In 1980, Cecil Beaton personally chose Hugo Vickers to be his biographer, entrusting him with his diaries and the entire body of letters he had written over the course of his life. Drawing on five years of intensive research and interviews with the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Truman Capote, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Sir John Gielgud, Vickers' biography was an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1985. Exploring Beaton's metamorphosis from being the child of a staid middle-class family to an international photographer and fashion plate mingling with the glittering stars of his age, the biography also details his great love for Greta Garbo, and reveals his private sense of failure that the success he always wanted—as a playwright—eluded him.