Lecture Date: January 25, 2024
The Gemini 3 Group Lecture
New York Times bestselling author and historian of the royal family Sally Bedell Smith will speak about her new book, George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy. They were introduced to new generations in the movie The King’s Speech, which focused on George VI’s debilitating stutter, and Ms. Smith delves deeper, producing a sweeping picture of their extraordinary lives. She is the first biographer of the couple to get exclusive access to their letters and diaries in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, a privilege granted to the author by their daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. Ms. Smith sheds new light on their dramatic and little known love story, how they rescued the monarchy after the abdication of King Edward VIII, earned widespread admiration for inspiring the British people with their courage and compassion during World War II, and trained their elder daughter through example and instruction to be an exceptional monarch for more than seventy years. Ms. Smith will also offer insights into how the future George VI used his role as the “spare” to make a significant contribution to British life before he took the throne. She will offer an intimate perspective on a remarkable royal partnership for twenty-eight years, going behind the scenes in the royal palaces as well as their private residences, where the King, Queen, and their two daughters found joy in their family life as “us four.”
Speaker: Sally Bedell Smith
Sally Bedell Smith is the New York Times best-selling author of eight biographies. Her latest, George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy (Random House 2023) is the definitive biography of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s mother and father, based for the first time on special access to their letters and diaries in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle that was granted to the author by the Queen.
Ms. Smith has also written best-selling biographies of King Charles III, Queen Elizabeth II, Diana, Princess of Wales, John and Jacqueline Kennedy, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Pamela Harriman, and William S. Paley. Translations of her books have been published in more than a dozen countries.
An on-air contributor to CNN since 2017 offering analysis and commentary on the British royal family, Ms. Smith was a contributing editor at Vanity Fair from 1996 to 2018. She previously worked at Time and The New York Times, where she was a cultural news reporter.
She received the 2012 Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence, an award presented by the Saint Nicholas Society of the City of New York, and Elizabeth the Queen won the 2012 Goodreads Choice Award for best book in history and biography. In 2012 Ms. Smith was also the consultant to playwright Peter Morgan on The Audience, his award-winning drama about Queen Elizabeth II starring Helen Mirren. In 2020 she was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) by Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts, her alma mater. She received her M.S. from Columbia University.
Sally Bedell Smith is the mother of three children and resides in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Stephen Smith.