Duet In Diamonds the Flamboyant Saga Of Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady in America's Gilded Age

Duet In Diamonds the Flamboyant Saga Of Lillian Russell and Diamond Jim Brady in America's Gilded Age by burke, john. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780399109065.

From the Jacket: Duet in Diamonds by John Burke. The Gay Nineties, the age of red plush, ten-course dinners and lobster palaces. Of the many celebrities and famous personalities of that gaudy, glittering, opulent era, two stand out as the most colorful and most flamboyant: Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell. James Buchanan Brady, born above his fathers waterfront saloon, began his career as a Broadway bellhop and railroad ticket taker. Thanks to his publicity talents, he became a salesman nonpareil, propelling his showmanship first as a superseller of railroad equipment and subsequently as a steel-car magnate, amassing a fortune of $12,000,000. Born Helen Leonard in a small Iowa town, Lillian Russell became the queen of the musical stage with a phenomenal voice capable of hitting eight high Cs in one performance and by general acclaim "the most desirable woman in America." They met-appropriately enough-at a dinner table. Jim’s meals were gargantuan affairs: He customarily began his dinners with six dozen oysters, followed by several tureens of turtle soup, several massive steaks "smothered in lamb chops," a brace of pheasants, several other assorted courses, all washed down with a gallon of orange juice and topped off with a five-pound box of chocolates. To the end of his life, Diamond Jim was devoted to Lillian, showering her with diamonds, a gold-plated bicycle, literally spending millions on her. Their appetites for rich food, the diamonds with which they emblazoned themselves-Brady had a different set of jewelry for every day of the month and a cane with a three-carat diamond embedded in the ferule-made them exemplars of an epoch of gilded ostentation that has vanished forever. Their story is exciting, absorbing, and exotic-and in DUET IN DIAMONDS that story is told in a lively, anecdotal style that evokes a bygone era and two of its most celebrated figures. Illustrated, 286 pp.