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How to Meet a Millionaire

London: W.H. Allen. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. 1954 (c.1951). 1st UK edition. Hardcover. [nice clean copy, no significant wear, just the slightest trace of foxing to the top edge of the text block; the jacket shows only some faint soiling] (line drawings) A "frank and hilarious" autobiography by a woman who was "graced with more good looks than most," and set out (after a disappointing career as a Hollywood starlet) to realize a dream that (it sez here) "many girls share," that being "to meet a millionaire and lead the sleek glamorous life of a café society celebrity." The author was a socialite and high society gossip columnist who wrote for numerous publications, notably the New York Post from 1968 to 1978. (She was also one of several women who claimed they had been the model for Holly Golightly in Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's." The similarity of the title of this book, her first, to that of the 1953 Twentieth Century-Fox musical film HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, has led some people to carelessly assume that the movie was an adaptation of her book, but I'm here to tell you 'tain't so: the film's credited sources were two plays (one by Zoe Akins, the other by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert). .