Word: consorte
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...recent years, many biographers learned their art in the School of Debunking. But accounts of past lives have yielded to a more generous and appreciative discipline, which has led to opposite excesses. For declaring Prince Albert "comparable to Thomas Jefferson" and for insisting that Queen Victoria's Prince Consort "merits a volume as architect, designer, farmer, and naturalist," Robert Rhodes James earns highest marks in the Warts Can Be Beautiful School of Biography...
Biographer Rhodes James' nomination of the Prince Consort as "perhaps the most astute and ambitious politician of his age" seems one compliment too far; Metternich was still active in the decade when Albert married Victoria, and Bismarck became Premier of Prussia in 1862, the year after Albert died. This Albert memorial serves mainly to persuade readers that, compared with most European royalty, the Prince was a giant. Alas, a giant among royalty is only man-size anywhere else...
...must ask, though, whether After the Fall's lingering impact is a matter of artistry or indecent exposure. In the late 1950s Miller was a prince among Broadway playwrights, but west of the Hudson he was less than a prince consort; he was Mr. Marilyn Monroe. For the 4½ years of their marriage, the egghead and the sex goddess were headliners in every tattling tabloid, and their divorce in 1961 hardly stilled the clucking, for the next year Monroe was dead from an overdose of barbiturates. Miller must have found this stardom by proxy offensive...
...wearied by wars and assassinations. The pair made millions and spent millions, traveling with an entourage that would pauper a Saudi prince, taking over entire floors of famous hotels. Like Henry VIII, a part he played with gusto in Anne of the Thousand Days, Burton lavished jewels on his consort: the 33-carat Krupp diamond, the 69-carat Cartier diamond and the lustrous Peregrina pearl that King Philip II of Spain gave Mary Tudor in 1554. Liz and Dick made a couple of good movies together, including Virginia Woolf and The Taming of the Shrew, and some fine glitzy entertainments...
...Vegas (what could be more romantic?), Burton wed his companion of the past 18 months, Sally Hay, 35. It was Burton's fifth reading of the wedding vows. (Past partners: Sybil Williams, Taylor, Taylor again, and Susan Hunt.) After learning of the marriage, Taylor, whose current consort is Mexican Lawyer Victor Luna, pursed her lips into a smile and said, "I've known all along they would be married and happy together...