Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography [Hardcover]

Kitty Kelley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1991

A shocking portrait of the 1980s, America, and the woman whose position helped shape the values and policies of the Reagan administration. Through over 1,000 interviews collected during four years of exhaustive research and reporting, Kelley reveals Nancy Reagan as a superb public performer, a vain, materialistic social climber, a bitter foe and formidable strategist--an American phenomenon. Photographs.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This infamous look at the former First Lady spent 12 weeks on PW 's hardcover bestseller list and inspired George Carpozi Jr.'s scathing Poison Pen: The Unauthorized Biography of Kitty Kelley. More than 800,000 hardcovers are in print.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 603 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (May 15, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067164646X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671646462
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #157,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Among the awards that Kitty Kelley has been honored with by her professional peers are the Outstanding Author Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors for her "courageous writing on popular culture," the Philip M. Stern Award for her "outstanding service to writers and the writing profession," the Medal of Merit from the Lotos Club in New York City, and the 2005 PEN Oakland Literary Censorship Award. She has also been selected as a member of Vanity Fair magazine's Hall of Fame. Her articles have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, People, Ladies' Home Journal, McCall's, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite A Revealing Book!!, January 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography (Mass Market Paperback)

I wasn't expecting much when I sat down to read this book. I assumed it would be a fairly cut and dried bio of an marginally interesting, blatantly social-climbing first lady. Was I wrong!! There's plenty to read here about Nancy Reagan, her family, the presidency, and more. They don't call Kitty Kelley the Saddam Hussein of journalists for nothing! I enjoyed this book very much, (going on the assumption that all of her sources were being 100% honest of course) and I'd recommend it without reservation.

22 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Go Kitty Go, April 22, 2002

By 

John G. Hilliard (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography (Mass Market Paperback)

You just have to love Kitty Kelly, if a subject of any of her books was ever short with a staff member, cut someone off in traffic, or returned a movie late Kitty will find out and make a chapter out of it. This book is really no different, it is the standard, made for tabloid mini series book from her, but that is probably why you buy it. Whenever a person gets to a high profile public job they are always going to have issues that the rest of us what to read about and authors tend to make a little more scandalous then they actualy were. This case is no exception with a person that was first a successful actress and then the First Lady of one of the biggest states and then the country. There are any numbers of toes that have been stepped on and Kitty found them all.

The most interesting bits I found were the years in the White House and her hatchet jobs of staff members of her husbands that she did not like, the odd calls to her San Francisco psychic to plan major events, and the wonderful warm relationship she had with her kids (sarcasm in high gear). Overall this is a fun and gossipy kind of book that you would expect from the author. At times there is a bit much detail, but some judicious page skipping will correct that issue. The book is a good representation of all the bad days Nancy had and is worth reading for no other reason to understand the closest advisor Ron had.

16 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive biography of the former first lady, January 26, 2002

By 

Frank Werner (New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography (Mass Market Paperback)

When the late Barbara Olson wrote a biography of Hillary Clinton from a right wing perspective, she was imitating this excellent "hatchet job" of a book. Nancy Reagan comes across as a phony control freak in this book. She ordered her husband around like he was a little baby throughout their marriage. There is a lot of fascinating gossip about the rather dysfunctional Reagan clan. There is a great joke in the book as follows: Ron and Nancy go to a restaurant. Nancy tells the waiter she'll have a steak. The waiter asks"And the vegteable?" Nancy answers"He'll have the steak too".