In October 1958, Pan American World Airways began making
regularly scheduled flights between New York and Paris,
courtesy of its newly minted wonder jet, the Boeing 707.
Almost overnight, the moneyed celebrities of the era made
Europe their playground. At the same time, the dream of
international travel came true for thousands of ordinary
Americans who longed to emulate the “jet set” lifestyle.
Bestselling author and Vanity Fair contributor William
Stadiem brings that Jet Age dream to life again in the
first-ever book about the glamorous decade when Americans
took to the skies in massive numbers as never before, with
the rich and famous elbowing their way to the front of the
line. Dishy anecdotes and finely rendered character sketches
re-create the world of luxurious airplanes, exclusive
destinations, and beautiful, wealthy trendsetters who turned
transatlantic travel into an inalienable right. It was the
age of Camelot and “Come Fly with Me,” Grace Kelly at the
Prince’s Palace in Monaco, and Mary Quant miniskirts on the
streets of Swinging London. Men still wore hats,
stewardesses showed plenty of leg, and the beach at
Saint-Tropez was just a seven-hour flight away.
Jet Set reads like a who’s who of the fabulous and well
connected, from the swashbuckling “skycoons” who launched
the jet fleet to the playboys, moguls, and financiers who
kept it flying. Among the bold-face names on the passenger
manifest: Juan Trippe, the Yale-educated WASP with the
Spanish-sounding name who parlayed his fraternity contacts
into a tiny airmail route that became the world’s largest
airline, Pan Am; couturier to the stars Oleg Cassini, the
Kennedy administration’s “Secretary of Style,” and his
social climbing brother Igor, who became the most powerful
gossip columnist in America—then lost it all in one of the
juiciest scandals of the century; Temple Fielding, the
high-rolling high priest of travel guides, and his
budget-conscious rival Arthur Frommer; Conrad Hilton, the
New Mexico cowboy who built the most powerful luxury hotel
chain on earth; and Mary Wells Lawrence, the queen bee of
Madison Avenue whose suggestive ads for Braniff and other
airlines brought sex appeal to the skies.
Like a superfueled episode of Mad Men, Jet Set evokes a time
long gone but still vibrant in American memory. This is a
rollicking, sexy romp through the ring-a-ding glory years of
air travel, when escape was the ultimate aphrodisiac and the
smiles were as wide as the aisles.
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