Bill Clinton has been used sparingly on his wife's campaign trail this year - a decision made by Hillary's managers who believed he might become a distraction.

Turning 70 this past August, Bill has had better and worse days. Some days his hands quiver, some days he looks frail and elderly. Other times he's robust and forceful.

But it's his rumored post-presidency extramarital affairs that led Hillary's campaign to keep him off the schedule.

Author Joe Conason reveals the details of the unending rumors of Bill's multiple lovers over the years in his new book, Bill Clinton: Man of the World, published by Simon and Schuster.

The list includes Belinda Stronach, a divorced Canadian heiress in her forties who held a seat in Parliament; a wealthy, young Canadian woman residing in New York; his divorced blond neighbor, Julie Tauber McMahon who was dubbed 'the energizer' because of her frequent trysts with Clinton; and actress Gina Gershon, who has denied having an affair with the former president.

Stronger together? Bill and Hillary Clinton have lived largely separate lives, partly out of necessity and partly to keep Bill from overshadowing Hillary

Talk of Bill's multiple lovers since he left the presidency abound. One rumor is an affair with Belinda Stronach, a divorced Canadian heiress in her forties who held a seat in Parliament

Bono, Clinton and Gina Gershon backstage at an event. Gershon has denied the rumors of an affair with the former president

Conason writes: ''Much more troubling to Hillary and her closest associates was the constant chatter concerning her husband's alleged extramarital romances, which buzzed in the background - and was always amplified by speculation about her presidential aspirations.

'If he appeared anywhere with an attractive and unattached woman, even in a group photo leaving a restaurant, her name would be 'linked' to him in tabloid columns, as occurred regularly for a while with Belinda Stronach, a divorced Canadian heiress in her forties who held a seat in Parliament.

'He had likewise been "linked" to another wealthy, younger Canadian woman living in NY, to a divorced blond neighbor in Chapeau, even to actress Gina Gershon - not much of a real connection was required to stimulate gossip.'

So when Hillary decided to run for president, she 'carefully distanced herself from aspects of his administration' while she campaigned with or without him.

In the spring of 2006, the author writes, the New York Times assigned reporter Patrick Healy to investigate their marriage and any potential impact on her political career.

'On May, 23, the story appeared above the fold on the paper's front page, under the headline "For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives",' Conason writes.

'Aside from a suggestive mention of Stronach - who had been glimpsed emerged from a Manhattan steak restaurant with Bill Clinton, and about ten other people - the article chronicled, somewhat poignantly, the difficulties of maintaining contact when both partners are exceptionally busy and often traveling.'

Healy contacted 50 Clinton friends, acquaintances and former aides.

His conclusion: 'Mrs. Clinton may be the only Democrat in America who cannot look at Bill Clinton as an unalloyed political asset.'

Triple play: Divorcés Belinda Stronach (left) and Julie McMahon (center) and actress Gina Gershon were rumored to be Bill's paramours

According to Healy, 'on average, they [Hillary and Bill] had spent fourteen days per month in each other company' and had 'constructed largely separate lives, - partly out of necessity and partly to keep Bill from overshadowing Hillary.'

Bill still loved the political game and the challenge by her career but his renewed popularity and comparisons to him created difficulties for her.

And there was the constant chatter of Bill's alleged extramarital affairs along with the scars sustained in the Lewinsky affair.

When Hillary and Bill exited the White House at the end of his second presidential term on Sunday, January 21, 2001, they traveled to their home in Chappaqua, New York, some 40 miles north of New York City.

When they woke the following morning, the former president and first lady had no idea how to prepare breakfast or even make a cup of coffee.

There was no one else available to make it either - even though they had traveled with Chelsea, Terry McAuliffe, chair of the Democratic National Committee, his wife Dorothy, and Doug Band, former deputy assistant to the president.

The first executive decision of Bill's post presidency was to visit the town's local delicatessen to pick up egg sandwiches and strong coffee for their desperately needed caffeine fixes.

At Lange's Little Shop and Delicatessen on King Street, Clinton was met with some cheers but an overwhelming chorus of 'Why did you pardon Marc Rich?'

Rich, now deceased, was an international commodities trader and financier who fled the country after his indictment on charges of widespread tax evasion as well as illegal trading with Iran.

Bill escaped the deli, saying he had to get home to help Hillary unpack.

Marc Rich fled the country after his indictment on charges of widespread tax evasion as well as illegal trading with Iran. He was pardoned by President Clinton

'The newly sworn junior senator from New York stayed inside all day, wisely insulating herself from even the appearance of entanglement in her husband's latest burgeoning crisis,' Conason writes.

'That afternoon, a familiar atmosphere of tension loomed over the house, a feeling that things might be descending once again from bad into much, much worse'.

By the next morning, January 22, Hillary was gone from Chappaqua and returned to Washington with Dorothy McAuliffe,

The rocky road of his post-presidency - as prosecutors believed 'Clinton had made a corrupt bargain to vacate their case against Rich, - wasn't one that Hillary wanted to travel and 'by necessity if not choice, Bill and Hillary led largely separate daily lives ever since she began her service in the Senate,' writes Conason.

Bill spent little time in Washington with Hillary and she only ventured up to Chappaqua two weekends every month at most.

They found time to vacation together usually for a week in August at the home of good friends, actors Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson on Martha's Vineyard, the Massachusetts island just south of Cape Cod.

After their annual summer Labor Day week on Martha's Vineyard in September 2004, Hillary had traveled to upstate Syracuse, 250 miles north of Chappaqua, to the annual state fair. She expected Bill to join her where he often said he 'played the token redneck'.

But he wouldn't be joining her. Back in Chappaqua, Bill had a constricting pain around his rib cage and backache that was dire enough to seek out a local doctor who urged him to proceed to the nearest medical facility.

Physicians at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco discovered two of Bill's main arteries almost totally blocked and he was 'teetering on the edge of a serious and perhaps deadly heart attack'.

Hillary joined him at New York City's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where the life-saving surgery was performed.

The Clintons found time to vacation together usually for a week in August at the home of good friends, actors Mary Steenburgen and Ted Danson on Martha's Vineyard

'After years mostly apart, the Clintons' marriage remained inscrutable even to longtime friends - and an endless source of speculation in the media and among ordinary Americans,' writes the author.

Bill always admired Hillary, depended upon her, and promoted her and while she moved toward her second term as New York's junior senator, she fully emerged from his shadow.

'Despite their marital crises, they had been effective political partners while building a closely knit family around their daughter,' Conason writes.

'Hillary's political prominence sometimes created difficulties for him as a former president and global philanthropy leader.

'Partisan conflict continually risked damage to Clinton as a statesman, by limiting his outreach and diminishing his broad appeal.'

Bill and Hillary certainly came together for Chelsea's wedding to investment banker Marc Mezvinsky in the summer of 2010.

Donald Trump had 'hosted a somewhat reluctant Bill and Hillary at his third wedding in 2005' and wasn't an actual friend of the Clinton's but desperately wanted to be among the chosen at Chelsea's nuptials.

He learned the anticipated star-studded guest list from tabloid gossip columns that included Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Steven Spielberg and Ted Turner - although not one actually did turn up - and he expected an invitation.

He had given Bill free access to his northern Westchester golf club, Trump National, and expected a big favor in return.

Framed photos of the former president proudly hung on the walls of the golf club and Trump had even cleared the links for Clintons once on Bill's birthday.

Surely all this warranted the big invite but when none was forthcoming, he called Doug Band, a close associate of Bill's.

'I'm supposed to be at the wedding, Doug', Trump briskly stated according to Conason. 'But I didn't receive the invitation and I need to know where to go.'

Band suggested he get in touch with Chelsea but after several fruitless attempts to get the go-ahead, Trump gave up.

Ugly descriptions of the Clintons 'belied his copiously documented, sometimes obsequious efforts to befriend them - with donations to the foundation and to Hillary's campaigns, with free membership at his golf courses for Bill, and with the praise he had lavished on both of them in previous interviews', according to Conason.

The signed photographs of the former president that once adorned the clubhouse walls of Trump National were taken down in 2016.

But when Hillary's term as Secretary of State was over in 2013, her exit from office was just as tumultuous as Bill's had been from the White House.

She found herself in a room at New York Presbyterian Hospital on New Year's Eve 'imbibing blood thinners to dissolve a clot in a blood vessel just behind her right ear and dangerously close to her brain'.

The clot made its appearance the December before after she contracted a stomach virus in Egypt where she fainted from dehydration and injured her head.

She had suffered a blood clot in one of her knees years earlier but she wasn't considered to be deathly ill.

'After 401 days spent traveling to 112 countries, logging 956,733 air miles or the equivalent of three full months airborne, she was simply very, very tired,' Conason writes.

'I just want to sleep and exercise and travel for fun and relax…I'd like to see whether I can get untired,' she confessed to the New York Times.

But she was back in the race for president three years later with months of travel and speeches facing her.