By Slim Keith with Annette Tapert
I'd never heard of Slim Keith until I ran across this book while weeding the 900s section.
The picture on the cover intrigued me - a sleek, sophisticated lady who looked to me a bit like Grace Kelly. I opened the book to read the inside flap, and soon I was hooked.
Lady Nancy "Slim" Keith started life in Monterey, California as Nancy Gross. She lived next door to John Steinbeck's parents, and her father owned some of the canneries that Steinbeck wrote about in Cannery Row. When she was 17, she had her first brush with Hollywood in the figures of William Powell and Warner Baxter.
Slim went on to hobnob with the likes of William Ranolph Hearst, Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper and Clark Gable, among others. She was first married to Howard Hawks (director of movies such as Bringing Up Baby); second to Leland Hayward of Broadway fame; and third and finally to Sir Kenneth Keith.
The book's a great read and packed with interesting pictures. Look for it on the second floor of the library under 973.9 KEI.
c Waterloo Public Library 2006
1 comment:
I found this book fasinating mostly because women with this type of money and flare just don't exist anymore, they've been replaced with people like Paris Hilton, heaven forbid. Women like Nancy Hawks-Hayward-Keith are from a bygone era. Stylish, jet-setting trendsetters who knew everyone and got much out of life!
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