Customer Reviews

The Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas

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The Pink Lady


The Pink Lady has the distinction of being both a serious work of history and a captivating page-turner. Helen Gahagan Douglas was a fascinating character who lived in a fascinating time: she was a confidante of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt, wife of the famous actor, Melvyn Douglas, lover of Lyndon Johnson (among others), two-time Congresswoman, and victim of Richard Milhous Nixon in the notorious campaign for the Senate in 1950. Sally Denton has told Helen Douglas's story with economy and verve from her childhood in Brooklyn after the turn of the century through her death in 1980. Highlights include her stardom on Broadway in the 1920s, her commitment to the New Deal and politics in the 1930s and forties, the political campaign that became the model for dirty politics in America, and commitment to peace and disarmament after that. As someone who has written about disarmament issues I believe Douglas was not only on the right side of the argument at the beginning of the Cold War, in the company of men like George Kennan, but has proved to be prophetic as we look back on that seminal period.

I had just finished No Ordinary Time, the book about FDR and the war years. The Pink Lady fit right in. I enjoyed it and learned a lot
It was a good read, and an interesting read. I always knew about Tricky Dick but not about Helen Douglas.

I picked it up due to its interesting subject. I should have known from the title, a reference to the slur placed on this very accomplished woman, that it would be a breezy effort. The level seemed to be appropriate for high school students, but it does not provide enough context for them, or others with no experience of this period or its immediate aftermath, to understand the passion behind the issues.

With a book this size, I did not expect more than a once over lightly, but the research needs to be sharper. For instance on p. 69, where there are some footnotes, there is none for the eye popping statement that California's Japanese owned 1% of the land and produced 40% of the food. Is it an established historical fact that (p. 76) the "US declared war on Mexico in 1846 to control North America with its eye on CA as the real prize"? On p. 166 it says that in the 1950 campaign HGD was spit upon and had raw eggs thrown at her without documentation or reference to place. (Later there is a reference to kids throwing stones with HGD's memoirs cited as a souce.) These are a few of the facts and sweeping statements that provoke a "really?".

There are imprecise sentences too. For instance, on page 67, Churchill and Roosevelt "had their first conversation on the eve of a world war" which implies that they 1) spoke again that night (did they?) or 2) had never spoken before (not the case.)

Did I miss a mention of her mother's death?

Given the outsized life, I expected that this short book would just skim the surface. The problem is its precision. I would only recommend it for those who want an outline of HGD's life.

I was intrigued by this book. I had a superficial knowledge of Helen Gahagan as I knew she had been a one shot film actress, politician, activist, and the long time wife of actor Melvyn Douglas.
Easily read, this book presented an interesting profile of a trail blazing woman. Originally an aspiring opera singer, Helen took to the stage and had a successful run as an actress on Broadway. It was there that she met her future husband. Politically motivated, she and her husband lent their support to numerous liberal causes. Her film career was less successful as it was to begin and end with one film. When she was elected to Congress (she served 3 terms and was the first female to do so from that state) she rapidly became a prominent DC insider. She became a close friend and houseguest of FDR and Eleanor and allied herself with many high ranking democratic members of Congress, including LBJ. A bit of an eye opener was her affair with LBJ, among others. While Sally Denton makes no attempt to give detailed information about the LBJ affair or others for that matter, she also alludes to Melvyn Douglas as an unfaithful husband who had relationships with many of his leading ladies. Denton states that theirs was a relationship of convenience and they mainly stayed wed because divorce was not the norm in the Gahagan family and Helen wanted to hold it together for their children. Their solution was a tad unconventional; they did not cohabit under the same roof until the end of their lives and maintained a devoted friendship without intimacy for the rest of their lives. As for Helen's burgeoning career as a politician, it came to a contentious end when she ran for a senate seat against Richard Nixon which resulted in Nixon mounting a campaign against the 'pink lady'. This was a reference to her sponsorship and support of liberal causes in the heavily charged atmosphere of McCarthism/anti-communism which was so prevalent in post-WWII America which didn't see a slow down until ca. 1957. Helen, in response to Nixon's lefty barbs, coined Nixon 'Tricky Dick'. An oddly prophetic reference, this nickname managed to stick to Nixon like glue in the early '70's by which time Helen was merely a footnote in history.
Overall, I enjoyed this book as it was loaded with information and reflected a period that was rooted in the Great Depression and agitated by the Red Scare of post-WWII America. I thought it provided a basis for future investigation of this period in history, but it was certainly not all encompassing as it was a biography.
I found the other Amazon reader reviews interesting because they ran the gamut from people who had a thorough understanding of this period (and were somewhat critical of what this book omitted) and people like me who were merely curious. My advice to potential readers: read the reviews, decide what you want to get out of reading this, and make an informed decision. I liked this book, but some of the reviews I read made me realize that this may not be a worthwhile investment for some people.

This book was a great read and gave insight not only into the life of "The Pink Lady", but into the politics and people of the time.

Only fifteen years after Ingrid Scobie's bio of Helen Douglas, here comes "The Pink Lady". Unhappily, this one is poorly researched and is but a slight volume. As the author of the Wikipedia Featured Article, "United States Senate election in California, 1950", I'm not unacquainted with the 1950 Senate race that Douglas is most famous for, against Nixon, and Denton's treatment of it is poor. First, I don't know how you can discuss the Senate race, without ever mentioning the Earl Warren/James Roosevelt gubernatorial race, which had a tremendous effect on the Nixon/Douglas race (for example, Harry Truman refused to campaign in California because Roosevelt had tried to get Democrats to dump him in 1948), and which led to a highly dramatic moment 4 days before the election when a Republican heckler got Douglas to endorse Roosevelt (who lost by 2-1, Douglas had not wanted to offend the many Warren voters or Warren himself). Denton tells the well known story that JFK made a contribution to the Nixon campaign, but inflates the amount to $150,000, which is a story told by Joe Kennedy in the final days of his life, most biographers of Nixon and Douglas accept it was actually $1,000, even Roger Morris who rarely had a good word for Nixon.

If you want a good treatment of Douglas's life, you can buy a more thorough treatment, and better researched, with Scobie's "Center Stage". This one is only for those who want a complete set of works on Douglas.

I just finished this outstanding book. The Pink Lady is the story of the incredible life of Helen Gahagan Douglas. Her life reads like a movie script- she was a Broadway stage star, she married Melvyn Douglas, was an opera singer who abandoned the stage for politics and many progressive causes. Denton chronicles the brutal 1950 senate campaign between Douglas and Nixon. What is surprising to me is that I knew nothing about the colorful life of Ms. Douglas and Sally Denton has reawakened a most relevant story about this trail blazing woman. Her story has been silenced until now and Sally Denton creates a historical picture that is educational, enlightening and a fun read.

I liked to read biographies when I was very young. One of the themes of my ultimate desires has been: I want little girls to want to be me, as Jennifer Egan reported that Kelly Stewart, a 14-year-old model, said about becoming the object of her own desire. The Pink Lady (2009) by Sally Denton appeals to celebrity fans on the level of family psychology bumping into what became superpower global dominance for people who try to make dirty tricks a reality. The Epilogue mentions Murray Chotiner, Karl Rove, John Dean. Helen called the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings a "tragic farce" and opposed contempt citations against the Hollywood Ten. Deep politics has been about tremendous repudiations, and power shifted in Congress in 1946 when Republicans swept both Chambers of Congress. FDR was dead, and this book reports:

Truman--with his connections to Kansas City's corrupt Pendergast machine and his country-bumpkin manner--was a boon to the opposition party.

I enjoyed reading The Pink Lady because at the time she (Helen Gahagan Douglas) ran against Richard Nixon I was a student at UCLA. My grandmother had been in the campaign that Nixon won previously. She told me "Nixon was a bad guy," so I worked for Douglas. She was really lambasted by the Nixon campaign with lots of inaccurate information. I never knew of the other parts of her life and this book reinforced my reason for supporting her. It also showed how good people can be easily ruined in public life.

Judy B. Rosener Ph.D.