C.Z. Guest: American Style Icon
Salk, Susanna C.Z. Guest: American Style Icon. First Edition. 2013. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Foreword by William Norwich.
The burning ambition of 20th Century social climbers was to be accepted into WASP society. It was nearly impossible, and until the razzle-dazzle years of 1980s Nouveau Society, the more aggressively one sought it, the less likely it was to happen. But before the 1980s changed everything, an even worse fate awaited those who beat the odds and reached the top of the mountain. There was no view. WASP society was staid and boring. It was dull work keeping out of the newspapers. C.Z. Guest figured this out early on. She forsook Boston Brahmin society to become a showgirl and a Hollywood starlet. For Ann Woodward, a blue-collar Kansan by birth, such a trajectory was ultimately a death sentence. For C.Z. Guest, it only added to her allure, particularly after she returned to the fold and made a spectacular marriage to the blue-blooded, polo-playing Winston Guest, a cousin (and namesake) of Winston Churchill. This hefty Rizzoli coffee table book of photographs and reminisces gets to the heart of the paradox that was C.Z. Guest. Because she came from proper society, she felt free to break its rules. It is possible she didn’t even consciously know they existed. As Diana Vreeland once observed, “For C.Z., there’s no such thing as missing a party. Either she’s there or for her it doesn’t exist.” The book includes all the iconic photos of Guest, as well as many more that flew under the radar. There is biographical text by the author as well as personal recollections from many of Guest’s diverse array friends (Oscar de la Renta, Truman Capote, Joan Rivers, Christopher Mason, Paul Wilmot, et al). What a pity all of Capote’s Swans didn’t get the Rizzoli coffee table book treatment!
“When I rang the bell on Christmas Eve at the Winston Guest estate in Oyster Bay and the fabled C.Z. Guest herself answered the door, she had recently been on the cover of Time as the last of her kind and was a new friend to me…. It was at this party I felt a sting of triumph. I had begun my social coverage career in 1955 at the bottom of the heap. At that time, Aileen Mehle, the society columnist known as Suzy, was the queen of all she surveyed. She decreed to New York hostesses that she would not come to parties where I was invited. This aced me out pretty well. But C.Z. Guest was the first to ignore Suzy’s exclusivity dicta. She invited us both to her Christmas Eve and let the chips fall where they would. No shots were fired. But I was through the breach lines, thanks to Mrs. Guest.”
-- Gossip Columnist Liz Smith