Meryl Gordon – författare

When Bunny Mellon died at age 103 on March 17th, she was the last embodiment of a Gilded Age lifestyle. Born into money (her grandfather invented Listerine), she married into even more money (the Mellon banking and oil fortune) and went on to build, decorate and preside over six luxurious homes in Washington, New York, Paris, Antigua, Cape Cod and Nantucket. She treated her pricy possessions as a casual backdrop to her daily life, including an unframed Van Gogh, "Green Wheat Fields, Auvers," she propped upon her living room fireplace mantel. Bunny Mellon operated in the intersecting arenas of politics, art and fashion, mingling with Presidents, Queens, Duchesses, Hollywood actors, couturiers, artists and Russian ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. She was on intimate terms with the giants of her era: when she wanted to deal with lingering childhood insecurities and a difficult marriage, she went into analysis in the 1940's with Carl Jung. Bunny reveled in putting amusing people together, such as giving a small luncheon to introduce Princess Diana and Prince Charles to America's royalty, Jacqueline Onassis and her children, Caroline and John Kennedy. An ardent gardener who created the Rose Garden at the behest of her dear friend Jacqueline Kennedy, a savvy art collector, a discerning self-taught decorator who gave advice to her Foxcroft classmate Sister Parish, Bunny became revered for her style and good taste. Everything she did made news: creating a gardening fad for miniature topiaries; giving her blessing to fledgling artists and designers; turning up at her husband Paul Mellon's side to watch his thoroughbred, Arts and Letters, win the Belmont Stakes.Yet Bunny Mellon deliberately cultivated an air of mystery. Regal and intimidating, mischievous and effervescent, the soul of discretion, she cherished her ability to wield influence in a quiet behind-the-scenes way, until now. In this illuminating biography, written by bestselling author Meryl Gordon, readers will finally get to know the real Bunny Mellon.

Born in 1906, Huguette Clark grew up in her family's 121-room Beaux Arts mansion in New York and was one of the leading celebrities of her day. Her father William Andrews Clark, was a copper magnate, the second richest man in American, and not above bribing his way into the Senate. Huguette attended the coronation of King George V. And at twenty-two with a personal fortune of $50 million to her name, she married a Princeton man and childhood friend William MacDonald Gower. Two-years later the couple divorced. After a series of failed romances, Huguette began to withdraw from society--first living with her mother in a kind of Grey Gardens isolation then as a modern-day Miss Havisham, spending her days in a vast apartment overlooking Central Park, eating crackers and watching The Flintstones with only servants for company.All her money and all her real estate could not protect her in her later life from being manipulated by shady hangers-on and hospitals that were only too happy to admit (and bill) a healthy woman. But what happened to Huguette that turned a vivacious, young socialite into a recluse? And what was her life like inside that gilded, copper cage?

A new biography of Bunny Mellon, the style icon and American aristocrat who designed the White House Rose Garden for her friend JFK and served as a living witness to 20th Century American history, operating in the high-level arenas of politics, diplomacy, art and fashion.Bunny Mellon, who died in 2014 at age 103, was press-shy during her lifetime. With the co-operation of Bunny Mellon's family, author Meryl Gordon received access to thousands of pages of her letters, diaries and appointment calendars and has interviewed more than 175 people to capture the spirit of this talented American original.