One of the pivotal moments in her life was when her father lost status in the community where they lived, through financial loss. This book begins with the biography of Maxine Elliott, who started life in 1868 as Jessica Dermot I the United States. However, this is slightly different from other books that I have read – rather than being the biography of a person, it is the biography of a place the Chateau de l’Horizon, an art deco villa on the French Rivera, which was built in 1932 by Maxine Elliott. Lovell, and was keen to read this, her latest. I have read, and enjoyed, many books by Mary S. After the War the story continued as the Château changed hands and Prince Aly Khan used it to entertain the Hollywood set, as well as launch his seduction of and eventual marriage to Rita Hayworthīringing a bygone era back to life, Mary Lovell cements her spot as one of our top social historians in this captivating and evocative new book. The Riviera Set reveals the story of the group of people who lived, partied, bed-hopped and politicked at the Château de l'Horizon near Cannes, over the course of forty years from the time when Coco Chanel made southern French tans fashionable in the twenties to the death of the playboy Prince Aly Khan in 1960.Īt the heart of dynamic group was the amazing Maxine Elliott, the daughter of a fisherman from Connecticut, who built the beautiful art deco Château and brought together the likes of Noel Coward, the Aga Khan, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and two very saucy courtesans, Doris Castlerosse and Daisy Fellowes, who set out to be dangerous distractions to Winston Churchill as he worked on his journalism and biographies during his 'wilderness years' in the thirties.

The Riviera Set by Mary S. Lovell