Pushkin It's a cool summer evening in Paris, August 1956.

An American artist called Lee Krasna is at a friend's place.

It was a magnificent apartment with a huge skylight, easels everywhere.

She was completely at home and made the smell of turpentine and Lindsay Doyle.

Paris is Lee's Mecca, the home of modern art.

Now in her late 40s she's finally here.

Looking at what was happening in Paris and who was doing what, who was painting, who was showing, what galleries were, what what galleries were showing what.

But this isn't just a work trip.

Lee was there to recharge her batteries because of a very tricky relationship

with a husband she had left behind in the States.

A turbulent relationship, to say the least, his ego, alcoholism, and now an affair. But a month in Paris has helped take her mind off life back home. That

evening, Lee's relaxed drifting into sleep. And as she settled in on her friend's couch for the night,

about three in the morning, the phone and didn't say anything, but she could tell by the stricken look on his face that something terrible had happened.

Without knowing any of the words on the other end of the phone,

Lee knew exactly what had happened.

And she shouted out,

Jackson'sack.

Her host saw that agony in her face, the absolute pain, and rushed over to her,

held her in his arms for what he described as an endless half hour during which she writhed and

moaned and was in utter agony.

He was actually terrified for her life because their apartment had a balcony and he was afraid

she might do something drastic, you know, that she might try to throw herself off. Later that same day Lee would get on a plane to New York, arrange his funeral and mourn her husband.

...