The Original Material Girl

...As for the Great Seductress, who else but Madonna...

...Divorced, with a five-year-old son, Winston, whom she had virtually ignored since birth, and with no prospective home to wreck, Pamela broadened her circle...

...Katharine Graham, then the publisher of The Washington Post, provided the connection...

...But only if they are very rich, very social, and very, very, prominent...

...Several studs still remain stashed in the closet...

...After a few admirals and generals, her first major conquest, whom she was eventually to marry, was Averell Harriman, a then-married statesman 30 years her senior and heir to a vast railroad fortune...

...Agnelli left his mistress of four years to marry a swan-necked Princess whom he had already impregnated...

...Marcello Mastroianni, Gianni Agnelli...

...Despite a torrid affair, Harriman had no intention of divorcing his wife, but he did not love and leave Pamela...

...The quintessential Material Girl...

...I find this hard to believe, but those in the know claim the names Ogden names are merely the tip of the iceberg...

...All, alas, to no avail...

...In an unusual disclaimer in the front of the book, the author, Time contributor Christopher Ogden, explains that he and Pamela set out to tell her titillating tale together, but she got cold feet when she realized that for Little, Brown's multi-million dollar advance, she would be expected to tell all...

...Pamela then launched a dazzling career of sexual dalliances that terrified married women on both sides of the Atlantic and earned her the title "Courtesan of the Century...

...Apparently Pamela, at this point in her European career, was considered soiled goods and not a good candidate for marriage...

...Race, creed or national origin was no impediment for Pamela," writes Ogden...

...After Harriman's death in 1986, she prepared for the future by slimming down, lifting her face, and revamping her coiffure...

...But tellingly, she did not shed the prestigious Churchill surname...

...For a little sport sex, she seduced Aly Khan, the exotic playboy, in the late forties...

...On the prowl again, Pamela moved to Paris and set her sights on another married, wealthy patron, Elie de Rothchild, scion of one of Europe's most distinguished families...

...A glamorous, single-minded, seductive 18-year-old, she quickly eschewed connubial bliss with her impecunious and volatile husband—whom she had married in 1939 just three weeks after meeting him—and set her sights on more celebrated game...

...Some of which paid for Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign and some of which helped elect the senators who would vote to confirm her as ambassador in 1993...

...Without a moment's hesitation, Pamela sped toward the altar...

...Hayward reported that Pamela was great in bed, could do sensational tricks with ice cubes, and asked her to marry him...

...Her illustrious lovers are so numerous they boggle the mind, and Ogden entitles several chapters with their first names...

...The rise of the fair and notorious Pamela, born in 1920, begins more than 50 years ago in the promiscuous years of war-torn London with her brief, tempestuous marriage to Winston Churchill's son Randolph...

...According to a new biography, it took endless scheming and countless liaisons with rich and powerful men BY SANDRA McELWAINE Life of the Party Christopher Ogden, Little, Brown, $24.95 Trust me on this one: If you are a devotee of Vanity Fair, W, or the late, departed Spy, you will undoubtedly become hooked on Life of the Party, an unauthorized biography about the consummate 20th century adventuress, Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman...

...Seeking more fertile, forgiving territory, Pamela chucked the old world for the new and set sail for Manhattan in the early sixties, where, on a blind date, she snagged theatrical producer Leland Hay ward while his wife Slim was out of town...

...Omar Sharif, Aly Khan...

...Their liaison was brief, and at 72, with no man in sight, the merry widow called in her chits and wangled the plum post of ambassador to France...

...Pierce Brosnan, Edward R. Murrow...

...She gave a dinner in her Georgetown house and at Pamela's direction sat the two former lovers at different tables, back to back...

...There was a stipend, supposedly $20,000 a year, for many years to come...

...They quickly rekindled the old flame and were married within six months...

...Graham denies being part of any conspiracy with Pamela, but acknowledges the meeting took place at her house...

...She was never a racist, never anti-Semitic, prejudiced only against boors and bores...

...Christians, Moslems, Jews, atheists, and agnostics: She was an equal opportunity playgirl and eventually sampled them all...

...Mrs...

...The result is mirthless and heavy handed, but Ogden does dish, and he has allegedly enraged the multi-talented Pamela, who through guile and extensive political fundraising now resides in an opulent residence in Paris as U.S...

...Murrow contemplated divorce and proposed marriage, but in the end, like so many of her beaux, he reneged and unceremoniously dumped her...

...Party Girl With the Harriman zillions now in her grasp, Pamela began to transform her image from trophy wife to woman of substance...

...Although Hayward did not meet her usual standards—he was not filthy rich or an international star—he was well connected and, most important, he was ready and willing to ditch his spouse...

...To corral the cocaine-sniffing Italian stallion, Pamela abandoned the Church of England, converted to Catholicism—Agnelli's faith—and had her marriage to Randolph annulled...

...Religion did rear its head, however, in her next relationship, this one with Fiat giant Gianni Agnelli, a leading European bachelor who installed her in a stunning villa in the South of France...

...She subsequently backed out of the deal...

...To put it bluntly, through rat-like cunning and sex...

...So Ogden decided to press on without her, interviewing old lovers and their spiteful wives, former butlers and maids, disgruntled stepchildren, along with friends, unhappy relatives, and a raft of doting political allies...

...You do not need a crystal ball to see the TV miniseries on the horizon: John Forsyth will play Averell Harriman...

...How did this voluptuous young woman with a minimum of education propel herself from the drab countryside of wartime England to the lavish palaces of Europe to the pinnacle of power in the U.S...

...She gave up her British citizenship, steeped herself in political and international issues, joined the Council on Foreign Relations, and became a Democratic fundraiser par excellence, pulling in $12 million for the party in the decade after its 1980 debacle...

...Sandra McElwaine is a Washington writer...

...If you wonder whether an obscure, well bred British country woman can find happiness in the beds of a slew of international power players, the answer is yes...

...She then took up with her first boy toy, J. Carter Brown, chairman of the National Gallery of Art, 14 years her junior...

...Although Ogden had 40 hours of intimate tapes, he says he was happy to pull out, too, until the Queen Mother of the Clinton administration (as New York magazine calls her) imperiously refused to pay him a sou, not even expenses...

...If a man interested her, that was sufficient...

...After Hayward's death in 1970, an ensuing nasty family feud, and a fling with Frank Sinatra—she moved into his house and had to be kicked out—Pamela finally landed her wartime paramour, Averell Harriman, who was now a widower and available at last...

...After Harriman decamped, Pamela dallied with CBS mogul Bill Paley and wealthy socialite Jock Whitney before hooking up with CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, who was married at the time...

...He showered her with gowns, jewels, and antiques for six years before trotting back to his wife and a much younger mistress...