Customer Reviews

Life of the Party: The Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman

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One can tell just from the photograph chosen for the cover of LIFE OF THE PARTY that author Christopher Ogden has constructed a fun read. Though his research is thorough and scholarly, LIFE OF THE PARTY flies by easily. (The title itself is a pun, alluding both to its literal meaning and to the fact that Harriman's generous donations gave new life to America's Democratic Party.)

In crafting the biography of America's late Ambassador to France, Pamela Harriman, Ogden also provides a social history of the international "Jet Set" of the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's. Pamela's journey through the decades was complete with English aristocracy, French nobility, Italian racing car drivers, South American polo players, Arab sheiks, Greek shipping magnates and members of America's monied elite. The link among them is that Pamela Harriman slept with members of each of these groups!

In her own, less liberated day, born to obscure English nobility c. 1920, there is no question but that then-Pamela Digby would have been considered a--ahem--loose woman (to use a mild phrase) by those who knew her. Not only did she sleep around, apparently with blatant calculation of how her liasons would benefit her financially and socially, but she also conspicuously went after married men. With the exception of her first husband, the single thread connecting the men she chose was that they were not merely rich, they were filthy rich. And her first husband was the son of Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England at the time of their marriage. Thus, that match was socially advantageous to Pamela, and she would use the connection as her entry into highest levels of the world's interconnected rich. Nonetheless, despite her apparent rapacity, it is obvious that her men found her... appealing, to say the least.

Some of the affairs that Ogden documents were with the fabulously wealthy Frenchman, Elie de Rothschild, with the fabulously wealthy oil sheik, Aly Khan, with the fabulously wealthy Italian auto manufacturer, Gianni Agnelli, with a fabulously wealthy American, Averell Harriman and another fabulously wealthy American, William Paley. Yet she married the merely wealthy theatrical producer, American Leland Hayward, whose daughter openly despises Pamela to this day. (It seems clear that Pamela settled on Leland due to an urgent need to wed quickly as a matter of financial salvation.)

Of course, Pamela was a serial bride. Decades after she first began her affair with him, Averell Harriman finally tied the knot with Pamela. He had been middle-aged when they first had met, and she had been a very young woman. By the time she captured him, she was middle-aged and he was old. Conveniently, he died soon after their marriage and, even more conveniently, he left her his huge fortune.

She immediately put that fortune to use in inserting herself as a valuable player in the United States Democratic Party and as an early and generous supporter of then-candidate Bill Clinton. After he became President, Clinton rewarded Pamela by making her his Ambassador to France.

Truly, if this book were a romance novel, it would be dismissed out-of-hand as being too implausible. As it stands, it is an examination of an exploitative and greedy woman, yet a woman whose lifestory makes for entertaining reading. For the major events of the mid-20th century, when Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman was not present, she probably was waiting in the bedroom.

What an interesting woman. Okay so she may have slept her way to the top and made a few bad personal decisions. A saint she was not. For all that she was determined to enjoy life and make the best out of what talents she had. She used her friends as we all do to better her causes and even berated her children when she disagreed withj them. As if she was the first mother to do that. She gave her total devotion to the men she married, apart from Winston, and expected the same.The irony is that had Pamela harriman been a man all her negative aspects would have been overlooked and she would have been remembered more for her her political and social acumen rather than the men she had slept with. A very interesting read about one of the more interesting characters of the 20th century. It will be a while before her like is seen again. She will be missed.

"Pam," as she was known by her friends, trading on her beauty, inquisitiveness and instincts, more than on her morals: again and again parlayed her feminine wiles into higher and higher orbits of class, wealth, international intrigue and a seat at the very table where high stakes policy was being shaped and made. Even one of her many lives would have been enough for an ordinary person to kill for, but being able to do it over and over again points to her very own special gift: being perfectly situated to marry older men of influence and then making them like it, as she "traded up " the ladder to better and better situations.

Just her wartime activities alone, is worth the price of the book.

Here, behind the scenes where the post-WWII world order was being shaped and fashioned, she played an important if unsung role as one of the king pin (or is it queen pin?) deal makers, that helped solidify the ties between the U.S. and UK, ties that eventually were responsible for bringing the U.S. into the war. She did this all the while being married to the notorious "bad boy" and son of Sir Winston Churchill, Randolph, and while "bedding down" one of her "husbands-to be," Averill Harriman. And she did this, all the while, if not with the full knowledge, certainly with the tacit knowledge of her father in law, the British Prime Minister.

Just this part of the book alone is worth its price, but there is much more: all with the ring of truth, not with the ring of mere salacious gossip, which I admit, is all that I was really looking for. In the book "Nemesis," it had been reported as fact that Joseph P. Kennedy had raped Pam while she was an overnight guest of her friend the then Ambassador to the UK's daughter, Kathleen. I was unable to confirm this fact in this "unauthorized" version of her life. This omission, however, certainly does not mean that it did not happen, just that it could not be confirmed in this version of her life story. And even though I did not find what I was looking for, this is still easily five stars.

Reading this, more than decade after its publication when Pamela's primary skills were already passé, it was clear how much things have changed.

Pamela came out of the 19th century British aristocracy where only the first born male was entitled to inherit the family's property and power and to call it what it is/was - human rights within a family. Pamela could not expect familial affection or support. Her family turned her over to nannies and decreed that education, no matter how great her ability or curiosity, would hinder her marriage options.

Pamela made her own match (did not wait for family negotiations) and married what history made the ultimate commodity, a link through a male namesake, to Winston Churchill. She used this "child" and followed the cultural and psychological patterns of aristocratic women by supporting and living through her man with a modern twist--- he did not have to be her husband.

WWII put a chink in the armor of the British class system and affirmed the American ideal of social equality. The super wealthy European men paid in cash and friendship for all she willingly gave. She wanted commitment, which due to European social codes, would not be forthcoming. No wonder Pamela was seduced (in the pure sense of the word) by America. In America she was able to achieve far beyond what her family or country c/would ever provide for her.

She was Darwinistic about men/marriage. If a man's wife was not as fit as her, Pamela had no qualms about the wife, Pamela should have the "position". Her sympathy for her second husband's mother (over that of his children) who had abandoned her family may be testament to an understanding of her emotional situation.

One can salute Pamela's achievements, but her treatment of others is too cold for sympathy. As presented here, her mothering of "The Child" and her stepchildren replicates that toward her in her own nuclear family. Her treatment of staff and other women is pure 1950's sexism and a workaholic's view of the world. She rose above the rigid role of her family and society had given her. Unfortunately, within her intimate family (birth and blended) she could not break the chain of creating emotional liabilities.

A witty and elegant account on the life of one of the most inteligent women of our time. Inteligence here meaning the ability to focus on one's objectives in life, totally aware of one's limitations, never letting those objectives out of sight. Pamela Digby was no scholar and yet managed to be around the most influential people of the world. She saw History being made.

Ogden's book is a delight to read. Fun, informative, and written with a great sense of detail and style, Life of the Party is an easy book to recommend. Harriman is a remarkable woman. I look forward to Ogden's next book.

Ogden's work is certainly well written, despite his provlicity for verbose descriptions. However, more importantly than the author's prose, is Harriman's life and how, despite her opulent lifestyle, she is more common than one may believe. The key to understanding Harriman is to evaluate her life the context of twentieth century American social history and Women's History. Despite poplular misconceptions, women have historically been empowered, albeit through the home, and have used this power to elevate themselves. Harriman ran the lives of her lovers so well that none wanted for anything. Most realized Pamela's power after her departure when her sucessor's could not hold a candle to her ability to run a household. Pamela used this ability to maintain her power. However, unlike many women in twentieth century American social history, once Pamela had reached the heights of her power, she ventured outside of the home serving on the board of directors for a national airline, runing a PAC, and serving as the American Ambassador to France. For those interested in better understanding Pamela's life in the context of women's history, I suggest the Paston Letters, edited by Norman Davis, The Lisle Letters, edited by Muriel Byrne and, of course, Betty Friedan's classic, The Feminine Mystique. The Lisle letters best demonstrate a woman's ability to establish herself in a household, much like Pamela did. While these books do not mirror Pamela's life per se, they provide a broader, more contextual insight into this realm of history.

What a life! This is more like a summer beach read with sex and scandles. Very little about her life as political power broker or witness to the inner circle of WW II.

Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman surely earned all those last names. Through hard work and a lot of patience, Harriman managed to invent and re-invent herself more times than virtually any other woman of substance during the twentieth century. Author Christopher Ogden, at first with Harriman's blessing and then without, captures the hardest working woman in high society in all her unhinged glory. He digs very deeply into her relationship with not only her many husbands, lovers and almost lovers (ranging from Elie De Rothschild to Gianni Agnelli to Frank Sinatra), but also into her troubled (almost sad) relationship with the son (referred to frequently as "the child") she had with Winston Churchill's son Randolph.

The book shifts moods as it dissects Harriman's three eventful marriages: she hated Randolph but seemed to adore Winston Churchill; she stole Leland Hayward from his wife Slim, spent all his money, alienated his children and was left a "poor" widow; she married one-time lover Avarell Harriman, inherited his money and became the "life" of the (Democratic) party.

It's a book that is fascinating, funny, and sometimies even cringe-inducing, but it is also immensely readable. Courtesan, concubine, geisha, society doyenne, US Ambassador, Harriman was all.

I had known one women who said: "Its better you ask for what you want,then to except what others offering to you."

This can be related to biography of Pamela Harriman. SHe lived in extraordinary circumstances but what I find most compelling is the fact that she succeed to manage her life. Although, it was not always easy for her. She left and she was left. The biography is most interesting written and I read it very quickly.
She maybe was in some way courtisan, but I think she wanted to enjoy in life nad she was led by it. SHe knew what she want and she was persistant. However, I did not manage to figure out was she open hearted as she was presented in some moments or little bit cold caculated as in the part regarding children of her husband Hayworth. But, for sure she was woman in complete sense of that word.