This Crazy Thing Called Love: The Golden World and Fatal Marriage of Ann and Billy Woodward

In 1955 Ann Woodward--sleeping-pill addict, ex-model and radio actress--shot to death her husband, Billy, heir to a banking fortune, on their Oyster Bay, N.Y., estate. The beautiful socialite was cleared by a grand jury swayed by a burglar's belated, disputed confession that he was on the Woodward estate that night and so could have triggered an accidental shooting. Braudy ( Who Killed Sal Mineo? ) argues that Ann killed her husband by mistake and rejects as ``myth'' the notion that society matron Elsie Woodward, Ann's mother-in-law, helped cover up a murder for the sake of her grandsons. This investigation of a much-publicized case is not likely to settle the decades-old controversy over whether Ann intentionally shot her husband. Braudy fails to elicit sympathy for Ann as she traces her rise from an impoverished Kansas farm to cafe society and dissects a marriage marked by violent fights, drug dependency and affairs on both sides, including Ann's fling with Prince Aly Khan, Rita Hayworth's fiance. Photos. Literary Guild alternate. (Aug.)