Beautiful People

A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the 60s, by Robert Greenfield. Da Capo, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-0306-81622-2

Reading about the Sixties often is like watching a smashup in slow motion.

The Boomers, of course, won't like that judgment. Many of them—the leading edge really—came of age in the Sixties and will always wax nostalgic about it. But, the reality is that the decade set in motion much of what's wrong with America today.

That's not the thrust here though. Greenfield, a former editor at Rolling Stone and author of several rock biographies, sets his biography of Londoners Tommy and Susan "Puss" Weber against the backdrop of the psychedelic Sixties, but the era is very much in the background. The spotlight falls squarely on the glamorous and privileged young couple and their hedonistic lifestyle. Yes, the Sixties offered certain inducements for destructive behavior, but you can easily imagine a similar outcome for these two in other eras as well.

Tommy Weber and Susan "Puss" Coriat seemed to have it all: aristocratic connections, generous trust funds, public (i.e. private) school educations, and great looks. Tommy was rakishly handsome and a dare-devil. Puss, who was described as "a honey pot at age fourteen," was inordinately beautiful and dangerously romantic. Both were combustible.

The two met in London in the early '60s and immediately fell in love. When Puss discovered she was pregnant in 1962, the couple wed—in Tommy's words, "a shotgun marriage."

Neither seemed much interested in working. Tommy raced motor cars for a spell; speculated in real estate; and fell in with a drug smuggler eventually. Puss did a little modeling and dabbled at running a New Age restaurant.

But, both were heavily into the swinging scene—anchored in drug use and rock music—that defined London in the Sixties. The lifestyle was especially dangerous for Puss who famously "lived in her imagination." Soon, Puss was experimenting with LSD and lesbian love affairs. Along the way, the couple had two young sons that neither was really equipped to raise.

As with many Sixties' stories, this one ended badly. After Tommy and Puss separated, Tommy moved in with actress Charlotte Rampling. A junkie and a drug smuggler by then, he eventually ended up in prison.

After attempting suicide in 1968, Puss was admitted to a mental hospital in 1970 "suffering from LSD-influenced schizophrenia." Following her release, she overdosed on sleeping pills on June 7, 1971.

I'm not sure if there's anything new to learn from Tommy and Puss' tragic story. To his credit, Greenfield does not romanticize them—or the Swinging Sixties—but in the end, one wonders if there's any point in an account of pointless lives, no matter how well told.
*******************************************************

While reading Greenfield's account, I couldn't help being reminded of the story of Edie Sedgwick, an American equivalent to Puss Coriat Weber. Rich and beautiful, Edie arrived in New York in 1964 just as the Sixties subculture of sex, drugs, and rock-in-roll was gathering momentum. She joined pop artist Andy Warhol's merry band and was soon being celebrated in the media as a "Superstar"—perhaps the first media creation to be famous for being famous.

Alas, like Puss Weber, Edie was serially self-destructive—anorexia, cocaine, heroin, LSD, speed, and casual sex—was in and out of mental institutions and finally overdosed on barbiturates on Nov. 16, 1971—just five months after Puss' death.

Her life has been the subject of books and movies, including the 2006 biopic "Factory Girl" starring Sienna Miller. For a multimedia overview see here: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,143641,00.html