Snowdon: The Biography - Hardcover

De Courcy, Anne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297852752 ISBN 13: 9780297852759

Publisher: Orion Publishing, 2008

Synopsis

The parents of Antony Armstrong-Jones (he was given the title Earl of Snowdon in 1961) were very different. He was Welsh to his fingertips, she an exotic mixture of English and Jewish. They divorced when he was five and Tony's relationship with his aloof glittering mother never recovered. His inventiveness was soon apparent, at Eton and then Cambridge, where as cox in 1950 he designed a new rudder for his (winning) Boat Race crew. The engagement of this motorbike-riding freelance photographer in 1960 to Princess Margaret was a bombshell. Friends privately predicted disaster, and so it proved. But meanwhile in the 1960s, mixing with actors, artists, and pop stars, they were the epitome of stylish and unstuffy arts-loving Royals. Along with John and Jackie Kennedy or Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, they were one of the iconic glamorous couples of that era. Tony continued to work and both began to have affairs. They divorced in 1978, the first royal divorce since Henry VIII divorced Anne of Cleves in 1540. Snowdon married again but this marriage collapsed after the birth of a secret love-child in 1998 and the suicide in 1996 of his mistress of 20 years, Anne Hill. His low boredom threshold and waspish cruelty are balanced by his fabled charm and genuine concern for the disabled and underprivileged. One of the great British photographers, up there with Beaton, Bailey, and Parkinson, at 76 he now suffers from a recurrence of childhood polio and needs sticks or wheelchair to get around. But by any standards he has had an extraordinary life.Will throw new light upon many areas of his life—his difficult childhood, his relationship with Margaret, his many affairs, his cruelty, his creativity and achievements. His story here is based on wide range of sources: friends, courtiers, servants, girlfriends and ex-mistresses.

About this title

About the Author:

Anne de Courcy is the author of 1939: Last Season, Debs at War, Diana Mosley, and Society's Queen.

Review:

"For anyone interested in royal etiquette and infidelity."  —Time Out

"Juicy . . . it is impossible here to convey the combination of high society and low morals, of frightfully good taste and awful cheese that de Courcy has managed to dish up."  —Observer

"Delightfully gossipy."  —Sunday Telegraph

"Royal rebel in sharp focus."  —Times

"He has indeed been courageous in authorising this portrait in wich the warts sometimes threaten to obscure any redeeming features."  —Spectator

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion Publishing
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0297852752
• ISBN 13: 9780297852759
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 456