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

I very much enjoyed this unauthorized biography of a fascinating yet inherently sleazy woman. Several books I've read lately (Haywire, Slim Keith's autobiography, the fictional Swans of Fifth Avenue and Babe Paley's biography) have mentioned Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, so I was curious to read about her life. I could barely put the book down until the last 100 or so pages when the inner goings on of the limousine liberal's democrat party made me slightly nauseous. I had to skim the end, but prior to that I was captivated by Harriman's calculating money grabbing rise to the upper echelons of snooty society.

"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.

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 Pre

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.

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.