Status
Checked out
Due 29 May 2023
Description
The story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Chateau de l'Horizon near Cannes, covering a span of forty years, from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960.
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This is kind of a book of two halves: we begin with a biography of American actress-turned-socialite Maxine Elliott, whose career took an upward trajectory from theatrical success, through canny investments and cultivation of the Right People, so that she ultimately established quite a salon in her
Then came the War, everyone went home...and the house was ultimately acquired and renovated by playboy Aly Khan and a new set of visitors.
Well researched, made me think more of a newspaper article than a book I could hugely get into, as characters come and go (perhaps Winston Churchill was the only one to figure cthroughout.) By and large an over-indulged, shallow, loose-living bunch. Quite interesting. For all the fabulous luxury, I think I'd have been awfully bored by most of the inmates
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Riviera villa. Many great names flit in and out...Royals, politicians Bright Young Things aplenty.Then came the War, everyone went home...and the house was ultimately acquired and renovated by playboy Aly Khan and a new set of visitors.
Well researched, made me think more of a newspaper article than a book I could hugely get into, as characters come and go (perhaps Winston Churchill was the only one to figure cthroughout.) By and large an over-indulged, shallow, loose-living bunch. Quite interesting. For all the fabulous luxury, I think I'd have been awfully bored by most of the inmates
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LibraryThing member mahallett
disappointed. people weren't that interesting.
LibraryThing member wagner.sarah35
The glamour of yesteryear is prominent in this book about the French Riviera in the first half of the twentieth century. Many famous figures make appearances - Winston Churchill, Aga Khan, Rita Hayworth - but the center is the Art Deco Château de l’Horizon, a villa owned by American socialite
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Maxine Elliot that hosted the rich and famous. This book makes for fun reading and I appreciated the details included about the lives of this glamorous social set, but it's certainly not a critical assessment of the wealth and social privilege within which these figures existed. Show Less