Elsa Edgar

High above the glamorous skyline of 50’s Manhattan, the terrifying Elsa Maxwell – party hostess and social power broker – drags up for her next masquerade, while J Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, checks his files, tightens his grip and slips into something a little more comfortable.

My dear, she knew everybody; Coward and Porter, the Rainers and the Windsors. Making a career out of her legendary ugliness, she dished the dirt on King Farouk, fixed up the Aly Khan with Rita Hayworth… and the only love of her own life, Maria Callas. If you were on Elsa’s list, your entry into High Society was assured; once on the blacklist, you were persona non grata to all who followed the social sun.

Elsa’s world of masquerade and scandal had a shadow; J Edgar Hoover, eavesdropper, McCarthyite, part-time transvestite and control freak. The FBI was also compiling lists, spreading gossip, dividing the world into the acceptable and the unacceptable.