Keogh, Pamela Clarke

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Keogh, Pamela Clarke

PERSONAL: Born in Baumholder, Germany. Education: Graduated from Vassar College.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, The Linda Chester Agency, 630 Fifth Ave., Ste. 2306, New York, NY 10111.

CAREER: Writer and journalist. Freelance writer, 1999–; formerly worked as a journalist for Vogue magazine; television producer for Extra and VH-1's Fashion Week.

WRITINGS:

BIOGRAPHIES

Audrey Style, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1999.

Jackie Style, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2001.

Elvis Presley: The Man, the Life, the Style, Atria Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Also contributor to periodicals, including Self, US, and British Vogue.

SIDELIGHTS: In her works, Vassar graduate Pamela Clarke Keogh studies the impact of popular icons like Audrey Hepburn, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and Elvis Presley on modern culture. Her first book, Audrey Style, looks at the influence of the well-known actress on the culture of her time, and includes previously unpublished photographs that help highlight the story of Hepburn's life and career. "This book," wrote Janice Min, alluding to Hepburn's gamine image in People, "is about more than capri pants and ballet flats." Keogh examines Hepburn's work and her background, as well as her signature wardrobe. She describes the actress's aristocratic origins as the daughter of a Dutch baroness and an English banker, the hard life Hepburn led in Belgium under the Nazi regime during World War II, and her evolution from fashion model to actress. Keogh also examines Hepburn's second career as an ambassador and spokesperson for UNICEF. Audrey Style, Clarissa Cruz explained in Entertainment Weekly, "maintains that the late actress' greatest gift was her modest ebullience."

In Jackie Style Keogh studies the way in which the widow of thirty-fifth U.S. President John F. Kennedy refashioned her personal image over time. Beginning as a Vassar graduate—like Keogh herself—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis redefined herself first as the wife of a senator, and then as first lady of the United States. After her husband's assassination in 1963, she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis and redefined herself once again. Finally, after her second husband's death in 1975, she became a book editor for New York-based publisher Doubleday, continuing to epitomize style and class. As in her previous book, Keogh includes previously unpublished photographs while telling the popular icon's story. However, in a departure from examples set by the largely biographical Audrey Style, in Jackie Style Keogh concentrates primarily on Onassis's impact on style through clothing and makeup. Included in the volume are instructions on how to duplicate Jackie O.'s makeup.

Elvis Presley: The Man, the Life, the Style steps away from other biographies of the king of rock 'n' roll because of its concentration on style issues, including manners, grooming, and interior design, as well on Presley's clothing and music. Keogh's "bottom line," stated Ray Olson in a Booklist review of the volume, "is that Elvis was cool, cooler than any other man of the twentieth century." From the beginning of his career in 1954 as an unknown teenage singer in Tennessee, Presley cultivated an image that allowed him to be easily differentiated from the herd. Keogh credits designer Bernard Lansky, who owned the shop in Memphis where Presley bought his clothes, for helping create the King's unique style. "The book's eighty-plus photos," declared Steve Dougherty in People, "… offer a seldom-seen look at the eye-candy King in his prime."