Product Description

The Gilded Leaf is the riveting, dramatic saga of the R. J. Reynolds tobacco family, one of America’s richest and most intensely private clans. R.J. was the original founder of the company that became part of RJR Nabisco, which in 1988 was involved in the largest business takeover in history. Spanning three generations, the Reynolds’s story moves from the triumphs of founder and corporate genius R. J. to the dissipation, scandal, and tragedy that plagued his children and grandchildren. There is a redemptive close, with grandson Patrick Reynolds founding Smokefree America and becoming a leading anti-smoking advocate.

The Gilded Leaf presents, for the first time, a complete account of the family who captured, spent and redeemed the American dream.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #500053 in Books
• Published on: 2006-05-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 382 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Readers of this captivating account of the R. J. Reynolds tobacco clan may need to remind themselves that it is not fiction. There are colorful characters, a family rising from humble be ginnings to attain fabulous wealth and power, scandal and tragedy wrought by excess--and an irony-laden finale. Concentrating on the period from the turn of the century to the present, but going back as far as 1828, Reynolds, grandson of R. J., and Schactman ( The Phony War ) explore the workings of a family whose success was a major contributor to the anguish of some of its members. Among these are Dick Reynolds, quintessential Jazz Age playboy who married four times and died of the combined effects of using alcohol and tobacco; Smith Reynolds, daredevil pilot who flew around the world, married twice and died of a gunshot wound--possibly inflicted by his wife--at age 20; and R. J. (Richard Joshua), shrewd, remarkably civic-minded paterfamilias who built the family fortune. Coauthor-descendant Reynolds has put a nice twist on the family history by becoming a crusader for the anti-smoking movement. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Reynolds, one of the disinherited scions of the great tobacco fortune, and Shachtman, a writer, have penned an engrossing narrative of wealth and woe. The lives and times of the Reynolds family are the stuff of which good pulp novels and bad soap operas are made. Their great wealth (the magnitude of which is truly astounding) did not insulate them from misfortune. Most of the book is concerned with founder R.J.'s son Dick (Patrick's father), who died mysteriously in 1964. Dick was a wildly intemperate man, and his relationships with his six sons are fodder for psychoanalysis. Patrick, now a noted antismoking activist, has created a cathartic book for himself. For the rest of us, it is a lurid, well-written book with timeless lessons in between the lines. Recommended.
- David M. Turkalo, Social Law Lib . , Boston
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Patrick Reynolds is a grandson of R. J. Reynolds, and has become a leading anti-smoking advocate. In 1989, Mr. Reynolds founded the Foundation for a Smokefree America, a nonprofit group whose mission is to motivate youth to stay tobacco free and to empower smokers to quit. For more information, please visit www.anti-smoking.org.

Critically acclaimed author Tom Shachtman has written more than two dozen books and many television documentaries. For more details, see his website, www.tomshachtman.com.

Customer Reviews

Smokin'!
Excellent tale of the Reynolds family. The authors have written a wonderfully engrossing tale of wealth, privilege, tragedy, & heartache. Highly recommended!

A gilded history
I had the opportunity to receive an original hardcover copy of this book some time ago, and was immediately captivated by the story, which indeed plays out more like a fictional novel than the history of a true-life family. This isn't just about how one family developed a tobacco empire, this is about how tobacco has influenced our culture, our way of life, and the very way our country goes about its daily business. Not necessarily disapproving of tobacco in general, Reynolds prefers to simply tell the story and let the actions of the characters, of the company itself, influence the reader's opinion.


Kudos to Booksinprint for putting this book back into print ... it's a welcome keyhole into the private life of one of the country's most influential tobacco barons.

Quite an Eye Opener
This past summer I visited Winston Salem and was given a great tour of the area from a person who's granddaddy was a friend of Dick Reynolds. During the tour he was telling me a lot of the history of the town which I found very fascinating. When he told me that Patrick Reynolds had written a book about the family, I just had to read it. It is hard to believe when you read it that it is a true story as it reads like a novel that would have made one heck of a TV saga. I found it very educational, interesting and very entertaining. I'm so glad I bought it.