Price of Fame: The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce

The follow-up to Rage for Fame- The Ascent of Clare Boothe Luce, Price of Fame tells the story of the full flowering of the life of an American icon- the beautiful, brilliant, tormented and ambitious Clare Boothe Luce.

Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) was a Renaissance woman for the 20th century- a famous playwright, a noted wit, and society beauty who served in the House of Representatives from 1942-1947 and was the first American woman to be appointed to a major ambassadorial position abroad. Married to Henry Luce, the most powerful publisher in America, Clare Boothe Luce was equally at home with heads of state, movie stars, leaders of armies, and the great intellectuals of the 20th century.

Price of Fame begins with Luce’s entrance onto the global political stage, first as a fiery - but ever elegant - member of the House of Representatives (where she became one of the first elected U.S. officials to testify to the horror of the concentration camps) through to her crucial role as U.S. Ambassador to Rome from 1953-1957. Personal losses and tragedies also shaped Luce’s life; one of which so shook her that she became a startling middle-life convert to Catholicism.

A staunch Republican who vigorously supported the Civil Rights movement; a hero of the feminist cause who had no qualms about relying on her sex appeal to get what she wanted; a ferociously ambitious careerist who turned down a second ambassadorship; a woman with numerous lovers who could not contemplate divorce from her equally

unfaithful husband, Luce was a woman of deeply held, yet often contradictary beliefs. Price of Fame is the definitive and riveting biography of this ground-breaking and fascinating woman.