Jet Set

Resumen del libro

Jet Set tells the story of the planes, the people, and the places that made this first decade of international travel the stuff of legend.

In October, 1958, Pan Am began its first regularly scheduled flights between New York and Paris, thanks to the newly-minted Boeing 707 jet plane. Almost overnight, the celebrities of the era-the world's first "jet set"-made Europe their playground, setting the trends the rest of us would follow for decades; and the dream of international travel came true for thousands of Americans. Bestselling author and Vanity Fair contributor William Stadiem has written a wonderfully entertaining, gossipy, savvy memoir about the glamorous people who picked out the hot new places or often created them: Jackie Kennedy in Paris, Grace Kelly at the Prince's Palace in Monaco, a topless Brigitte Bardot on the beach at St Tropez, a mini-skirted Mary Quant in James Bond London, Frank Sinatra with his hit 1958 hit single, "Come Fly with Me" that became the theme song of the new jet ageBut Jet Set isn't only about the Beautiful People. It's also about the powerful people, the "Lords of the Wings" who built the planes, the airlines, the images: Juan Trippe of Pan Am, William Allen of Boeing, Mary Wells Lawrence of Madison Avenue, Conrad Hilton of his hotels. These jet set pioneers turned travel into an inalienable right, and even though the intimate 707 (seating 110) has long since been replaced by the knee-jamming 747 (420 seats), the people and events covered in this book stand as vibrant testimony to the exclusive early days of jet travel.