21. Dancing With the Devil: The Windsors and Jimmy Donahue by Christopher Wilson

Category: 50 Books

The first thing wrong with this is the title. It should’ve been called The Jimmy Donahue Story. The Windsors (who get first billing in the title, right?) are not in this book much. But I realize that if the author had left them out of the title no one would have read the book because no one knows or cares about Jimmy Donahue. I admit freely that while reading the book I didn’t care for Jimmy Donahue, and after finishing it I care even less for JimmyDonahue. I was just reading it for dish on the Windsors.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an interesting book, and it’s short and sweet, but the life of Jimmy Donahue (and the rest of the Woolworth heirs) is just so gross to me. They wasted so much money that I can’t even comprehend the dollar amounts nor the waste. I don’t understand that lifestyle. But let’s face it, this isn’t high brow reading, it’s dishy biography, and that makes for some good summer reading.

It was disappointing that it wasn’t mostly about the Windsors (who are my new obsession by the way. Sorry Patty Hearst.) The Windsors, for my friends reading this, were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. King Edward VIII abdicated his throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson. So his brother became King George VI (Elizabeth II’s father.) Good times.

You hear different stories on this. Some people are all, “OMG what a love story! He GAVE UP his THRONE for his LOVE.”

Some people are all, “The Duke was gay and the Duchess just married for money and prestige.”

and others are all, “Actually, Edward VIII was a huge Nazi sympathizer so the prime ministers were wanting to get rid of him anyway. They just used the marriage as an easy way out.”

The Windsors, kicked out of England, did hobnob with the nazi’s until England was all, “Give them a job before they fuck something up!” So they made the duke the governor of the Bahamas while World War II was going on. They hated having to live there.

Anyway, towards the end of this book is where the Windsors come in. The book discusses the affair that the duchess had with Jimmy Donahue while the duke just sort of acted polite and played golf. It is an intersting affair seeing as how Jimmy Donahue was a homosexual and the duchess was nearly twice his age. They seemed an unlikely hook up.

Anyway, interesting book. I wouldn’t recommend it though unless you were specifically interested in the Windsors or the wacky high society of the ’40s and ’50s.