Thomas Sancton

New Orleanian Tom Sancton was the longtime Paris Bureau Chief for Time magazine, where he wrote more than 50 cover stories. He has also written for Vanity Fair, Fortune, and other leading magazines. In 1998, he co-authored the international bestseller Death of a Princess (St. Martin’s), on the circumstances surrounding Princess Diana’s death. His latest work, The Bettencourt Affair (Dutton), describes the scandal surrounding the world’s richest woman, L’Oréal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, 94, and the much younger protégé on whom she bestowed nearly a billion dollars—until Liliane’s daughter sued him for elder abuse. A Rhodes Scholar who studied at Harvard and Oxford, Sancton has taught creative writing at Tulane University and now lives mainly in France. Under the stage name Tommy Sancton, he is also a well-known jazz clarinetist with more than a dozen albums to his credit. In 2014, the French government named him a Chevalier (Knight) in the Order of Arts and Letters.