What Happened To Their Kids?

Description for WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR KIDS? CHILDREN OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS by Malcolm Forbes with Jeff Bloch:

Why do so many of the world's great leaders and achievers make such terrible parents? Why are the lives of many of Hollywood's children more tragic than any of their parents' movies?

These are among the questions that Malcolm Forbes answers in WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR KIDS? Following the success of THEY WENT THAT-A-WAY, Forbes again looks beyond fame into the family lives of some of the world's most celebrated, loved, or hated rulers, tycoons, stars, artists, and criminals. And once again, the celebrated owner and editor-in-chief of FORBES magazine has unearthed a collection of human stories that are by turns amusing or alarming---always illuminating, surprising, often deeply moving.

Forbes has found the common link between great men such as Winston Churchill, Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and Karl Marx: all men failed as fathers. He tells us all about the illegitimate children of three U.S. presidents, the Tory son of Benjamin Franklin, the wild daughter of John D Rockefeller, and the fate of Charles Lindbergh's other children. Forbes has found out that the rich don't always spoil their children---and spoiled children aren't always bad.

There are "Mommie Dearest" tales, as well as accounts of children who got their revenge. There are some classic ironies: ax-swinging Prohibitionist Carry Nation had an alcoholic daughter, and atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair has an evangelical son. Most of all, there are surprises. The poet Lord Byron had a daughter who played a significant role in the invention of the computer. And Al Capone's son once quit a job as a used-car salesman because his boss wanted him to turn back the odometers.

Forbes has tracked down the children of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, has found a Yugoslav prince who now sells insurance, has traced Queen Victoria's role in spreading hemophilia through the royal houses of Europe, and has accounted for all---well, "most"---of Mormon Brigham Young's 57 offspring...

Not exactly a guide to good parenting, WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR KIDS? nevertheless offers valuable insights into the lives of people who are famous, successful, but rarely thought of as "Mom" or "Dad."