Jacob Street when I was growing up in the prosperous white suburbs had only one meaning: that was the address of Lizzie Baker’s house.
There Was an Old Woman Tossed up in a Basket
What we are all obliged to do now: to join in sweeping the cobwebs. There is a little time and a little space, provided by the pandemic, for such a sweeping…
Doris Duke is Born
What do I hope my biography will accomplish? Nothing less than a complete reconsideration of Doris Duke.
The Bingham Estate: The Big House Reborn
As William Faulkner wrote in “Requiem For A Nun”, “The past is not dead. It’s not even the past.” But perhaps the past can, with will, imagination and love, be at least partly transformed.
Sitting Pretty: Doris Duke and Lizzie Baker
It is no surprise that Cecil Beaton, fashion photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair in the 1920’s and 1930’s, portraitist of Queen Elizabeth and the Duchess of Windsor, should have taken several shots of Doris Duke; but it is surprising that in 1953 when he visited my parents in Kentucky, photographed Lizzie Baker.