A Big Life
Lantern, $59.95 hb, 423 pp, 192098934X
All about Jenny
What a big book it is! And so many photographs: only a few without Jenny Kee. The dust jacket is drop-dead gorgeous: just Jenny’s face, with the Revlon red of her trademark glasses and lips lifted to the title. But heavens, this isn’t a dust jacket but a jacket. Take it off. The lining is Jenny’s Monet Opal print, and there are French folds and more photos. Open the book, and here is Jenny’s big life in twelve chapters.
Jenny’s maternal grandmother Olive had twenty-four blouses ‘just for work’. Jenny’s mum was ‘a fashion plate’ and Mum’s sister Una would ‘sew mum into a dress’. Jenny, born to Enid and Billy Kee in 1945, was Enid’s ‘little China doll’. At thirteen, Enid bought Jenny Charles Jourdan shoes. They cost twelve guineas. Jenny left school after fourth form, a ‘Chinese Annette Funicello’.
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