The Unexpurgated Beaton Diaries

The Unexpurgated Beaton Diaries

by IntroducedbyHugoVickers (Editor)

Synopsis

Although in his lifetime Cecil Beaton - royal photographer and theatrical designer - published six short volumes of his diaries, he was shy of hurting the feelings of those he wrote about. Hugo Vickers has gone back to the originals to produce the Beaton diaries as they were written. Beaton records a vigorous social life among hostesses such as Emerald Cunard and Sybil Colefax, performers including Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn and Marlene Dietrich, as well as artists from Cocteau and Picasso to Bacon and the young Hockney. Running through the diaries are his friendships with the Queen Mother, with Diana Cooper and Greta Garbo. In the unexpurgated edition Vickers shows what Beaton really had to say about those with whom he worked. He could be waspish, even brutal. His diaries are frank and uninhibited.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 448
Edition: New
Publisher: Phoenix
Published: 04 Sep 2003

ISBN 10: 0753817020
ISBN 13: 9780753817025
Book Overview: Sensational material - what Cecil Beaton really thought about figures such as Elizabeth Taylor, the Queen Mother, Princess Anne, Katherine Hepburn, Marlene Dietrich, and the details of his 'affair' with Greta Garbo A fascinating insight into the world of the rich and famous 'Up until now, his true views of the famous were a well-kept secret. However, thanks to biographer Hugo Vickers, you can now revel in his acerbic take on twentieth-century society' Marie Claire 'Beaton had been in lifelong pursuit of beauty, yet had he chosen to be a novelist rather than an aesthete, it appears that he might have rivalled the great Nancy Mitford' Daily Mail 'As a lightning observer of surfaces he was superb. That was the secret of his brilliance as both a photographer and a diarist' Roy Strong, Country Life

Author Bio
Hugo Vickers is a biographer, lecturer and broadcaster, specialising in the twentieth century.His book, The Kiss, won the Stern Silver Pen for Non-Fiction in 1996. Since 1987, he has served as Beaton's literary executor. He is retained by ITN as its royalty consultant. Hugo Vickers is married and lives in Hampshire with his wife and three children.