BY MARIA RECIO, ANNA M. TINSLEY, DAVE MONTGOMERY AND AMAN BATHEJA
Star-Telegram staff writers
Houston socialite Joanne King Herringwas made for Hollywood.
Sure enough, the onetime Houston TV talk show host, an honorary consul of Morocco and Pakistan in the U.S., confidante of rich and powerful men, and fierce anti-communist powerhouse was played by no less than A-list actress Julia Roberts. The 2007 movie based on the bestselling Charlie Wilson’s War gave Herring a larger international platform than ever.
But now it’s Herring’s turn to tell her story. In a riveting new book, Diplomacy and Diamonds, the glamorous Texan dishes: She stored rare Cristal rose champagne … under her bed. She became BFF with a Saudi princess who loved Herring’s 22-carat diamond ring. She and the late Rep. Charlie Wilson, D-Lufkin, partied in Venice and, mistaken for movie stars, they signed autographs as Zsa Zsa Gabor and Gary Cooper.
But she also shows who’s “queen of Texas,” as her European royal chums called her. Herring can’t bring herself to mention Fort Worth belly dancer Carol Shannon, her rival for Wilson and a player in securing an arms deal, by name. Instead, Herring calls Shannon simply “the belly dancer.”
