eyes in the grand portico. Gladys's circle now included Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lytton Strachey and Winston Churchill, who described her as 'a strange, glittering being'. In 1921, when Gladys was forty, she achieved the wish she had held since the age of fourteen to marry the 9th Duke of Marlborough, then freshly divorced from fellow American Consuelo Vanderbilt. She inspired love from diverse Dukes and Princes, and the interest of women such as the Comtesse Greffulhe and Gertrude Stein. Marcel Proust wrote of her, 'I never saw a girl with such beauty, such magnificent intelligence, such goodness and charm.' Berenson considered marrying her, Rodin and Monet befriended her, Boldini painted her and Epstein sculpted her. One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled and puzzled the glittering social circles in which she moved.īorn in Paris to American parents in 1881, Gladys emerged from a traumatic childhood - her father having shot her mother's lover dead when Gladys was only eleven - to captivate and inspire some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Epoque. 'Hugo Vickers's life of Gladys Marlborough is an extraordinary and tragic story, with special resonance today' EVENING STANDARD 'At the end of the book the reader can only say, "Whew! What a story!"' Anne de Courcy, SPECTATOR ![]() 'Richly anecdotal and oddly captivating' Miranda Seymour, FINANCIAL TIMES ![]() 'The most extraordinary, rackety life' William Boyd, DAILY TELEGRAPH a really thorough and well-researched biography' Lynda La Plante, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING Vickers, with his sharp eye for detail, splendidly captures the drama of Gladys's life and the amazing cast of characters she encountered' WALL STREET JOURNAL jaw-dropping story, brilliantly told' Ysenda Maxtone Graham, THE TIMES 'A continuously astonishing and ultimately moving account of a unique figure, the stuff of great literature' Simon Callow, SUNDAY TIMES 'This biography is truly wonderful - a masterclass in storytelling' “The Sphinx”, Hodder & Stoughton, “Gladys, duchesse de Marlborough” Lacurne éditions, in French.** The Times and Sunday Times Books of the Year 2020** The statues of her as a Sphinx are properly lit at night! And an exhibition is on right now about her in the castle. Through his thorough research, he managed to change entirely the perception of Gladys by the Marlborough family, who now put forward her role in embellishing Blenheim’s gardens. He is still consulted today on the younger generations’ behavior and has written a fun book on the Netflix series The Crown dissected, where he outlines all the distorted situations. These nostalgic old times are what we find in this moving biography started by a very young man who had met Gladys at the end of her life in 1975-1977 and was completed by a confirmed writer, who had first met Queen Elizabeth in St George’s chapel, Windsor Castle, while studying at Eton: he developed a career as a Royal writer in over 25 books and as a commentator on television. ![]() The Duff Coopers of course feature in the book. Her sisters and herself were constantly shipped from one country to the other (Newport was their home for a few years when they were little) all over Europe and she studied for a year in Germany.Īt the lavish British embassy on faubourg St Honoré, one was briefly reminded of this extraordinary world of the 1920’s, when the head butler Ben Newick talked about old times with the Soames, the Jays, the Holmes and the Fergusons, who were all posted in Paris. ![]() She was brought up in the midst of her mother’s serial love affairs, and her father shot to death one of his wife’s lovers, Abeille. It is not clear whether she was interested? But she definitely liked being the center of attention. So many attractive men were in love with her like Prince Roffredo Caetani (a composer who was also very close to Comtesse Greffulhe), and famous lesbians seemed to befriend her. The Duke and Duchess of Marlboro, married at last
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