Listen free for 30 days
-
Cecil Beaton
- Narrated by: Hugo Vickers
- Length: 27 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Politics & Activism
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £19.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Malice in Wonderland
- My Adventures in the World of Cecil Beaton
- By: Hugo Vickers
- Narrated by: Hugo Vickers
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hugo Vickers's life took a dramatic turn in 1979 when the legendary Sir Cecil Beaton invited him to be his authorised biographer. The excitement of working with the famous photographer was dashed only days later when Cecil Beaton died. But the journey had begun - Vickers was entrusted with Beaton's papers, diaries and, most importantly, access to his friends and contemporaries. The resulting book, first published in 1985, was a best seller. In Malice in Wonderland, Vickers shares excerpts from his personal diaries kept during this period.
-
-
Malice in Wonderland
- By mary hyde on 07-02-22
-
Queen Bees
- Six Brilliant and Extraordinary Society Hostesses Between the Wars - A Spectacle of Celebrity, Talent, and Burning Ambition
- By: Siân Evans
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Queen Bees looks at the lives of six remarkable women who made careers out of being society hostesses, including Lady Astor, who went on to become the first female MP, and Mrs Greville, who cultivated relationships with Edward VII, as well as Lady Londonderry, Lady Cunard, Laura Corrigan and Lady Colefax. Told with wit, verve and heart, Queen Bees is the story of a form of societal revolution and the extraordinary women who helped it happen.
-
-
Educational and Informative!
- By Fiona on 06-12-16
-
The Sphinx
- The Life of Gladys Deacon - Duchess of Marlborough
- By: Hugo Vickers
- Narrated by: Hugo Vickers
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled as much as she puzzled the glittering social circles in which she moved. Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, she suffered a traumatic childhood after her father shot her mother's lover dead. Educated in America, she returned to Europe, where she captivated and inspired some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Époque.
-
-
disappointing with a lifeless narration
- By Lesley-Anne Thompson on 07-06-20
-
Noble Ambitions
- The Fall and Rise of the Post-War Country House
- By: Adrian Tinniswood
- Narrated by: Roger May
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising taxes and a growing sense that they had no place in 20th-century Britain, hundreds of ancestral piles were dismantled and demolished. Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that so many of these great houses survived, as dukes and duchesses clung desperately to their ancestral seats and tenants' balls gave way to rock concerts, safari parks and day trippers.
-
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1)
- 1918-38
- By: Chips Channon
- Narrated by: Tom Ward
- Length: 39 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in England after the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family, and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody.
-
-
Wholly inappropriate choice of reader
- By John Adamson on 08-04-21
-
The Queen Mother
- The Untold Story of Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother
- By: Lady Colin Campbell
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Campbell
- Length: 25 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother has been called the 'most successful queen since Cleopatra'. Her personality was so captivating that even her arch-enemy, Wallis Simpson, wrote about 'her legendary charm'. Portrayed as a selfless partner to the king in the Oscar-winning movie The King's Speech, The Queen Mother is most often remembered from her later years as the smiling granny with the pastel hats. When she died in 2002, just short of her 102nd birthday, she was praised for a long life well lived. But there was another side to her story.
-
-
Awful and nasty
- By Kirsty Morris on 23-05-22
-
Malice in Wonderland
- My Adventures in the World of Cecil Beaton
- By: Hugo Vickers
- Narrated by: Hugo Vickers
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hugo Vickers's life took a dramatic turn in 1979 when the legendary Sir Cecil Beaton invited him to be his authorised biographer. The excitement of working with the famous photographer was dashed only days later when Cecil Beaton died. But the journey had begun - Vickers was entrusted with Beaton's papers, diaries and, most importantly, access to his friends and contemporaries. The resulting book, first published in 1985, was a best seller. In Malice in Wonderland, Vickers shares excerpts from his personal diaries kept during this period.
-
-
Malice in Wonderland
- By mary hyde on 07-02-22
-
Queen Bees
- Six Brilliant and Extraordinary Society Hostesses Between the Wars - A Spectacle of Celebrity, Talent, and Burning Ambition
- By: Siân Evans
- Narrated by: Carole Boyd
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Queen Bees looks at the lives of six remarkable women who made careers out of being society hostesses, including Lady Astor, who went on to become the first female MP, and Mrs Greville, who cultivated relationships with Edward VII, as well as Lady Londonderry, Lady Cunard, Laura Corrigan and Lady Colefax. Told with wit, verve and heart, Queen Bees is the story of a form of societal revolution and the extraordinary women who helped it happen.
-
-
Educational and Informative!
- By Fiona on 06-12-16
-
The Sphinx
- The Life of Gladys Deacon - Duchess of Marlborough
- By: Hugo Vickers
- Narrated by: Hugo Vickers
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most beautiful and brilliant women of her time, Gladys Deacon dazzled as much as she puzzled the glittering social circles in which she moved. Born in Paris to American parents in 1881, she suffered a traumatic childhood after her father shot her mother's lover dead. Educated in America, she returned to Europe, where she captivated and inspired some of the greatest literary and artistic names of the Belle Époque.
-
-
disappointing with a lifeless narration
- By Lesley-Anne Thompson on 07-06-20
-
Noble Ambitions
- The Fall and Rise of the Post-War Country House
- By: Adrian Tinniswood
- Narrated by: Roger May
- Length: 13 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As the sun set slowly on the British Empire in the years after the Second World War, the nation's stately homes were in crisis. Tottering under the weight of rising taxes and a growing sense that they had no place in 20th-century Britain, hundreds of ancestral piles were dismantled and demolished. Perhaps even more surprising was the fact that so many of these great houses survived, as dukes and duchesses clung desperately to their ancestral seats and tenants' balls gave way to rock concerts, safari parks and day trippers.
-
Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1)
- 1918-38
- By: Chips Channon
- Narrated by: Tom Ward
- Length: 39 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in England after the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family, and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody.
-
-
Wholly inappropriate choice of reader
- By John Adamson on 08-04-21
-
The Queen Mother
- The Untold Story of Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother
- By: Lady Colin Campbell
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Campbell
- Length: 25 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother has been called the 'most successful queen since Cleopatra'. Her personality was so captivating that even her arch-enemy, Wallis Simpson, wrote about 'her legendary charm'. Portrayed as a selfless partner to the king in the Oscar-winning movie The King's Speech, The Queen Mother is most often remembered from her later years as the smiling granny with the pastel hats. When she died in 2002, just short of her 102nd birthday, she was praised for a long life well lived. But there was another side to her story.
-
-
Awful and nasty
- By Kirsty Morris on 23-05-22
-
Who's In, Who's Out
- The Journals of Kenneth Rose
- By: Kenneth Rose
- Narrated by: Barnaby Edwards
- Length: 24 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Kenneth Rose was one of the most astute observers of the establishment for over 70 years. The wry and amusing journals of the royal biographer and historian made objective observation a sculpted craft. His impeccable social placement located him within the beating heart of the national elite for decades. He was capable of writing substantial history, such as his priceless material on the abdication crisis from conversations with both the Duke of Windsor and the Queen Mother.
-
-
British History at it’s Best
- By Anonymous User on 08-11-20
-
Snowdon
- The Biography
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Theo Solomon
- Length: 17 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did a photographer who was a relentless playboy, an unashamed womaniser and a leather-clad motorcyclist marry the queen's sister and become the establishment figure Lord Snowdon? The brilliantly talented Antony Armstrong-Jones often humiliated Princess Margaret, yet he was compassionate to the causes he cared about. Since his death in 2017, Snowdon still hasn't escaped the limelight, as more and more is revealed about his wild and intriguing life.
-
-
Needs to be re-recorded
- By Louisa on 28-06-21
-
Mad World
- Evelyn Waugh and the Secrets of Brideshead
- By: Paula Byrne
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A terrifically engaging and original biography about one of England’s greatest novelists and the glamorous, eccentric, debauched and ultimately tragic family that provided him with the most significant friendships of his life and inspired his masterpiece, Brideshead Revisited.
-
Capote
- A Biography
- By: Gerald Clarke
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 25 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
First published in 1988 - just four years after Capote's death - Clarke paints a vivid behind-the-scenes picture of the author's life, based on hundreds of hours of in-depth interviews with the man himself and the people close to him. From the glittering heights of notoriety and parties with the rich and famous to his later struggles with addiction, Capote emerges as a richly multidimensional person - both brilliant and flawed.
-
King's Counsellor
- Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles
- By: Sir Alan Lascelles, Duff Hart-Davis
- Narrated by: Pip Torrens
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As Assistant Private Secretary to four monarchs, 'Tommy' Lascelles had a ringside seat from which to observe the workings of the royal household and Downing Street during the first half of the 20th century. These fascinating diaries begin with Edward VIII's abdication and end with George VI's death and his daughter Elizabeth's Coronation. In between we see George VI at work and play, a portrait more intimate than any other previously published.
-
-
Sir Tommy Lascelles
- By Anonymous User on 10-07-21
-
The Kindness of Strangers
- By: Salka Viertel
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 16 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Salka Viertel's autobiography tells of a brilliant, creative, and well-connected woman's pilgrimage through the darkest years of the 20th century, a journey that would take her from a remote province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Hollywood. The Kindness of Strangers is, to quote the New Yorker writer S. N. Behrman, "a very rich book. It provides a panorama of the dissolving civilizations of the 20th century. In all of them the author lived at the apex of their culture and artistic aristocracies."
-
Chanel's Riviera
- Life, Love and the Struggle for Survival on the Côte d'Azur, 1930 -1944
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Sophie Roberts
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Far from worrying about the onset of war, in the spring of 1938 the burning question on the French Riviera was whether one should curtsy to the Duchess of Windsor. Few of those who had settled there thought much about what was going on in the rest of Europe. It was a golden, glamorous life, far removed from politics or conflict.
-
-
More Riviera than Chanel
- By WhatCathyReadNext on 11-11-19
-
George V
- Never a Dull Moment
- By: Jane Ridley
- Narrated by: Joanna David
- Length: 22 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The lasting reputation of George V is for dullness. He was a crack shot and an outstanding stamp collector, but that's about it. The flamboyance and hedonism of his father, Edward VII, defined an era whose influence and magnetism is still felt today. The contrast between the two could hardly be greater.
-
-
Tough going..
- By rightlemon on 24-03-22
-
Debs at War
- 1939-1945
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Rachel Atkins
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Pre-war debutantes were members of the most protected, not to say isolated, stratum of 20th-century society: the young (17-20) unmarried daughters of the British upper classes. For most of them, the war changed all that for ever. It meant independence and the shock of the new, and daily exposure to customs and attitudes that must have seemed completely alien to them. For many, the almost military regime of an upper class childhood meant they were well suited for the no-nonsense approach needed in wartime.
-
-
Illuminating
- By Safist on 23-03-22
-
The Viceroy's Daughters
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 18 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The lives of the three daughters of Lord Curzon: glamorous, rich, independent and wilful. Irene (born 1896), Cynthia (b. 1898) and Alexandria (b.1904) were the three daughters of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India 1898-1905 and probably the grandest and most self-confident imperial servant Britain ever possessed. After the death of his fabulously rich American wife in 1906, Curzon's determination to control every aspect of his daughters' lives, including the money that was rightfully theirs, led them one by one into revolt against their father.
-
-
Fantastic piece, except the tragic attempt at accents
- By rj on 09-01-22
-
Heiresses
- By: Laura Thompson
- Narrated by: Laura Thompson
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We fantasise about what we would do if we inherited a fortune: the house on Cheyne Walk? The Manolo Blahniks? The racehorses? But what would it be like, never to have to dream in that way? Laura Thompson explores the historical phenomenon of the heiress in four inviting categories.
-
-
Fascinating piece of history!
- By Ali H on 22-10-21
-
1939: The Last Season
- By: Anne de Courcy
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The season of 1939 brought all those 'in Society' to London. The young debutante daughters of the upper classes were presented to the king and queen to mark their acceptance into the new adult world of their parents. They sparkled their way through a succession of balls and parties and sporting events. As the hot summer drew on, the newspapers filled with ever more ominous reports of the relentless progress towards war. There was nothing to do but wait - and dance.
-
-
A Dangerous Time Well Described
- By Robert on 15-11-21
Summary
Cecil Beaton was one of Britain's greatest cultural icons - not just as a photographer capturing some of the most celebrated portraits of the 20th century but also as designer of the iconic sets and costumes for the films My Fair Lady and Gigi.
In 1980, Beaton personally chose Hugo Vickers to be his biographer, entrusting him with his diaries and the entire body of letters he had written - both personally and professionally - over the course of his life. Drawing on five years of intensive research and interviews with the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote, Princess Grace of Monaco and Sir John Gielgud, Vickers' biography was an instant best seller upon its publication in 1985.
Exploring Beaton's metamorphosis from being the child of a staid middle-class family to an international figure mingling with the glittering stars of his age, the biography also details his great love for Greta Garbo and reveals his private sense of failure that the success he always wanted - as a playwright - eluded him.
Republished in a new paperback edition in time for Bright Young Things, a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2020, Cecil Beaton is the definitive and authorised biography of one of the world's most fascinating, famous and admired photographers.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio on our Desktop Site.
More from the same
What listeners say about Cecil Beaton
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Alison St Pierre
- 10-08-20
Utterly fascinating insight!
I didn't want this book to end!! I adored the insight into his "bright young things" period! Oh, to be part of those endless parties and country sports weekends! I could have happily listened to an entire book focussing on that period. A very fair book. I can't say I like Cecil, but he is certainly interesting if a tad irritating at times. This book has left me with a desire to read more about his friendship group in the 1930s and I'm frustrated about how few books I can find on this subject. In particular, the Stephen Tennant Biography - Serious Pleasures by Philip Hoare, isn't available on Audiobooks and cannot be purchased for under £85. Very disappointing!! A stylish yet vacuous man with an acid tongue and an interesting address book!!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- E. O'Callaghan
- 22-04-20
Superb
Superb biography. What a life. Beaton has long been a fascinating figure for me and this unabridged biography does not disappoint. The definitive Cecil Beaton book.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bryan James
- 16-04-20
Never a dull moment
Brilliant narration, brilliant writing, compelling journey through the life of a genius. Wonderfully witty.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- SianB
- 14-09-21
Disappointingly flat narration
I’d expected a more rounded insight into one of the most colourful and interesting figures of the 20th century and the people around him, but found the narration too flat and detached from the subject. While Beaton’s character was explored to a degree, it felt that a lot was missing and his interactions with others were difficult to understand in context as the story seemed to consist of a series of events that affected Beaton without much involving anyone else.
Ultimately a dissatisfying read and I really had to persevere to finish it.