The Pink Lady: The Many Lives of Helen Gahagan Douglas

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.