Anthony, Carl Sferrazza

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Anthony, Carl Sferrazza

PERSONAL: Male.

ADDRESSES: Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, William Morrow & Company, 10 E. 53rd St., 7th Fl., New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: Writer and editor. Former speechwriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan, 1985–86; George magazine, former contributing editor. Producer, The Reagans (Television film), 2003.

WRITINGS:

First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power, William Morrow (New York, NY), Volume 1: 1789–1961, 1990, Volume 2: 1961–1990, 1991.

America's Most Influential First Ladies, foreword by Betty Ford, Oliver Press (Minneapolis, MN), 1992, revised edition, Oliver Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2003.

As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in the Words of Her Family and Friends, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1997.

Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President, William Morrow (New York, NY), 1998.

America's First Families: An Inside View of Two Hundred Years of Private Life in the White House, Touchstone (New York, NY), 2000.

The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961–1963, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2001.

(Editor) "This Elevated Position—": A Catalogue and Guide to the National First Ladies' Library and the Importance of First Lady History, National First Ladies' Library (Canton, OH), 2003.

Heads of State, Bloomsbury (New York, NY), 2004.

Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era, William Morrow (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor to New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Vanity Fair, American Heritage, Smithsonian, American Heritage, and Town and Country. Also author of screenplays; contributor to television movie The Reagans, 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Carl Sferrazza Anthony is the author of numerous books about the men and women who have inhabited the White House, from Martha Washington to Hillary Rodham Clinton. His first book, First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power, is a two-volume set that examines every first lady from 1789 to 1990. Anthony provides biographies of the women, but also focuses on their role in the political process and the often unrecognized power that first ladies possess and have frequently used. "The author makes history entertaining," Genevieve Stuttaford noted in a Publishers Weekly review of the first volume, yet still "provides a comprehensive, instructive view" of his subjects.

Anthony is also the author of in-depth biographies of individual first ladies, including Florence Harding and Nellie Taft. Both early-twentieth-century first ladies are notable for being powerful forces in their own right and for working hard to help their sometimes-reluctant husbands attain the highest political office in the country. In Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President Anthony digs deeply into the infamous personal lives of both Florence and her husband, President Warren G. Harding. Before she married Harding, Florence had an illegitimate baby, was divorced, and had been a self-supporting single mother; for his part, Warren seduced Florence's female friends and fathered two illegitimate children of his own. It was Florence's ambition that pushed Warren into the presidency, and presidential historians have generally concluded that he was not well suited for the office. He "ran the country during a time of baroque corruption and excess that the book also engagingly chronicles," Gina Bellafante noted in Time. Florence, however, took to her role as first lady with a progressive spirit: she held pioneering press conferences for female reporters, helped to bring about the creation of a separate federal prison system for women, and supported civil rights for women and minorities. In this "massive, incredibly detailed study of the Hardings," as Edward Goedeken described the 660-page work in Library Journal, Anthony also acquits Florence of the long-standing rumor that she poisoned her husband. Instead, Anthony attributes Harding's fatal 1923 heart attack to the family's dependence on homeopathic medicine. Florence Harding is a "riveting, defining biography of the indefatigable spouse of the twenty-ninth president," Brad Hooper concluded in Booklist.

Anthony takes on Taft in Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era. Like Florence Harding, Taft's behavior scandalized some in Washington: she drank beer, smoked cigarettes, and played cards. Taft also espoused progressive causes, particularly women's rights, during her time as first lady, but she was hampered in her efforts by a crippling stroke she suffered during her husband's first year in office. "The best part of [Anthony's] narrative covers Taft's successful quest for recovery," wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. A Kirkus Reviews critic deemed Nellie Taft "a pleasing biography" and "a vivid portrait" of this first lady.

America's First Families: An Inside View of Two Hundred Years of Private Life in the White House was published at the time of the two-hundredth anniversary of the White House's construction. In thematically arranged chapters, Anthony discusses the ways first families, from John and Abigail Adams to Bill and Hillary Clinton, navigated Inauguration Day, family relationships, and the constant struggle to maintain some semblance of privacy while living in the very public White House. "Drawing on extensive research, the author provides a wealth of entertaining anecdotes and trivia," noted a Publishers Weekly contributor, adding that Anthony's "intimate miscellany" is "great for browsing."

In the years after former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's death from cancer in 1994, Anthony published two books looking back on her life and her years in the White House: As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, in the Words of Her Family and Friends and The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961–1963. The latter book is notable for the many previously unpublished pictures among its 300 photographs, mostly candid shots of Kennedy Onassis, President John F. Kennedy, and their children relaxing and playing like any other family. In the accompanying "sensitive yet revealing narrative," as Jill Ortner described it in Library Journal, Anthony provides an equally intimate picture of the Kennedy's family life, discussing the way they spent their vacations and holidays and how they chose to raise their children. It is "a domestically detailed and staunchly apolitical history," declared a Publishers Weekly contributor.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 1998, Brad Hooper, review of Florence Harding: The First Lady, the Jazz Age, and the Death of America's Most Scandalous President, p. 1496; January 1, 1999, review of Florence Harding, p. 776; November 1, 2000, Vanessa Bush, review of America's First Families: An Inside View of Two Hundred Years of Private Life in the White House, p. 513.

Entertainment Weekly, July 24, 1998, Megan Harlan, review of Florence Harding, p. 70.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2001, review of The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961–1963, p. 989; February 15, 2003, review of Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era, p. 205.

Library Journal, May 1, 1998, Edward Goedeken, review of Florence Harding, p. 110; October 1, 2000, Jill Ortner, review of America's First Families, p. 120; August, 2001, Jill Ortner, review of The Kennedy White House, p. 130; April 1, 2005, Cynthia Harrison, review of Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era, p. 103.

Publishers Weekly, July 13, 1990, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power, 1789–1961, p. 48; March 8, 1991, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of First Ladies: The Saga of the Presidents' Wives and Their Power, 1961–1990, p. 64; April 13, 1998, review of Florence Harding, p. 58; October 23, 2000, review of America's First Families, p. 67; October 29, 2001, review of The Kennedy White House, p. 57; February 28, 2005, review of Nellie Taft, p. 55.

Time, July 20, 1998, Ginia Bellafante, review of Florence Harding, p. 65.