Category: Judith Krantz

Princess Daisy

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

If there was ever a book that belongs in the “How Did I Get Away With Reading This When I Twelve/Thirteen/Fourteen” files, Judith Krantz’s 1980 best seller Princess Daisy is in the top five. Then again, I didn’t grow up with the most bookish parents and the cover of Princess Daisy is all lovely and soft focus vs the sexy glamor of a Jackie Collins mass market paperback circa 1983.

A few months ago, I was at the S-bury library, checking to see if they still had Anita Loos’ A Mouse Is Born because not even the most awesome library for old books in the Central Connecticut library system (aka the Raymond Library in East Hartford, CT) didn’t have it among it’s endless stacks. Now I can’t remember my left from right, north from south and east from west  so of course I got all mixed up in the fiction stacks and ended up in the K’s vs the L’s. Then as if I was being controlled by an unseen being, I drifted over to the KRA shelf and pulled down Princess Daisy.  And the darned thing stills opens right to the two sections that scandalized all my friends circa 1984*. But Best Sibling EVER Andy was all “Want Cheng Square for lunch?”, so I popped Princess Daisy back on the shelf and off to lunch we went.

But coming back from S-bury, stuffed full of lovely sushi, I had to pass the library on the way to Moderate Income Apartments and well, why not stop and see if they had Princess Daisy? 

Now if you’ve never encountered Princess Daisy, which shocks me, but then again not everyone is me and spends their time reading utter, epic and delicious trash from the 1980s, our heroine is Princess Marguerite “Daisy” Valensky. Dad is walking sex on stick Prince Stash. Mom is a movie star. Of course Our Daisy takes after her gorgeous parents with lovely fresh as a peach skin, dark eyes and white blond hair and an amazing figure. Did you think Daisy would be a troll? Come on! The only ugly Judith Krantz main character ever was Billy from Scruples and she was just fat and poorly dressed.  But back to Daisy. She’s broke . She’s seen way too many things in her young life and has some big secrets including a developmentally disabled but gorgeous twin sister Dani. And she’s agreed to sell her heritage to a cosmetic giant run by a mummy slash stick insect (coughcoughpagingEsteeLaudercoughcough) for a wad of cash big enough to choke a dinosaur. But will she find love? Umm…it’s a Judith Krantz novel, so…YES!

But Princess Daisy isn’t just a sex and shopping novel. It’s educational! Here are some very valuable things I learned from Princess Daisy.

  • Always take ALL THE JEWELRY when you’re running away from your estranged Russian prince husband-EVERYTHING silly Francesca!
  • The richest of the richest can get away with the most eccentric things
  • Jumble (tag/garage) sales are awesome for find vintage treasures
  • I want a lurcher. Seriously.
  • Don’t trust guys called Ram

Who needs The Real Housewives of Anything when you have Francesca giving up life as a movie star for life as a Princess for life on the run? Or Daisy mixing among the mega rich? Or Kiki and her glorious outfits? And yes, Anabel is totally Pamela Churchill Harriman! (Blacklight: “Who?” Me: “Shouldn’t you be putting up torches in that mine before a Creeper spawns or something?” Blacklight: “Creeper!??! Where?”) Princess Daisy is a terrific introduction to the world of Judith Krantz and might very well be her best work. Trawl your library stacks, haunt the fiction section at Savers, buy the Kindle e-book already!

*pages 41-49 and pages 242-246 Princess Daisy (1980) Crown Publishers, first edition

Put on the Pucci & Take A Gulp of Champagne

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

***This was originally posted on the Confessions blog***

Have you ever snapped up a shiny book for the beach or a plane trip? Something with gorgeous people doing scandalous things? Maybe a Jackie Collins novel? Maybe a Judith Krantz novel? And thought to yourself: Venus Maria is Madonna? Crystal Anderson is Joan Collins? Al King is Tom Jones? Those examples? Pulled straight from my head.

Back in the 1960s & 1970s you would have been reading Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine and Once is Not Enough. And just who was the author who seemed to know all the secrets and was the first person to put three books back to back #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list? The person who for many years was listed in the Guinness Book of Records with the best selling fiction book of all time? Ladies and gentlemen, Jacqueline Susann.

Once in an interview Jackie Collins said she learned about the other side of Hollywood by befriending and listening to people. Jacqueline Susann knew about the dark side of fame by living it. Leaving your family to try your luck in New York City? She did it. Getting fired from a desired role? Ditto. Behind the scenes of early television shows? Yup. Putting a family member into a institution? Yes. Along with those pieces of herself, she put pieces of the world around her. The friend who died tragically too young of cancer as Amanda. Another friend, a lovely blonde dead by her own hand as Jennifer. And yes, a certain eternal star as her nothing can hold her back Neely O’Hara.

But Jacqueline Susann was more than the failed actress, turned party girl, turned local television celebrity turned roman a clef author. She loved scifi, fantasy, the weird. What else can explain the last pages of Once is Not Enough, when our heroine January has an strange encounter on the beach? Her last book, the posthumous Yargo is a fantastic voyage to another world. I have this image of a teenage Jacqueline, hair done up in rag curlers, face creamed and curling up in bed with an issue of Weird Tales. Did she ever flop back on the pillows and wonder what it was like to write those things? Did she imagine herself on John Carter’s Mars or reading forbidden things in decaying leather volumes in a Dunwich farmhouse? Is there a fan letter in some uncovered archive to the Old Gentleman of Providence himself?

Curious? Take the time to go to your local bookstore or library. The scandalous doings of Valley of the Dolls, The Love Machine, and Once is Not Enough might not be your thing. But her charming tale of life with a poodle Every Night Josephine might do the trick. Perhaps Barbara Seaman’s compelling biography Lovely Me? Jacqueline Susann deserves so much more than a poorly cast bio-pic and her books moldering on used book stores shelves…
Jacqueline Susann