Acclaimed author Sally Denton brings to life every dimension of the extraordinary Helen Gahagan Douglas in The Pink Lady, a compelling account of Douglas's incomparable life as stage star, politician, and public intellectual. A three-term congresswoman who ran for the U.S. Senate against Richard Nixon just thirty years after women gained the right to vote, Douglas was also a Broadway star, opera prima donna, friend of FDR, lover of LBJ, and passionate New Dealer. Tagged "The Pink Lady" during a brutal 1950 Senate campaign waged by Nixon and brought down by the same McCarthyist anti-Red hysteria that was sweeping Hollywood, Douglas is restored through Denton's rich narrative to her rightful place as a pioneer in American politics and torchbearer for progressive ideals.
Praise for The Pink Lady:
"Embracing her subject with verve and imagination, Sally Denton gives us the preposterously colorful life and times of an American heroine."-Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers
"Restor[es] flesh and sinew to a remarkable woman and political personality, who stands as a kind of archetype of today's engaged Hollywood celebrity … Compellingly propulsive narrative."-Los Angeles Times