Peaches & Daddy
A Story of the Roaring 20s, the Birth of Tabloid Media, & the Courtship that Captured the Heart and Imagination of the American Public
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
A "lively, intelligently rendered account" of a tabloid romance, scandalous divorce and the rise of yellow journalism in Gilded Age New York (Kirkus Reviews).
Edward "Daddy" Browning was a famously eccentric millionaire when he crossed paths with fifteen-year-old shop clerk and aspiring flapper Frances Heenan at the Hotel McAlpin. Frances reminded Daddy of peaches and cream—and a scandalous romance began. Thirty-seven days later, amid headlines announcing the event and with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in close pursuit, Peaches and Daddy were married. Within ten months they would begin a courtroom drama that would blow their impassioned saga into a national scandal.
Peaches & Daddy vividly recounts the amazing and improbable romance, marriage, and ultimate legal battle for separation of this publicity-craving Manhattan couple in America's "Era of Wonderful Nonsense." Their story is one of dysfunction and remarkable excess; yet at the time, the lurid details of their brief courtship and marriage captured the imagination of the American public like no other story of its day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Greenburg, an attorney and former editor of the Pepperdine Law Review, recalls a forgotten scandal in an exciting era. In 1926, Edward "Daddy" Browning, a 51-year-old New York City millionaire, fell for a 15-year-old "de facto high school dropout" named Frances Heenan, known as "Peaches." They were married a month later, and within a year they were battling in the courtroom. Both Heenan, a "buxom girl" who had worked in various Manhattan department stores, and her millionaire "Daddy" were publicity hounds, and the newly popular tabloids were thrilled to bait readers with the lurid escapades of the "elderly vulgarian and his bride." Months after Heenan (who was said to have spent $1,000 dollars a day shopping) left Browning, a sensational separation trial ensued, concluding in March 1927 in Browning's favor, at least financially. Peaches turned to a career in vaudeville, but the media frenzy continued until Browning's death in 1934. Greenburg offers an entertaining history of a scandal, coupled with a serious look at the infancy of tabloid journalism. 40 b&w photos.
