What jewels have the historic Hollywood stars bought and donated? Journalist Beth Bernstein is one of the lucky few who works with what is her passion: jewelry. Beth Bernstein, an American, is also a consultant and expert on the world of gems and jewelry design. And in many years of career he has collected not only images and accumulated experience, but also a series of stories, between the anecdote and the biographical note that he decided to tell in a book, published some time ago.
The volume is titled: If These Jewels Could Talk: The Legends Behind Celebrity Gems. You read in English and are passionate about jewelry, and so it is an unmissable book that contains juicy anecdotes related to jewelry. The book is now on Amazon for € 49.30, is published by Antique Collectors Club and has 254 pages, with illustrations.
Here is an anecdote: while Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were shooting a movie in Rome, the actress suspected that the partner had a flirtation with Sophia Loren. Furthermore, Liz had to undergo urgent appendicitis surgery. Burton then presented himself with a pendant in the shape of a heart, with pavé diamonds, by Van Cleef & Arpels, which soon became one of his favorite pieces, because he was given so much love by Richard.
In the movie High Society, Bing Crosby watches an engagement ring of his ex-wife (on screen) Grace Kelly. “It’s a beautiful stone, Sam,” he says to her fiancé, John Lund. “Do you have a solitaire mine, George?” The ring you see in the film has mounted a 10.47 carat emerald cut diamond by Cartier and it is the engagement ring given to Grace Kelly by Prince Rainier III (we talked about it here). But what most people don’t know about this ring is that it was the second engagement ring for the prince. The first was a ruby with diamonds, but the prince discovered that it would not be enough to win Grace’s heart. Federico Graglia
