In All His Glory: The Life and Times of William S. Paley and the Birth of Modern Broadcasting
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A big, riveting biography of William Paley, the Chicago cigarmaker's son who built the CBS television empire and reigned as its chairman until 1983, this blockbuster tears away the layers of self-aggrandizing mythology Paley has woven about himself. Former New York Times media reporter Smith presents an often unflattering but never malicious portrait of Paley, now 88, as a cold, power-hungry, insecure narcissist, a ``compulsive womanizer'' and tyrannical paterfamilias who ``tolerated'' his six children. Ambivalent about his Jewish origins, Paley equated ``WASP acceptance with success.'' According to Smith, the free-swinging tycoon was dictatorial and controlling with worldly first wife Dorothy Hart Hearst; his second wife, Barbara Cushing Mortimer, ``devoted her life to creating a perfect world'' for her demanding, ever-unfaithful husband. Packed with revelations, rich in radio and TV lore, sprinkled with intrigues, glitz, and wheeling and dealing at the highest levels of media and government, Smith's well-documented narrative is in good measure the story of CBS. She provides new details of CBS News's collaboration with the CIA in the 1950s; its in-house enforcement of McCarthyist witch-hunt tactics (though CBS was later instrumental in defrocking McCarthy); and its refusal to bow to pressure from the Nixon White House in covering the Vietnam War. She relates Paley's bitter battles with former network president Frank Stanton, and tracks CBS's trajectory from the glory days of star correspondent Edward R. Murrow to current chief executive Laurence Tisch's reign over ``a machine of lowbrow mass market entertainment, now shorn of its pretensions.'' Photos. First serial to Vanity Fair; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Club selection; movie rights to HBO; author tour. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Critics always claimed that former CBS Chairman William S. Paley's As it Happened ( LJ 3/15/79) wasn't how it happened. Here Smith, author of Up the Tube: Prime-Time TV and the Silverman Years ( LJ 7/81), offers an objective discussion of the creation of the ``Tiffany Network.'' Paley, Smith asserts, was often resistant to change; newsman Edward R. Murrow and ``power behind the throne'' Frank Stanton may have molded the media company more than Paley did. Still, Smith also pays tribute to Paley's shrewd, strong personality, even though it sometimes resulted in megalomania and compulsive womanizing. With its mix of business reportage and gossip about a ``brilliant circle'' that included wife Babe, Truman Capote, Slim Keith, and David O. Selznick, this book should have wide appeal in public libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/90 as Paley: A Life. --Judy Quinn, ``Library Journal'' (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Smith, formerly a New York Times correspondent, delivers a massive biography of William Paley, society sybarite and longtime CBS chairman, that is as ugly as sin and every bit as fascinating. With the help of his Jewish cigar-maker father, Paley became head of CBS, then a collection of financially rickety radio stations, at the age of 27 in 1928. Over the next 50 years, he built a radio and TV colossus that the public associated with class and innovation--a testament more to the chairman's grand-standing and panache, Smith shows, than to actual performance against RCA/NBC archrival David Sarnoff, who was both more technologically visionary and idealistic. (Indeed, Paley at first viewed TV as a threat to radio, and later squandered early opportunities to form a cable news network and to distribute films on videocassettes.) Unable to step aside in old age, this Citizen Kane of broadcasting forced out a succession of heir apparents (including Frank Stanton, CBS president for 27 years) before his last Pyrrhic victory in 1986, over Thomas Wyman. His last few years have been darkened by mounting infirmities and the painful dismantling of the proud ""Tiffany network"" by unlikely coup ally Laurence Tisch. Drawing on hundreds of frank, often confidential sources, Smith highlights rather than alters traits of businessman Paley drawn by such earlier accounts as Lewis J. Paper's Empire (1987): he is shown as aloof, instinctive, vacillating, greedy, and self-aggrandizing. What distinguishes her appraisal is its pitiless focus on the media mogul's private life. Even into old age, Paley has apparently taken a rude animal delight in life: acquiring priceless art; hobnobbing with celebrities; and womanizing--a habit that evidently resulted in one lover's suicide and made a mockery of his marriage to second wife Babe, an elegantly beautiful fashion style-setter. Smith stresses Paley's overwhelming megalomania and callousness over his undeniable charm. Nevertheless, much like LBJ biographer Robert Care, she has written a breathlessly detailed, stinging page-turner about one of the century's most powerful legends. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Critics always claimed that former CBS Chairman William S. Paley's As it Happened ( LJ 3/15/79) wasn't how it happened. Here Smith, author of Up the Tube: Prime-Time TV and the Silverman Years ( LJ 7/81), offers an objective discussion of the creation of the ``Tiffany Network.'' Paley, Smith asserts, was often resistant to change; newsman Edward R. Murrow and ``power behind the throne'' Frank Stanton may have molded the media company more than Paley did. Still, Smith also pays tribute to Paley's shrewd, strong personality, even though it sometimes resulted in megalomania and compulsive womanizing. With its mix of business reportage and gossip about a ``brilliant circle'' that included wife Babe, Truman Capote, Slim Keith, and David O. Selznick, this book should have wide appeal in public libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/90 as Paley: A Life. --Judy Quinn, ``Library Journal'' Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information.

A big, riveting biography of William Paley, the Chicago cigarmaker's son who built the CBS television empire and reigned as its chairman until 1983, this blockbuster tears away the layers of self-aggrandizing mythology Paley has woven about himself. Former New York Times media reporter Smith presents an often unflattering but never malicious portrait of Paley, now 88, as a cold, power-hungry, insecure narcissist, a ``compulsive womanizer'' and tyrannical paterfamilias who ``tolerated'' his six children. Ambivalent about his Jewish origins, Paley equated ``WASP acceptance with success.'' According to Smith, the free-swinging tycoon was dictatorial and controlling with worldly first wife Dorothy Hart Hearst; his second wife, Barbara Cushing Mortimer, ``devoted her life to creating a perfect world'' for her demanding, ever-unfaithful husband. Packed with revelations, rich in radio and TV lore, sprinkled with intrigues, glitz, and wheeling and dealing at the highest levels of media and government, Smith's well-documented narrative is in good measure the story of CBS. She provides new details of CBS News's collaboration with the CIA in the 1950s; its in-house enforcement of McCarthyist witch-hunt tactics (though CBS was later instrumental in defrocking McCarthy); and its refusal to bow to pressure from the Nixon White House in covering the Vietnam War. She relates Paley's bitter battles with former network president Frank Stanton, and tracks CBS's trajectory from the glory days of star correspondent Edward R. Murrow to current chief executive Laurence Tisch's reign over ``a machine of lowbrow mass market entertainment, now shorn of its pretensions.'' Photos. First serial to Vanity Fair; Reader's Digest Condensed Book Club selection; movie rights to HBO; author tour. (Nov.) Copyright 1990 Cahners Business Information.

CBS television tycoon Paley is por trayed as a narcissist, womanizer and tyrannical father in this well-docu mented biography, which is packed with TV and radio anecdotes and high- level intrigue. According to PW, this ``often unflattering but never mali cious portrait . . . . tears away the lay ers of self-aggrandizing mythology Paley wove about himself.'' Photos. (Oct.) Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information.

CBS television tycoon Paley is portrayed as a narcissist, womanizer and tyrannical father in this well-documented biography, which is packed with TV and radio anecdotes and high-level intrigue. According to PW , this ``often unflattering but never malicious portrait . . . . tears away the layers of self-aggrandizing mythology Paley wove about himself.'' Photos. (Oct.) Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information.