Audiobooks by Barbara Leaming

"Barbara Leaming's Marilyn Monroe is a complex, sympathetic portrait that will totally change the way we view the most enduring icon of American sexuality. To those who think they have heard all there is to hear about Marilyn Monroe, think again. Leaming's book tells a brand-new tale of sexual, psychological, and political intrigue of the highest order. Told for the first time in all its complexity, this is a compelling portrait of a woman at the center of a drama with immensely high stakes, a drama in which the other players are some of the most fascinating characters from the worlds of movies, theater, and politics. It is a book that shines a bright light on one of the most tumultuous, frightening, and exciting periods in American culture. Basing her research on new interviews and on thousands of primary documents, Leaming has reconstructed the tangles of betrayal in Marilyn's life. For the first time, a master storyteller has put together all of the pieces and told Marilyn's story with the intensity and drama it so richly deserves. At the heart of this book is a sexual triangle and a riveting story of betrayal that has never been told before. You will come away filled with new respect for Marilyn's incredible courage, dignity, and loyalty, and an overwhelming sense of tragedy."

Barbara Leaming (Author), Justine Eyre (Narrator)

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Mrs. Kennedy: The Missing History of the Kennedy Years

"New York Times bestselling author Barbara Leaming answers the question: What was it like to be Mrs. John F. Kennedy during the dramatic thousand days of the Kennedy presidency? Here for the first time is the full story of the extravagant interplay of sex and politics that constitutes one of modern history's most spectacular dramas. Drawing from recently declassified top-secret material, as well as revelatory eyewitness accounts, Secret Service records, and Jacqueline Kennedy's personal letters, bestselling biographer Barbara Leaming answers the question: what was it like to be Mrs. John F. Kennedy during the dramatic thousand days of the Kennedy presidency? Brilliantly researched, Leaming's poignant and powerful chronicle illuminates the tumultuous day-to-day life of a woman who entered the White House at age thirty-one, seven years into a complex and troubled marriage, and left at thirty-four after her husband's assassination. Revealing the full story of the interplay of sex and politics in Washington, Mrs. Kennedy will indelibly challenge our vision of this fascinating woman, and bring a new perspective to her crucial role in the Kennedy presidency."

Barbara Leaming (Author), Elizabeth Wiley (Narrator)

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Kick Kennedy: The Charmed Life and Tragic Death of the Favorite Kennedy Daughter

"Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy was the incandescent life-force of the fabled Kennedy family, her father’s acknowledged “favorite of all the children” and her brother Jack’s “psychological twin.” She was the Kennedy of Kennedys, sure of her privilege, magnetically charming and somehow not quite like anyone else on whatever stage she happened to grace. The daughter of the American ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Kick swept into Britain’s aristocracy like a fresh wind on a sweltering summer day. In a decaying world where everything was based on stultifying sameness and similarity, she was gloriously, exhilaratingly different. Kick was the girl whom all the boys fell in love with, the girl who remained painfully out of reach for most of them. To Kick, everything about this life was fun and amusing--until suddenly it was not. For this is also a story of how a girl like Kick, a girl who had everything, a girl who seemed made for happiness, confronted crushing sadness. Willing to pay the price for choosing the love she wanted, she would have to face the consequences of forsaking much that was dear to her. Bestselling and award-winning biographer Barbara Leaming draws on her unique access to firsthand accounts, extensive conversations with many of the key players, and previously-unseen sources to transport us to another world, one of immense wealth, arcane rituals and rules, glamour and tragedy, that has now disappeared forever. It was a world of dukes and duchesses, of grand houses, of country house weekends, and of wild rich boys. But it was also a world of blood and war, and of immeasurable loss. It was a time of complete upheaval, as reflected in the life of this most unlikely and unforgettable central character. Kick Kennedy reveals her story, that of a young girl learning about love, sex, and death--and doing it all at warp speed as the world races toward war and then reels in the war’s chaotic aftermath. This is the coming-of-age story of the female star of the Kennedy family, and ultimately a tragic, romantic story that will break your heart."

Barbara Leaming (Author), Eliza Foss (Narrator)

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Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: The Untold Story

"The untold story of how one woman's life was changed forever in a matter of seconds by a horrific trauma. Barbara Leaming's extraordinary and deeply sensitive biography is the first book to document Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' brutal, lonely and valiant thirty-one year struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that followed JFK's assassination. Here is the woman as she has never been seen before. In heartrending detail, we witness a struggle that unfolded at times before our own eyes, but which we failed to understand. Leaming's biography also makes clear the pattern of Jackie's life as a whole. We see how a spirited young woman's rejection of a predictable life led her to John F. Kennedy and the White House, how she sought to reconcile the conflicts of her marriage and the role she was to play, and how the trauma of her husband's murder which left her soaked in his blood and brains led her to seek a very different kind of life from the one she'd previously sought. A life story that has been scrutinized countless times, seen here for the first time as the serious and important story that it is. A story for our times at a moment when we as a nation need more than ever to understand the impact of trauma."

Barbara Leaming (Author), Eliza Foss (Narrator)

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Bette Davis: A Biography

"She was the tempestuous, strong-willed woman who ignited the movie screen with her legendary performances in Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, and All About Eve. Off-camera, Bette Davis fought endless contractual battles with studios and survived four disastrous marriages, earning a larger-than-life reputation as an actress to be reckoned with. In this extraordinary biography, fans and film historians will discover a different, darker side of Bette Davis: a woman beset with scarring personal and professional doubts, a daughter whose mother was devoted to her success, and a mother who loved her own daughter to distraction. Obsessive and compulsive, Davis was happy only when she was working, but did not always choose her projects wisely. She fought a lifelong battle with alcohol, and she had an insatiable need to be loved, often at great emotional cost. A legend, a star, a remarkable woman, Bette Davis lived her life as if it were a coveted role she was desperately afraid she might not win."

Barbara Leaming (Author), Grace Conlin (Narrator)

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If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth

"Rita Hayworth was the epitome of 1940s Hollywood glamour. A huge box office star, her sultry figure was pasted by GIs onto the first atom bomb ever detonated. Yet behind the smoldering image lay a tragic secret that wrecked her private life. A pathologically shy child, Rita was thrust into the sordid limelight as her vaudevillian father’s dancing partner at an early age, suffering sexual and physical abuse at his hands. A desperate need for protection led her into five disastrous marriages, including those to Orson Welles and Prince Aly Khan. At the age of forty-two, Alzheimer’s disease began to ravage her mind, cutting short her career at its peak. This is a haunting and sympathetic tribute to a talented but insecure beauty who was created, and ultimately destroyed, by the movies."

Barbara Leaming (Author), Anna Fields (Narrator)

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Orson Welles: A Biography

"Genius, artist, monstre sacr├®, Orson Welles had one of the most brilliant and tempestuous careers in show business. Here he confides his most intimate feelings and recollections of his extraordinary life. With remarkable detail and intimacy, Barbara Leaming reveals the private Welles: from child prodigy and young lion in Dublin and New York, to the succ├¿s de scandale of his The War of the Worlds broadcast; from his auspicious directing debut with the legendary Citizen Kane in his twenties, to the sabotage of his further directing career by the Hollywood studios; from his affairs, carousing, and stormy marriage to Rita Hayworth, to his association with Roosevelt and aspirations to the presidency. It is a picture with an all-star cast, including Olivier, Monroe, Dietrich, Garbo, Warren Beatty, Charlie Chaplin, Princess Margaret, and Prince Aly Khan. Based on painstaking research andextensive interviews with Welles, this is a firsthand portrait of the flamboyant American genius who became a titanic figure in twentieth-century popular culture."

Barbara Leaming (Author), Grace Conlin (Narrator)

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