Dancing with the Devil: The Windsors and Jimmy Donahue

by Christopher Wilson

Book Overview

The story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor is one of the most romantic of all time: Edward VIII abdicated his throne and gave up an empire so that he could marry the woman he loved, American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Very few people suspected, and even fewer actually knew, that the Duchess cuckolded him-and almost gave him up-for a gay playboy twenty years her junior. Blond and slender, Jimmy Donahue was the archetypal post-war playboy. He could...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312272049
• ISBN13: 9780312272043
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Take it to the beach...

OK, so the author isn't going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book. But why should he? It's a book about an affair. A tawdry affair at that.Initially, I payed attention to the other reviewers and didn't buy the book. But I have a fascination with Wallis and Edward (as vapid as they might have been...)and wanted to know more about Wallis' relationship with Jimmy Donohue. I must have read at least 10 to 15 books about the couple, and despite what the one of the reviewers said, I've only come across a few rare references to him. This book fills in the gaps.So is it great literature? No. Is it an interesting book? Yes, if you like the subject matter, and know something about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to begin with. I enjoyed the book.

Wonderful!

3Dancing With the Devil : The Windsors and Jimmy Donahue2 is a sweeping adventure of scandal and euphoria among glitzy cafe society, adeptly brought to life by biographer Christopher Wilson.In this case, the name 3Donahue,2 is directly related to a very famous name: Woolworth. When 35 & 102 chainstore mogul Frank Winfield Woolworth died in 1919, he left as part of his substantial legacy great hopes for his cherubic grandchildren. He visualized his heirs evolving into hardworking, benefic, God-fearing, and rational adults. But alas, if he did happen to look down from the heavens years later, I know that several of his descendants would have provoked a disgruntled sigh; including the spendthrift, serial divorcee Barbara Hutton...But the mischievous, downright extraordinary exploits of his grandson Jimmy Donahue would have sent Woolworth longing for Divine intervention. The fact is that, the only thing Frank Woolworth and his grandson Jimmy shared (other than a notable gene pool) was a compulsion for the spotlight.That compulsion, along with a host of others (some advantageous, most unsavory) are unveiled in this wonderful, fast-paced book. In Dancing With the Devil, we meet dashing Jimmy Donahue, a man who had entirely too much free time on his hands, and entirely too much money at his disposal. We learn that Jimmy1s access to money, along with his excessive adoration for luxury, his psychological baggage (he even witnessed the suicide of his manic depressive and bisexual father) and the questionable role model Jimmy found in his jetsetting mother --all combined to create an intriguing, complex and colorful personality. Wilson depicts an international playboy who defied reigning sexual taboos and balked at authority, yet was sometimes ridden by deep guilt. Donahue exhibited such random amounts of innocent rakishness and sensual greed; of hearfelt generosity and rash wastefulness-- that even his closest contemporaries were not sure what to think of him.Wilson expertly peppers his historical accounts with authentic detail, smoothly leading us into post WWII Paris, then sweeping us back to the United States to the playgrounds of Palm Beach and Long Island. Clearly, Wilson did a great deal of research on this book, conducting scores of interviews and tracking down hard to find information.Of course, Wilson1s readers are also treated to little known details about the odd triangle between Jimmy Donahue and the Windsors, thus providing an interesting account of the last untold episode in their lives.As in Jimmy Donahue1s life, there is nary a dull moment in Dancing With the Devil. (Do check out the 3Acknowledgments2 which reads like a Who1s Who in and of itself). Definitely recommended!