biography jackie kennedy

Biography Online

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Biography

She is remembered for her contributions to the art and refurbishment of the White House. During her husband’s short-lived presidency, she was a great asset helping to gain the admiration of the press and public opinion.

Short Bio Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

“We should all do something to right the wrongs that we see and not just complain about them.”

– Jacqueline Kennedy

Jacqueline was born in New York to a wealth stockbroking family. Her family were wealthy, Catholic and Republican. Though, when she met her future husband John, she was willing to switch political allegiances, taking little interest in actual political ideologies.

She gained a degree in French Literature from the George Washington University, in Washington D.C. During her degree, she spent a year in France. After graduating, she was hired as a photojournalist for the Washington Times-Herald. She was also a leading light of the local social circles – attending many high profile social engagements. It was at such dinner parties that she met then Senator John F Kennedy . They shortly became engaged and married in 1953 in Newport, Rhode Island. Speaking about her husband, she said:

“He was, she says, kind, conciliatory, forgiving, a gentleman, a man of taste in people, furniture, books.” (NY Times, 1964)

Shortly after her marriage, Jacqueline suffered a miscarriage and then her first daughter was born stillborn. She had another three children, the last of whom died aged just two years old. Her two children who survived childhood were Caroline Bouvier Kennedy and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Jacqueline_Kennedy after State Dinner 1962

In 1960, John F. Kennedy ran for the presidency with Lyndon Johnson as VP. Jacqueline did not play an active role in his campaign because she was pregnant during the election. But, she did support her husband from her home by answering letters and giving interviews for TV and newspapers.

After a hard-fought campaign, John F Kennedy won a small majority – narrowly defeating Richard Nixon, and becoming the youngest President of the modern era. Jacqueline was also the youngest first lady, and she helped bring a refreshing glamour to the White House. She became responsible for organising social events, and she took great interest in refurbishing the White House, trying to give a greater sense of history to the famous building.

In a highly popular TV programme, Jacqueline invited TV cameras for a guided tour of the White House. This proved a great public relations exercise and the video was sent to over one hundred countries boosting support for America in the cold war. Speaking about the positive reaction to the White House tour, she said:

“Suddenly, everything that’d been a liability before–your hair, that you spoke French, that you didn’t just adore to campaign, and you didn’t bake bread with flour up to your arms–you know, everybody thought I was a snob and hated politics. … I was so happy for Jack, especially now that it was only three years together that he could be proud of me then. Because it made him so happy–it made me so happy. So those were our happiest years.” (NY Times interview, 1964)

Her social charm and grace endeared herself to the public and also visiting leaders. For example, when the Russian Premier, Khrushchev visited, he made a point of wanting to shake the hand of Jacqueline before her husband.

In 1961, the Kennedy’s made a very popular visit to France. Jacqueline was in her element as she could speak French and her sense of fashion and charm (especially her pillbox hats) endeared her to the French public and the French leader Charles de Gaulle . At the end of his visit, John F. Kennedy wryly remarked:

“I do not think it altogether inappropriate to introduce myself to this audience. I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it.”

Jacqueline had stolen the show, but the visit was helpful for the overall image of the Kennedy presidency.

In the summer of 1963, the couple suffered the loss of another child – Patrick. He was born prematurely and died two days after birth. This was a devastating event which brought the couple closer together.

However, it was on November 22nd that Jacqueline’s life was forever changed by the assassination of her husband, John F Kennedy during an open car tour of Dallas, Texas. Her stoicism and dignity in the light of the shocking tragedy was a defining image of this traumatic event in American history. She later said:

“He didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights… it had to be some silly little Communist. ”

The marriage was not greeted with much enthusiasm by the American press, who felt they were losing their Jacqueline to a foreign billionaire; Jacqueline endured a rare bout of public criticism. After the marriage, she was also hounded by paparazzi photographers which caused her much distress.

In 1975, Aristotle Onassis died, leaving Jacqueline, a widow for the second time. She spent some time working for a publisher. She also campaigned for the arts and preservation of American heritage. In the 1970s, she played a leading role in saving the Grand Central Terminal in New York from demolition.

In 1991, she met the Clintons and helped the campaign of Bill Clinton for the White House; she also advised Hilary Clinton on how to raise a child in the White House.

Jacqueline died in May 1994 from a form of cancer. She left an estate valued at $200, to her two children Caroline and John. She remains one of the most popular first ladies, a

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan .  “ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Biography” , Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net. 11th Feb 2013. Updated 10th February 2017.

The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at Amazon

Mrs. Kennedy and Me

Mrs. Kennedy and Me at Amazon

Related pages

• Female Biographies

Biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, First Lady

• Important Figures
• History Of Feminism
• Women's Suffrage
• Women & War
• Laws & Womens Rights
• Feminist Texts
• American History
• African American History
• African History
• Ancient History and Culture
• Asian History
• European History
• Latin American History
• Medieval & Renaissance History
• Military History
• The 20th Century
• B.A., Mundelein College
• M.Div., Meadville/Lombard Theological School

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier; July 28, 1929–May 19, 1994) was the wife of John F. Kennedy , the 35th President of the United States. During his presidency, she became known for her fashion sense and for her redecoration of the White House. After the assassination of her husband in Dallas on November 22, 1963, she was honored for her dignity in her time of grief; she later remarried, moved to New York, and worked as an editor at Doubleday.

Fast Facts: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

• Known For: As the wife of John F. Kennedy, she was the first lady of the United States.
• Also Known As: Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, Jackie O.
• Born: July 28, 1929 in Southampton, New York
• Parents: John Vernou Bouvier III and socialite Janet Norton Lee
• Died: May 19, 1994 in New York, New York
• Education: Vassar College, George Washington University
• Spouse(s): John F. Kennedy (m. 1953-1963), Aristotle Onassis (m. 1968-1975)
• Children: Arabella, Caroline, John Jr., Patrick

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in East Hampton, New York, on July 28, 1929. Her mother was socialite Janet Lee, and her father was John Vernou Bouvier III, a stockbroker known as “Black Jack.” He was a playboy from a wealthy family, French in ancestry and Roman Catholic by religion. Her younger sister was named Lee.

Jack Bouvier lost most of his money in the Depression, and his extra-marital affairs contributed to the separation of Jacqueline’s parents in 1936. Though Roman Catholic, her parents divorced and her mother later married Hugh D. Auchincloss and moved with her two daughters to Washington, D.C. Jacqueline attended private schools in New York and Connecticut and made her society debut in 1947, the same year she began attending Vassar College .

Jacqueline’s college career included a junior year abroad in France. She completed her studies in French literature at George Washington University in 1951. She was offered a job for a year as a trainee at Vogue, spending six months in New York and six months in France. At the request of her mother and stepfather, though, she refused the position. Jacqueline began working as a photographer for the Washington Times-Herald.

Meeting John F. Kennedy

Jacqueline met John F. Kennedy, the young war hero and congressman from Massachusetts, in 1952, when she interviewed him for one of her assignments. The two began dating, became engaged in June 1953, and married in September at St. Mary’s Church in Newport. There were 750 wedding guests, 1,300 at the reception, and some 3,000 spectators. Her father, because of his alcoholism, was unable to attend or walk her down the aisle.

In 1955, Jacqueline had her first pregnancy, which ended in a miscarriage. The next year another pregnancy ended in premature birth and stillborn child, and soon after her husband was bypassed for an expected nomination as the Democrat Party's vice presidential candidate. Jacqueline’s father died in August 1957. Her marriage suffered because of her husband’s infidelities. On November 27, 1957, she gave birth to her daughter Caroline. It was not long before Kennedy was running for the Senate again, and Jackie—as she was fondly known—took part in that, though she still disliked campaigning.

While Jackie’s beauty, youth, and gracious presence were an asset to the campaigns of her husband, she only reluctantly participated in politics. She was pregnant again when he was running for president in 1960, which allowed her to bow out of active campaigning. That child, John F. Kennedy, Jr ., was born on November 25, after the election and before her husband was inaugurated in January 1961.

As a very young first lady—only 32 years old—Jackie Kennedy was the subject of much fashion interest. She applied her interests in culture to restoring the White House with period antiques and inviting musical artists to White House dinners. She preferred not to meet with the press or with various delegations that came to meet with the first lady—a term she disliked—but a televised tour of the White House was very popular. She helped get Congress to declare White House furnishings government property.

Jackie maintained an image of distance from politics, but her husband sometimes consulted her on issues and she was an observer at some meetings, including of the National Security Council .

The White House announced in April 1963 that Jackie Kennedy was again pregnant. Patrick Bouvier Kennedy was born prematurely on August 7, 1963, and lived only two days. The experience brought John and Jackie Kennedy closer together.

November 1963

Jackie Kennedy was riding in a limousine next to her husband in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, when he was shot. Images of her cradling his head in her lap as he was rushed to the hospital became part of the iconography of that day. She accompanied her husband’s body on Air Force One and stood, still in her bloodstained suit, next to Lyndon B. Johnson on the plane as he was sworn in as the next president. In the ceremonies that followed, Jackie Kennedy, a young widow with children, figured prominently as the shocked nation mourned. She helped plan the funeral and arranged for an eternal flame to burn as a memorial at President Kennedy’s burial site in Arlington National Cemetery. She also suggested to an interviewer, Theodore H. White, the image of Camelot for the Kennedy legacy.

After the Assassination

After the assassination, Jackie did her best to maintain privacy for her children, moving to an apartment in New York City in 1964 to escape the publicity of Georgetown. Her husband’s brother Robert F. Kennedy stepped in as a role model for his niece and nephew. Jackie took an active role in his run for the presidency in 1968.

After Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June, Jackie married Greek tycoon Aristotle Onassis on October 22, 1968—many believe to give herself and her children an umbrella of protection. However, many of the people who had admired her so much in the aftermath of the assassination felt betrayed by her remarriage. She became a constant subject of tabloids and a constant target for paparazzi.

Career as an Editor

Aristotle Onassis died in 1975. After winning a court battle over the widow’s portion of his estate with his daughter Christina, Jackie moved permanently to New York. There, though her wealth would have supported her quite well, she went back to work, taking a job with Viking and later with Doubleday and Company as an editor. She was eventually promoted to senior editor and helped produce bestselling books.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis died in New York on May 19, 1994, after a few months of treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and was buried next to President Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery. The nation’s depth of mourning stunned her family. A 1996 auction of some of her belongings, to help her two children pay inheritance taxes on her estate, brought more publicity and significant sales.

Jackie Kennedy is one of the United States' most iconic first ladies, consistently topping polls of the nation's most beloved and influential figures. As a style icon, she helped popularize long gloves and pillbox hats, and she continues to inspire couture designers today. She has been depicted in the films "Thirteen Days," "Love Field," "Killing Kennedy," and "Jackie."

A book written by Jacqueline Kennedy was found among her personal effects; she left instructions that it not be published for 100 years.

• Bowles, Hamish, ed. "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years: Selections from the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum ."  Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2001.
• Bradford, Sarah. "America's Queen: A Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis." Penguin, 2000.
• Lowe, Jacques. "My Kennedy Years . " Thames & Hudson, 1996.
• Spoto, Donald. "Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life." Macmillan, 2000.
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Quotes
• Biography of Caroline Kennedy
• Who Was Aristotle Onassis, Jackie Kennedy's Second Husband?
• The 10 Most Influential First Ladies
• America's First Ladies: From Martha Washington to Today
• 10 Things to Know About John F. Kennedy
• The Aftermath of John F. Kennedy's Assassination
• President John F. Kennedy's Assassination
• Biography of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the U.S.
• Biography of John F. Kennedy Jr.
• Lady Bird Johnson
• John F. Kennedy Printables
• Martha Washington - America's First First Lady
• Famous Mothers in History: Ancient Through Modern
• Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States
• Biography of Barbara Bush: First Lady of the United States

What can we help you find?

While we certainly appreciate historical preservation, it looks like your browser is a bit too historic to properly view whitehousehistory.org. — a browser upgrade should do the trick.

Main Content

Jacqueline Kennedy

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York, to parents John and Janet Bouvier. She and her younger sister, Caroline, grew up in Manhattan. During her childhood, Jacqueline learned French, practiced ballet, and took horseback riding lessons. 1

She enrolled at Vassar University in 1947 and studied abroad in Paris, France, before transferring to George Washington University, where she earned a degree in French literature in 1951. 2 After college, Jacqueline worked as a photographer for the Washington Times Herald .

In 1952, she met up-and-coming Congressman John F. Kennedy, and the couple married on September 12, 1953. They divided their time between Washington, D.C. and Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, while raising their children Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr. In the 1950s, Jacqueline supported John F. Kennedy’s political aspirations, which culminated in his election to the presidency in 1960.

In January 1961, the Kennedys moved into the White House. Despite her short time there, Jacqueline Kennedy made a profound impact on the home and the role of first lady. She immediately set her sights on preserving the historic integrity of the White House. In 1961, she created the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, made up of specialists in the field, and hired Lorraine Waxman Pearce as the first curator of the White House. That same year, the first lady also established the White House Historical Association, a private, non-profit organization to assist with acquisition and preservation efforts. Kennedy spearheaded efforts to make the White House a museum, protected by Congress, and renovated many rooms. She expanded the White House Collection, searching for historic pieces from past administrations, and published the first White House Guidebook.

To share these efforts with the public, CBS News broadcast the first televised tour of the White House in 1962, led by the first lady. Over eighty million viewers around the world watched, and Mrs. Kennedy earned a special Emmy Award for the program. 3 Jacqueline Kennedy also organized efforts to save Lafayette Park and its historic buildings from demolition, successfully preserving it for future generations. 4

Despite her busy schedule, motherhood was Mrs. Kennedy’s priority, and she made several changes to make the White House more comfortable for her family. She set up a school room in the Third Floor Solarium for Caroline Kennedy’s kindergarten classmates and created a nursery for John Jr. in the Residence. Sadly, she and President Kennedy lost a child, Patrick, born prematurely in August 1963.

Her influence as first lady also stretched beyond the White House. Jacqueline Kennedy traveled abroad several times as first lady, visiting the countries of India, Pakistan, Venezuela, Italy, and the United Kingdom, among others. 5 Following a trip to France in 1961, she successfully negotiated for Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to travel to the United States, and millions of Americans visited the famous painting in Washington, D.C. and New York City in early 1963. 6 Indeed, the Kennedy White House was a cultural center, and ballet, musical performances, opera, and theater filled its halls.

Tragically, the Kennedys’ time in the White House was cut short. On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning for re-election in Dallas, Texas. Mrs. Kennedy planned his State Funeral to imitate President Abraham Lincoln’s almost a century earlier. 7

After leaving the White House, she moved with her children to New York City, and in 1968, Jacqueline married Greek businessman Aristotle Onassis. She only returned to the White House once more. She and her children secretly visited on February 3, 1971, to view the recently completed portraits of herself and President Kennedy at the invitation of President Richard Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon.

Jacqueline participated in the creation of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, Massachusetts and attended the dedication ceremony on October 20, 1979. Following the death of her second husband, Jacqueline became an editor for Doubleday. She also continued to advocate for historic preservation, fighting to save Grand Central Station in New York City. 8 She spent her final years with her long-time partner, Maurice Tempelsman. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died on May 19, 1994, at the age of sixty-four. She is buried next to President Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery.

Footnotes & Resources

• “LIFE OF JACQUELINE B. KENNEDY,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum , https://www.jfklibrary.org/lea... .
• “Jacqueline Kennedy’s Emmy Award,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum , https://www.jfklibrary.org/med... .
• “The “First Neighborhood”: Presidents and Preservation in Lafayette Park,” National Park Service , https://www.nps.gov/articles/l... .
• “JACQUELINE KENNEDY IN THE WHITE HOUSE,” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum , https://www.jfklibrary.org/lea... .
• See Margaret Leslie Davis, Mona Lisa in Camelot (Washington, D.C.: White House Historical Association).
• “John F. Kennedy Funeral,” White House Historical Association , https://www.whitehousehistory.... .
• Angela Serratore, “The Preservation Battle of Grand Central,” Smithsonian Magazine , June 26, 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com... .

Related Information

• John F. Kennedy

Portrait Painting

You might also like.

The 2023 White House Christmas Ornament

Every year since 1981, the White House Historical Association has had the privilege of designing the Official White House Christmas Ornament. These unique collectibles — honoring individual presidents or specific White House anniversaries — have become part of the holiday tradition for millions of American families. In this collection, explore the history behind our 2023 design and learn more about President Gerald R. Ford. Buy

U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies

Featuring Anita McBride, founding member of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education and co-author of U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies

The History of Wine and the White House

Featuring Frederick J. Ryan, author of “Wine and the White House: A History" and member of the White House Historical Association’s National Council on White House History

America’s Irish Roots

Featuring Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States

Washington National Cathedral & the White House

Featuring Very Reverend Randolph Hollerith and Reverend Canon Jan Naylor Cope

A Discussion with the Voices of Lafayette Park

Featuring Hilary West, Executive Director for Federal Government Relations at JPMorgan Chase, and Royce L. Dickerson, MBA Candidate at the University of Alabama’s Manderson Graduate School of Business

The 2021 White House Christmas Ornament

Every year since 1981, the White House Historical Association has had the privilege of designing the Official White House Christmas Ornament. These unique collectibles — honoring individual presidents or specific White House anniversaries — have become part of the holiday tradition for millions of American families. In this collection, explore the history behind our 2021 design and learn more about President Lyndon B. Johnson.Buy

Native Americans and the White House

Native Americans hold a significant place in White House history. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples, including the Nacotchtank and Piscataway, lived in the Potomac Valley prior to the construction of the White House. Since that time, Native Americans have come to the Executive Mansion to share their cultural heritage, meet with presidents, protest, and advocate for Indigenous rights. In

The Decatur House Slave Quarters

In 1821-1822, Susan Decatur requested the construction of a service wing. The first floor featured a large kitchen, dining room, and laundry; while the second floor contained four rooms designated as living quarters. By 1827, the service wing was being used as an urban slave quarters. Henry Clay brought enslaved individuals to Decatur House, starting a trend that was solidified by

The Nixon White House 1969 - 1974

On January 20, 1969, Richard Nixon was inaugurated as the thirty-seventh president of the United States. During his time in the White House (1969–74), President Nixon sought to unite a divided nation after the social, political, and cultural turbulence of the 1960s. Before becoming president, Nixon served in the U.S. Navy, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and as

Presidential and First Lady Portraits

Since 1965, the White House Historical Association has been proud to fund the official portraits of our presidents and first ladies, a long-standing tradition of the White House Collection. Recent presidents and first ladies typically select their respective artists before leaving the White House and approve the portraits before their formal presentation to the public and induction into the collection. The

The 2022 White House Christmas Ornament

Every year since 1981, the White House Historical Association has had the privilege of designing the Official White House Christmas Ornament. These unique collectibles — honoring individual presidents or specific White House anniversaries — have become part of the holiday tradition for millions of American families. In this collection, explore the history behind our 2022 design and learn more about President Richard Nixon. Buy the

Mobile Menu Overlay

The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC 20500

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier   Kennedy

First Lady Jacqueline Lee “Jackie” (Bouvier) Kennedy Onassis was a symbol of strength for a traumatized nation after the assassination of one the country’s most energetic political figures, President John F. Kennedy, who served from 1961 to 1963.

The inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961 brought to the White House and to the heart of the nation a beautiful young wife and the first young children of a President in half a century.

She was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, daughter of John Vernon Bouvier III and his wife, Janet Lee. Her early years were divided between New York City and East Hampton, Long Island, where she learned to ride almost as soon as she could walk. She was educated at the best of private schools; she wrote poems and stories, drew illustrations for them, and studied ballet. Her mother, who had obtained a divorce, married Hugh D. Auchincloss in 1942 and brought her two girls to “Merrywood,” his home near Washington, D.C., with summers spent at his estate in Newport, Rhode Island. Jacqueline was dubbed “the Debutante of the Year” for the 1947-1948 season, but her social success did not keep her from continuing her education. As a Vassar student she traveled extensively, and she spent her junior year in France before graduating from George Washington University. These experiences left her with a great empathy for people of foreign countries, especially the French.

In Washington she took a job as “inquiring photographer” for a local newspaper. Her path soon crossed that of Senator Kennedy, who had the reputation of being the most eligible bachelor in the capital. Their romance progressed slowly and privately, but their wedding at Newport in 1953 attracted nationwide publicity.

With marriage “Jackie” had to adapt herself to the new role of wife to one of the country’s most energetic political figures. Her own public appearances were highly successful, but limited in number. After the sadness of a miscarriage and the stillbirth of a daughter, Caroline Bouvier was born in 1957; John Jr. was born between the election of 1960 and Inauguration Day. Patrick Bouvier, born prematurely on August 7, 1963, died two days later.

To the role of First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy brought beauty, intelligence, and cultivated taste. Her interest in the arts, publicized by press and television, inspired an attention to culture never before evident at a national level. She devoted much time and study to making the White House a museum of American history and decorative arts as well as a family residence of elegance and charm. But she defined her major role as “to take care of the President” and added that “if you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.”

Mrs. Kennedy’s gallant courage during the tragedy of her husband’s assassination won her the admiration of the world. Thereafter it seemed the public would never allow her the privacy she desired for herself and her children. She moved to New York City; and in 1968 she married the wealthy Greek businessman, Aristotle Onassis, 23 years her senior, who died in March 1975. From 1978 until her death in 1994, Mrs. Onassis worked in New York City as an editor for Doubleday. At her funeral her son described three of her attributes: “love of words, the bonds of home and family, and her spirit of adventure.”

The biographies of the First Ladies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The First Ladies of the United States of America,” by Allida Black. Copyright 2009 by the White House Historical Association.

Learn more about Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy’s spouse, John F. Kennedy .

Stay Connected

We'll be in touch with the latest information on how President Biden and his administration are working for the American people, as well as ways you can get involved and help our country build back better.

Opt in to send and receive text messages from President Biden.

Also Available for Jackie Kennedy: Bibliography     Timeline     Juvenile Biography     Lesson Plans     MSS

• Privacy Policy

The Museum will close early on Sunday, June 9, 2024 at 2:00 p.m. and will reopen for regular admission on Monday, June 10, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.

Role of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Planning for the building of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum began in December 1963, in the sad days following the death of President Kennedy. From the start, it was the dream of  Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis  that the library would be a place where people could search for historic truth, learn more about politics and government, and reflect on the need to serve the public in some way. She wanted the building itself to be a magnificent work of art celebrating the energy, grace, dignity and boldness that John Kennedy, and those associated with him, brought to the world of politics and public service.

In a 1964 statement on the plans for the Kennedy Library, Mrs. Onassis wrote:

My husband had looked forward to retiring to his library at the end of his time in Washington. Now he will not see the building to be erected in his name. But his parents and brothers and sisters and I all look on it as his most fitting memorial. Because John Kennedy was so involved in life, his library will be not just a repository of papers and relics of the past. It will also be a vital center of education and exchange and thought, which will grow and change with the times. John Kennedy believed strongly that one's aim should not be the most comfortable life possible—but that we should all do something to right the wrongs we see—and not just complain about them. We owe that to our country, and our country will suffer if we don't serve her. He believed that one person can make a difference—and that every person should try. I hope that in the years to come many of you and your children will be able to visit the Kennedy Library. It will be, we hope, not only a memorial to President Kennedy but a living center of study of the times in which he lived, which will inspire the ideals of democracy and freedom in young people all over the world. His library will be your library, for when the building is completed it will be turned over to the government and become the property of the people of the United States forever."

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis played a major role in the selection of I.M. Pei to be the architect of the Kennedy Library. At an early meeting, Mr. Pei explained to Mrs. Onassis, somewhat apologetically, that as a relatively young architect he had not worked on monumental projects. Mrs. Onassis, nevertheless, chose him. He seemed to her so filled with promise and he had the imagination and temperament to create a structure that would reinforce her vision of the goals of the library.

When a site in Cambridge for the Kennedy Library proved to be impractical, Mrs. Onassis joined in the search for a new location. She was tremendously pleased with the selection of Columbia Point in Dorchester, because of the symbolism of having the facility near the childhood home of John Kennedy's mother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and, most importantly, because of the beauty of the adjacent harbor and the love that President Kennedy had for the ocean.

Mrs. Onassis was deeply involved in two new programs of the recently-formed Kennedy Library. The library created the first large oral history project ever undertaken by a presidential library. The goal of this bold endeavor was to record the recollections of members of the administration and those who knew and worked with the president. The program succeeded, in large part, because it had the constant encouragement and full support of Mrs. Onassis.

The acquisition of the papers of Ernest Hemingway was designed to expand the scope of the Kennedy Library's work. "Nothing would have pleased my husband more," Mrs. Onassis said when the gift was announced in 1968, "because this collection of papers will do much to fulfill our hope that the library will become a center for the study of American civilization in all its aspects in these years."

Through the years, her support for the Hemingway Collection remained strong. She was a guest of honor at the opening of the Hemingway Room at the Kennedy Library in 1980. When the Friends of the Hemingway Collection was organized in 1989, she became a charter member and served on the advisory board. In 1990, she participated in the International Hemingway Conference. At her intercession, the Hemingway Foundation Award, for the best first work of fiction published in the United States, was established as an annual event at the Kennedy Presidential Library.

Mrs. Onassis quietly shared the joy of all those associated with the library when the facility was dedicated on October 20, 1979 at a ceremony attended by President Jimmy Carter and members of President Kennedy's family. She had done so much to make it possible, yet she recognized that the work was not complete. In 1984 she joined in the creation of the Kennedy Library Foundation, and became, with Senator Edward Kennedy, an honorary chairperson of the board of directors.

In 1987, Caroline Kennedy was elected president of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. Mrs. Onassis continued to participate actively in library events, while constantly encouraging members of her family and her friends to expand their efforts in helping her initial dreams for the Kennedy Library become reality.

In October, 1993 Mrs. Onassis participated in the opening of the new museum at the Kennedy Library. She very proudly acknowledged the work that Caroline Kennedy and her husband, Edwin Schlossberg, had done in designing a set of exhibits that would provide people of all ages—but especially young people—with a better understanding of the dramatic events and decisions of the 1960s and a realization of all that can be accomplished through courageous political leadership.

• Search Please fill out this field.
• Manage Your Subscription
• Give a Gift Subscription
• Newsletters
• Sweepstakes

Past Loves & Secret Disguises: The Biggest Bombshells from a Colorful New Jackie Kennedy Biography (Exclusive)

'Jackie: Public, Private, Secret' shares previously untold details of Jackie's personal life, including her relationship with a former lover, architect Jack Warnecke, and her feelings about Madonna's brief fling with JFK Jr.

Bettmann Archive/Getty

There was always more to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis than the life she led in public. According to a new biography —  Jackie: Public, Private, Secret  by J. Randy Taraborrelli — exclusively excerpted in this week's issue of PEOPLE, there is still much more to her discover.

In the book, Taraborrelli shares new details of Jackie's private life, including her relationship with former lover, architect  Jack Warnecke , and how she really felt about a brief dalliance between her son, John F. Kennedy Jr ., and Madonna .

Below, Taraborrelli discusses some of the biggest bombshells from the book.

Jackie's Mom Initially Wanted JFK to Marry Her Younger Daughter, Lee

While it was Jackie who would go on to marry John F. Kennedy in 1953, her mom, Janet Bouvier, initially thought that her younger daughter, Lee, might be a better fit for the future president.

John was a young senator from Massachusetts, and Jacqueline Bouvier a "camera girl" and reporter for the  Washington Times-Herald , when she — and her sister, Lee — met JFK at a party at the Kennedy's Palm Beach estate.

"JFK and Lee actually got along better than Jackie and JFK," Taraborrelli tells PEOPLE. "And Janet felt that Jackie [who was four years older than Lee] needed to get settled. Lee did not need to get settled yet."

In the end, Jackie's marriage to JFK was a decision not entirely based on a love connection, but as Taraborrelli puts it, on "Which one needed to get settled?"

"And when you think about it, it's mind-blowing that in that moment, Janet decided it was going to be Jackie. And that decision changed everything for those two girls," he says.

JFK and Jackie  announced their engagement  on June 24, 1953, and tied the knot  at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island, in September 1953.

Getty Images 

Jackie's Second Husband Was at the White House the Night of JFK's Funeral

While it's been previously reported that on the night of JFK's funeral, Aristotle Onassis spent the night at the White House, Taraborrelli writes that the shipping tycoon also visited Jackie in her private quarters that evening.

At the time, Onassis was dating Jackie's sister, Lee. But according to Taraborrelli, after the assassination, "he called Jackie and said that he was in town for the funeral and was staying at a hotel. And she felt like she had no choice but to invite him to the White House."

Ultimately, Onassis stayed in the spartan living quarters of a White House staff member — a detail which left Lee allegedly "mortified," Says Taraborrelli: "She felt like Ari was going to be very upset. But Onassis was the kind of guy who could really make the best of most any situation."

Onassis didn't attend the funeral. Instead, he stayed at an empty White House, where even the phone operators had left to attend the service.

That evening, after the service, Taraborrelli writes that according to two sources, Onassis was "seen knocking on Jackie's door." But, he left the room within the hour, and, says Taraborrelli, "I can't imagine the grief Jackie was going through. I don't think anything happened between them at that moment."

Jackie Dated a Greek Film Director After Her Second Husband's Death

Jackie tied the knot for a second time with Greek shipping magnate  Aristotle Onassis in Oct. 1968, a marriage that ended when Onassis died  in March 1975 of respiratory failure.

After his death, Jackie dated Greek film director Michael Cacoyannis, a short-lived romance that ended when the Zorba the Greek director said he wanted her to stop working.

Initially, Cacoyannis had become friendly with Onassis, though the two suffered a falling out until Jackie attempted to mend their relationship.

"When Onassis was on his deathbed, Jackie wanted Michael and Ari to have a reconciliation," Taraborrelli says. "So she asked Michael to go to Onassis, to his deathbed, and reconcile with him. And they did."

After Onassis died, Jackie moved to New York and got a call from Cacoyannis, asking, "What if you and I get together?"

"According to the people that we talked to, she had a leaning toward Michael, because he reminded her of Onassis," Taraborrelli says. "He was Greek, he had the same sensibility; she missed Onassis ... so they ended up having an affair."

Then Jackie got an offer to work at the publishing house Viking Press, where she would make $200 per week. Michael — shocked that she would take a meager offer when she had inherited millions from Onassis — told her, "Greek women don't work, and I don't want you to work. ... You have to choose between this job and me."

According to Taraborrelli, Jackie confided in Onassis' sister Artemis, that the choice, for her, was easy. "When a man makes you choose between him and something else and you choose him, you're in trouble," she said.

Jackie Attended One of Madonna's Plays (in Disguise) During John F. Kennedy Jr.'s Brief Fling with the Pop Star

As Taraborrelli details, Jackie was not happy to discover that her son was having a fling with pop megastar Madonna in the 1980s. And while it's been rumored that Jackie's main issue with the pop star was her resemblance to Marilyn Monroe (a rumored paramour of her late husband's), the real issue was much less superficial.

"[Jackie's] problem with [Madonna] was that she was married," Taraborrelli tells PEOPLE, adding that Jackie was also "confounded by Madonna's penchant for attention. Jackie had spent her entire celebrity life avoiding paparazzi, whereas Madonna would court paparazzi. And Jackie just couldn't understand any of that."

Despite his mother's reservations, JFK Jr. at one point asked his mom to attend one of Madonna's plays — and she complied, albeit, in disguise.

"I interviewed somebody who worked with Jackie at Doubleday, who said that she went with Jackie to the show; that Jackie wore a red wig so that she wouldn't be recognized," Taraborrelli says. "She put the wig on, and she asked this woman, 'How do I look?' And the woman said, 'You look just like Jackie Onassis in a red wig.'"

According to the author, Jackie drew the line, however, at meeting the musician backstage: "She thought Madonna was good in the show. But she also felt like she didn't want to validate the relationship that John had with Madonna by being photographed."

Gibson Moss / Alamy Stock Photo

Jackie Had a Loving — and Years-Long — Relationship with Architect John Warnecke

While it has been written that Jackie began dating architect Jack Warnecke , whom she had hired to design her late husband's eternal flame memorial at Arlington National Cemetery, in 1964, many aren't aware that the two shared such a deep connection.

"They were together for four years and they were really very important to each other," says Taraborrelli. "And she really did love him, and he really was crazy about her."

Warnecke shared some of his memories with Taraborrelli in a 1998 interview, but with one caveat. Out of loyalty to the famously private Jackie, Warnecke asked that everything remain under wraps until a decade after his death. He died in 2010, when he was 91.

As Taraborrelli writes in his book, the architect planned to propose to Jackie during a 1966 trip to Hawaii, but the couple broke it off when Warnecke admitted that he was deep in debt.

Ron Galella/Getty

Still, the two remained close. Years later, in the final months of her life, Jackie would receive a Valentine’s note from her former lover. The note lead to a reunion at her apartment several months before her death on May 19, 1994, from non-Hodgkin lymphoma at age 64.

From the book: "In [our] 1998 interview, Jack said, 'As I took my seat, Jackie handed me a stack of envelopes neatly tied together with yarn. My presence that evening was part of a ritual. Every night that week, she was inviting a trusted friend or family member to her home to take part in it.

"Jackie untied the yarn and took a letter from the stack. She read it before placing it into the fire. He recalled, 'There were letters from Jackie’s children, John and Caroline ... There were also letters from Jack Kennedy,  Aristotle Onassis , her father, Jack Bouvier and even a few from me.' She held one of the photographs and stared at it. It was her and Jack [Kennedy] on the day of his inauguration. 'Keep this for me, will you?' she asked."

According to Warnecke's daughter, Margo Warnecke, there's still more to discover. "My father left behind an unpublished memoir: Camelot's Architect,: Life, Modern Architecture and the Kennedy's," she notes. "It's part memoir, part love story. The memoir charts his life from his first encounter with JFK as a senator in 1956, to helping him preserve and redesign Lafayette Square, to the magical social scene and being an intimate of the president and his court, to JFK's assassination and designing his grave, to his long romantic relationship with Jackie and all the excitement, intrigue and personalities in-between."

Related Articles

• History Classics
• Your Profile
• Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window)
• Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window)
• This Day In History
• History Podcasts
• History Vault

10 Things You May Not Know About Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

By: Evan Andrews

Updated: October 12, 2023 | Original: July 28, 2014

1. She worked as a reporter and photographer.

After attending Vassar University, the Sorbonne and George Washington University, Onassis got her first job working as a reporter for the Washington Times-Herald in 1952. As the paper’s “Inquiring Photographer,” the future first lady roamed the streets of the nation’s capital asking strangers their opinions on everything from personal finance (“Do you approve of joint bank accounts?”) to politics and relationships (“Do you think a wife should let her husband think he’s smarter than she is?”). Among the many people she interviewed was Richard Nixon, the man John F. Kennedy would later defeat in the 1960 presidential election.

2. She was briefly engaged to another man before marrying John F. Kennedy.

Before ever going on her first date with Kennedy, Onassis very nearly married another man. In January 1952, the society pages of the Washington Times-Herald announced her engagement to a Yale grad, World War II vet and Wall Street banker named John Husted. The 22-year-old Onassis soon began having doubts about the match, and supposedly expressed reservations about becoming a housewife. In March 1952, she abruptly called off the wedding. Only a few months later, she began dating Kennedy—then a U.S. congressman—after meeting him at a dinner party. The two were married in September 1953.

3. She was both admired and criticized for her fashionable clothing.

Onassis was one of the defining fashion trendsetters of the 1960s. American women eagerly sought out the famous “Jackie look,” and department stores scrambled to produce affordable imitations of her sleek, classy dresses. Nevertheless, her chic sensibility was often a point of contention. Her obsession with pricy French couture was criticized during the 1960 presidential campaign, and after she became first lady, the Kennedy camp worried her taste for foreign clothing could make the family seem out of touch. To solve the problem, her father-in-law, Joseph Kennedy, helped pair her with American-based designer Oleg Cassini. Cassini went on to design more than 300 of Onassis’ most iconic outfits, and later dubbed himself the First Lady’s “Secretary of Style.”

Watch the three-episode documentary event, Kennedy . Available to stream now.

4. She launched a massive renovation of the White House.

Shortly after Kennedy won the 1960 presidential election, Onassis turned her famous eye for style toward overhauling the shabby décor of the White House. After burning through her $50,000 budget in a matter of days, she created the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, courted private donors and went to work acquiring pieces of historically significant furniture from museums and collectors. She soon transformed the presidential mansion into a more elegant space adorned with antiques and artifacts once owned by the likes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. In February 1962, she gave a famous televised tour of the renovated White House to Charles Collingwood of CBS-TV. The performance won her a special Emmy Award, and helped cement her celebrity status.

5. She opened a school in the White House.

Despite her own background as a reporter, Onassis strived to shield her two children from the media during her time in the White House. When press scrutiny and security concerns made it difficult for her young daughter Caroline to travel into the city, Onassis turned the White House’s third floor solarium into a nursery school and invited other kids—some of them children of Kennedy administration staff—to attend. The school later grew into a fully operational kindergarten complete with around 10 students, professional teachers and even a small collection of rabbits, guinea pigs and other animals.

6. She spoke multiple languages.

Onassis was a lifelong student of foreign cultures, and became fluent in French, Spanish and Italian during her school days and European travels. Her facility with languages often proved a valuable asset to her husband’s political career. She translated French books on Southeast Asia for Kennedy when he was still in the Senate, and later wowed campaign audiences by speaking French to voters in Louisiana and Spanish in Texas. Following a 1961 visit to France, where Onassis won over the public with her ability to speak the local tongue, her husband jokingly introduced himself as “the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris.” President Lyndon Johnson—no doubt conscious of her fluency in Spanish—later considered making her the U.S. ambassador to Mexico.

7. She refused to change her bloodstained pink dress on the day of the JFK assassination.

On November 22, 1963, Onassis was sitting alongside her husband when he was killed by an assassin’s bullet while traveling in an open car through Dallas. Her iconic pink wool suit was spattered with blood, but the stunned first lady continued wearing the garment even during Lyndon Johnson’s swearing in as the new president. Lady Bird Johnson asked if she wanted a fresh outfit, but Onassis supposedly declined, saying, “Oh no, I want them to see what they’ve done to Jack.” The bloodstained suit is now held in the National Archives, but its matching pillbox hat was lost on the day of the assassination and has never been recovered.

8. She was the first to refer to the Kennedy administration as 'Camelot.'

In an interview with Life Magazine a week after her husband’s death, Onassis described his love for “Camelot,” a musical based on the popular Arthurian novel “The Once and Future King.” She noted that the president enjoyed playing a recording of the musical’s title song, which featured the line, “Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment, that was known as Camelot.” After quoting the lyrics, Onassis went on to say, “There will be great presidents again, but there will never be another Camelot.” The interview proved hugely popular, and “Camelot” soon became shorthand for the myth and glamour of the Kennedy administration.

9. She won a famous court case against a member of the paparazzi.

Following her 1968 marriage to Greek billionaire Aristotle Onassis, “Jackie O” became a favorite target of the paparazzi. Her most persistent admirer was Ron Galella, a notorious photographer who spent several years trailing her through the streets of New York to get candid snaps of her daily life. In 1973, Onassis sued the paparazzo for harassment and invasion of privacy. After a high profile trial, she won a court order forbidding him to step within 25 feet of her or 30 feet of her children. Galella paid little attention to the injunction, and even began carrying a measuring tape so he could ensure he wasn’t breaking the law. He only gave up his pursuit in the 1980s, after Onassis took him to court a second time.

10. She was a successful book editor.

Onassis had literary ambitions from an early age, and following Aristotle Onassis’s death in 1975, she moved to New York to pursue a career as a book editor. The former first lady started out as a consulting editor at Viking Press before moving to Doubleday, where she worked as a senior editor until her death in 1994. During her time in the publishing world she had a hand in several popular books including the Michael Jackson autobiography “Moonwalk,” Larry Gonick’s “The Cartoon History of the Universe” and translations of Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz’s “Cairo Trilogy.”

HISTORY Vault: U.S. Presidents

Stream U.S. Presidents documentaries and your favorite HISTORY series, commercial-free

Sign up for Inside History

Get HISTORY’s most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week.

By submitting your information, you agree to receive emails from HISTORY and A+E Networks. You can opt out at any time. You must be 16 years or older and a resident of the United States.

More details : Privacy Notice | Terms of Use | Contact Us

Find anything you save across the site in your account

The Making of Jackie Kennedy

By Thomas Mallon

Less than a decade before she became the world’s most photographed woman, Jacqueline Bouvier regularly worked behind a camera for the Washington Times-Herald , soliciting opinions from the capital’s ordinary residents and taking their pictures. “ Camera Girl ,” Carl Sferrazza Anthony’s new biography of the young Jackie, illuminates this portion of her life; the chapter titled “Inauguration” does not take a reader to the snowy, ask-not-what, pillbox-hatted noontime of January 20, 1961, but to the day, eight years earlier, when Dwight Eisenhower assumed the Presidency. That afternoon, Jackie was on assignment for the paper, writing a feature about the people who had turned out for Ike’s parade. That night, she attended an inaugural ball as a guest of the new Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy .

The real business of her evening was conducted during a cocktail party at Kennedy’s house. The senator’s friend Lem Billings told Miss Bouvier that anyone who married Jack would “have to be very understanding” about how he “had been around an awful lot” and “known many, many girls.” However delicately put, the message was as clear as a declaration that the United States intended to remain in Berlin: Kennedy’s bride should expect him to continue cultivating and maintaining a vast array of female alliances.

Discover notable new fiction and nonfiction.

“Camera Girl” (Gallery) makes plain that the young Jackie was clever and educable, a woman who preferred her own curricula—books, socializing, and travel—to anything imposed by the schools that she attended. Two years at Vassar, in Poughkeepsie, left her unimpressed. Anthony offers some shaky evidence that she may have been expelled for breaking curfew, but the likelier explanation for her departure was that she’d spent her junior year at the Sorbonne, through a Smith College study-abroad program, without Vassar’s permission.

It was in postwar Paris, Anthony writes, that Jackie perfected a knowledge of “how to be ‘on,’ to make an intentional impression, to invent herself into a character.” She acquired a small Leica camera and brought it on her travels throughout France, subordinating schooling to adventure, though she managed to do fine at both. On June 9, 1950, she wrote to her mother:

I’ve had three of my four exams already and all went quite well. My international relations one was on the opposing policies of Austria-Hungary and Russia in the Balkans from 1900-1914. The night before I got in from . . . the biggest ball of the season in Paris in this beautiful old 17th century house on the Ille-St.-Louis . . . I got in at 6 a.m. and had the exam from 8:30 a.m. till noon, then went out to lunch . . . quite a day, but I knew all about the Balkans!

No wonder she didn’t want to go back to Poughkeepsie. Her mother didn’t want her to, either, but only out of bitter opposition to Jackie’s father, who craved her return. Janet Norton Lee and John (Black Jack) Bouvier had been divorced for a decade, and Jackie was an asset that they continually contested. Janet, living outside New York, worried that Jackie would fall into Black Jack’s Manhattan orbit after graduating from Vassar; he had invited Jackie to live with him and promised her a job on Wall Street. When his daughter left the school, Bouvier was “crushed,” unaware that in this instance Jackie welcomed her mother’s manipulation. His relatives believed that the defeat accelerated his drinking and self-isolation, though he had been in decline, financially and otherwise, since the mid-nineteen-thirties, when his brand of venturesome stock-brokering was reined in by the man Franklin Roosevelt appointed to be the first S.E.C. chair, Joseph P. Kennedy.

Janet, however, was unyielding. Jackie, accustomed from an early age to her mother’s rages, once pronounced her to be scarier than Stalin. Janet never stopped phonying up her Irish ancestry into something more Waspish and aristocratic. (Jackie was never so flagrant, but when fame arrived she clearly didn’t mind the American public believing that she was more than one-eighth French.) Janet eventually found stability in her union to the quiet and very wealthy Hugh Auchincloss, and she urged each of her daughters to focus on making a prosperous marriage, even if it was as dull as her own. When Jack Kennedy came along, Janet did not like his line of work, preferring Jackie’s first fiancé, a young Wall Streeter named John Husted, until she found out how little money of his own Husted had to manage.

After coming home from France in the late summer of 1950, Jackie again fell under Janet’s control. She decided to complete her undergraduate degree as a French-literature major at George Washington University, then an unexceptional, racially segregated school, much overshadowed by Georgetown. Many G.W. students were commuters, but Jackie was the only one who made the daily trip from Merrywood, an estate across the Potomac which Hugh Auchincloss had purchased in 1930. G.W., now more residential, has a Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis dormitory on I Street, with a bas-relief of young Jackie on a plaque by the front entrance.

From 1950 to 1951, she was serious about her studies, but not enough absorbed by life at the school to have her yearbook picture taken; one finds no trace of her in the 1951 Cherry Tree . Two years after Jackie’s graduation, Joseph P. Kennedy’s publicist included the Sorbonne but not G.W. in a press release announcing Miss Bouvier’s engagement to his son. The desired effect was of a balanced marital ticket: an old Continental family, the Bouviers, soldering its quiet sort of glamour to the Kennedys’ arriviste kind.

During her year at G.W., Jackie set her heart on winning Vogue’s Prix de Paris contest, which promised six months of training in the magazine’s New York offices and a return to Paris, this time as a junior editor. Anthony gives a detailed account of the rigorous application process—round after round of writing essays and critiquing layouts—and he establishes the zealous flair of Jackie’s approach. “I could be a sort of Overall Art Director of the Twentieth Century,” she wrote to the judges, “watching everything from a chair hanging in space.” The biographer forgives his subject a bit of résumé finagling and a couple of small lies deployed in order to secure a deadline extension.

Jackie won the contest, went up to Manhattan, and was photographed for the magazine by Richard Routledge. (His picture is the basis for that G.W. bas-relief.) But, in the end, she turned down the prize. Janet, who wanted to prevent the proximity to Black Jack that would come with those six months in New York, insisted. Jackie sent her mother a dead snake inside a hatbox, but she knuckled under all the same.

In October, 1951, Jackie got a job at the Washington Times-Herald , after Auchincloss asked the columnist Arthur Krock to put in a good word for his stepdaughter. Krock had been instrumental, years before, in getting the paper to hire Jack Kennedy’s wartime girlfriend Inga Arvad, and also his favorite sister, Kathleen (Kick) Kennedy. Anthony goes so far as to say, not implausibly, that Jackie’s working at the Times-Herald “would inevitably evoke memories of the two women who had meant more to Kennedy than any others—a significant factor in Jack Kennedy’s early perception of her.” Again, Jackie’s commute began from Merrywood, which—Anthony doesn’t mention—was built, in 1919, for Newbold Noyes, Sr., a co-owner of the venerable Washington Evening Star , one of the Times-Herald’s competitors.

Frank Waldrop, the editor who hired Jackie, later recalled, “I’d seen her type. Little society girls with dreams of writing the great American novel, who drop it the minute they find the great American husband.” Yes and no. Though Anthony doesn’t depict it, mid-nineteen-fifties Washington was a lively place for aspiring newswomen eager to buck the prejudices and the odds. Selwa (Lucky) Roosevelt, who had been Jackie’s classmate at Vassar, was married to Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson Archie, a C.I.A. agent, when she began writing a well-connected column for the Star called “Diplomatically Speaking.” In her memoirs, she writes, “Until then, society reporters simply described the food, flowers, decor, clothes, and entertainment, and gave a complete list of guests. They did not look for the political or international implications of who was there and who wasn’t, who spoke to whom and who didn’t.” Nancy Dickerson, a young CBS radio and television producer before she became a famous on-air correspondent, made both a notable career and—from the viewpoint of someone like Janet Auchincloss—a financially enviable marriage. In 1964, she and her husband, a businessman, bought Merrywood. When it came to literary talent and professional longevity, the most distinguished of the era’s women journalists was the resolutely single Mary McGrory, who—except for the composition of a few political profiles—spent years on the Star’s book-review desk before being allowed to write sharp, stylish commentary about the Senate during the Army-McCarthy hearings, in 1954.

Seeking the same sort of break during her early days at the Times-Herald , Jackie chased after Princess Elizabeth, hoping to produce a feature when the future monarch came to Washington. She was unsuccessful, but the princess’s visit brought an unexpected opportunity. Waldrop assigned Jackie to the rotating, uncredited “Inquiring Photographer” slot, and she decided to ask six of the paper’s photographers, “Is Princess Elizabeth as pretty as her picture?” The column was soon hers, with a byline, and renamed “Inquiring Camera Girl.” Her twenty-month run with it is the charming and surprisingly informative heart of Anthony’s book.

Jackie took thumbnail pictures of her subjects with a big, heavy Speed Graflex, which she learned to use at the Capitol School of Photography. “Published six days a week,” Anthony explains, “the column averaged 144 individual interviews monthly—a total of nearly 2,600 people by the time she left the job.” Jackie occasionally persuaded celebrities and personal acquaintances—even John Husted and “Mummy”—to take a crack at answering the queries she invented for the column. They ranged from the silly (“Why do you think so many people crack corny jokes in elevators?”) to the semi-profound (“What are people most living for?”) and the oddly prescient (“Are women’s clubs right in demanding Marilyn Monroe be less suggestive?”). She sought respondents across class and racial lines, and when she wasn’t asking about things in the news (Christine Jorgensen’s gender-transition surgery) she sometimes posed questions that were on her own mind.

Anthony does nice work, without fetching too far, when he ties the column’s subject matter to Jackie’s biographical time line. Around the time of Husted’s proposal, she asked interviewees, “Should a girl pass up sound matrimonial prospects to wait for her ideal man?” Later on, when things got more serious with Kennedy, her questions followed suit: “Can you give me any reason why a contented bachelor should get married?” and “The Irish author, Sean O’Faolain, claims that the Irish are deficient in the art of love. Do you agree?” As she experienced a bit of Kennedy’s 1952 Senate campaign, she asked, “Should a candidate’s wife campaign with her husband?” Her low moods and her frustrations with Waldrop were occasional subtexts; Anthony notes that the editor “threatened to fire her when she asked pedestrians what local newspaper they liked best and printed responses that chose the competition.”

There was wit to what she did, and it earned her the chance to write bigger pieces, illustrated with her own ink sketches, not only on Eisenhower’s inaugural but also on Princess Elizabeth’s coronation. In June, 1953, Kennedy sent a telegram to his fiancée in London—“ ARTICLES EXCELLENT—BUT YOU ARE MISSED” —his “second and final courtship ‘love letter,’ ” according to Anthony.

The political calculations that went into his family’s approach to the marriage can make the Windsors’ vetting of Lady Diana Spencer seem quick and humane. Anthony writes that Gore Vidal—another Auchincloss stepchild, from an earlier marriage—remembered Jackie saying that Jack and Joe and Bobby “spoke of me as if I weren’t a person, just a thing, just a sort of asset, like Rhode Island.” But Jackie wanted what she knew she was getting into. Anthony astutely conveys the couple’s “mutual ambition” and shared emotional reticence: “Jackie was similarly unwilling to fully express her feelings, making them a comfortable match.” Kennedy blamed his chilly mother for his own “inability to easily express emotion,” a deprivation to which his bride could relate. Both had also grown up with fierce but feeling fathers. Jackie liked Joe from the start, and she knew exactly how to relate to the old shark—“You ought to write a series of grandfather stories for children, like, The Duck with Moxie”—a skill that excited envy in her future sisters-in-law.

Anthony has made a career of First Ladies, with writings ranging from the anecdotal to the deeply researched; his lengthy, surprising biography of Florence Harding appeared in 1998. With Jackie, he tries to avoid hagiography, but, more than a bit smitten, he sometimes fails, as when he mistakes a little mastery of conventional wisdom for “a deep discernment about the creative process.” He displays a desire to make the most—which is to say, too much—of a research report that Jackie prepared for Kennedy in 1953 on the French war in Indochina, presenting it as the cornerstone of a great moral partnership, whereas Jackie herself remembered it mostly as a tedious exercise in translation. Nonetheless, Anthony likes to believe that, as she worked, “in her imagination . . . Jackie was in the streets of Saigon and the rice fields near Hanoi.”

The title “Camera Girl,” drawn from her column’s rubric, implies the importance of images to Anthony’s book. He starts with a chapter about how, in mid-1949, “employing their enmity to her advantage,” Jackie extracted from each of her parents more than the amount of money she needed to buy the camera she wanted to take to France. Though Anthony places a lot of emphasis on this “little Leica,” he includes, among the dozens of photographs in the book, very few images that Jackie might have taken with it.

It is reasonable for the author to resist lunging too frequently into the future, but readers will inevitably project themselves forward into the next phases of Jackie’s life, when she became almost subordinate to the representations made of her by others: the photographs of Jacques Lowe; the 8-mm. frames of Abraham Zapruder; the silk screens by Warhol ; the shots by the paparazzo Ron Galella , her tormentor on the streets of Manhattan. Galella died last year, but his Web site still carries an account of how he took “the most purchased, most recognized, most talked about, most significant photo [he] ever captured,” the one he called “Windblown Jackie,” in October, 1971. He was in a taxi at the corner of Madison and Ninetieth, and Jackie turned to face him in response to the driver’s honking. “It’s a superior picture,” Galella wrote, “like DaVinci’s most famous painting, the Mona Lisa .” When Galella kept at it, a “furious Jackie” asked him, “Are you pleased with yourself?”

She can be forgiven for forgetting a time when she was the hunter and not the game. Frank Waldrop put her on probation for ambush-interviewing two of President-elect Eisenhower’s young nieces on their way home from school. That happened a few years after a museum guard chased her out of a gallery at the Louvre when he saw her taking pictures of “DaVinci’s most famous painting.” Jackie wished, Anthony says, “to disprove the popular myth that the eyes of the Mona Lisa were always gazing directly back at the person looking at her.” The angry guard asked, “Who do you think you are?” She didn’t yet know, but she was steadily moving toward an answer. ♦

New Yorker Favorites

First she scandalized Washington. Then she became a princess .

What exactly happened between Neanderthals and humans ?

The unravelling of an expert on serial killers .

When you eat a dried fig, you’re probably chewing wasp mummies, too .

The meanings of the Muslim head scarf .

The slippery scams of the olive-oil industry .

Critics on the classics: our 1991 review of “Thelma & Louise.”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

Books & Fiction

By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

By Neal Katyal

By David Remnick

By Bill McKibben

By Justin Chang

Why Jacqueline Kennedy Didn't Take Off Her Pink Suit After JFK Was Assassinated

Jackie clutched her husband after he was shot

On November 22, 1963, Jackie was seated next to her husband in an open-top limousine driving through Dallas. She looked eye-catching in a pink suit (though often described as Chanel, the suit was actually an authorized replica made in New York so Jackie wouldn't be criticized for shopping overseas). Then shots were fired. One hit her husband's back and exited via his throat. Another tore through JFK's head. As Jackie grappled with what was happening, blood and gore seeped into her outfit.

Jackie clutched her husband on the way to Parkland Memorial Hospital, attempting to tend to his mangled head. John's vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson , had been in a separate vehicle in the same procession, and he and wife Lady Bird proceeded to the hospital as well. Lady Bird later described how she "saw, in the president's car, a bundle of pink, just like a drift of blossoms, lying on the back seat. I think it was Mrs. Kennedy, lying over the President's body."

Though they were separated as doctors tried to save the president, Jackie quickly returned to her husband's side. She even kneeled on the blood-covered floor to pray. However, given the severity of JFK's injuries, doctors soon stopped working on him. A priest offered last rites; the time of death was marked as 1:00 p.m.

Jackie left her bloody suit on to 'let them see what they've done'

Jackie stayed next to her husband's casket as they drove to Air Force One, where Johnson — now the president — and his wife were already onboard. On the plane, Jackie found a change of clothes waiting for her. She wiped off her face, but would later recall for a Life magazine writer: "One second later, I thought, 'Why did I wash the blood off?' I should have left it there; let them see what they've done."

With this in mind, Jackie opted not to change her clothes, even as she agreed to be present as Johnson took the official oath of office. The former first lady had always understood the power of imagery to convey messages. By showing up in her bloody outfit, she reminded everyone there, and everyone who would later see photos from the ceremony, of the slain president.

Air Force One soon took off for Washington, D.C. Jackie went to sit near her husband's casket, still in her bloody outfit. When offered the option to descend from the plane without being photographed, she again insisted, "We’ll go out the regular way. I want them to see what they have done."

Jackie said that JFK did not 'have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights'

Right-wing opponents abhorred the fact that Kennedy was Catholic, disliked his proposal for Medicare and hated his support for integration. Approximately 5,000 copies of a flyer that stated Kennedy was "WANTED FOR TREASON" were distributed around Dallas before his visit. Given this, much of the nation initially assumed that a far-right component must have been responsible for his assassination.

Jackie likely shared this belief, as she'd seen for herself how disliked her husband was by some. On the day of his assassination, an anti-JFK ad in the Dallas Morning News asked why he was being "soft on Communism?" After taking in the ad, Kennedy had said to Jackie, "We’re really in 'nut country' now."

These political enemies may have been the intended recipients for Jackie's message of "I want them to see what they've done." When she later learned that Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested for her husband's assassination, she reportedly said, "He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It's — it had to be some silly little Communist."

The first lady kept her composure, even when recounting what happened

Jackie's refusal to change her clothes wasn't solely about projecting an image. After accompanying Kennedy's body to Maryland's Bethesda Naval Hospital for a required autopsy, she was no longer on public display. She also had time to change out of her blood-soaked outfit while waiting in the on-site presidential suite. Yet she continued to refuse to do so.

Instead, at Bethesda Jackie began to relive the trauma she'd experienced. She'd already told Robert Kennedy , who'd joined her after Air Force One landed, what had happened in Dallas in that limousine and afterward. Now she repeated the story, over and over, to the friends and family who'd gathered around her. She also recalled another recent loss: the death of her premature son, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, less than four months earlier.

Jackie never lost control as she replayed the devastation she'd endured. But amidst this trauma, changing her outfit was the last thing she wanted to contemplate.

The outfit is stored in the National Archives

Jackie remained at Bethesda until around four in the morning when her husband's body was ready. She then accompanied him back to the White House. After his casket was placed in the East Room, she went to her room and finally removed her outfit.

Her maid, shocked by the state of Jackie's clothes, placed the items in a bag. Months later, Jackie's suit, blouse, stockings, and shoes, all still stained with blood, were sent to the National Archives. Her outfit has been stored there ever since.

In 2003, Caroline Kennedy made a deed of gift of her mother's clothes. However, she stipulated the outfit not be placed on display for 100 years; in 2103, Kennedy heirs and archivists can revisit the issue of a public showing. Until then, Jackie's pink suit is preserved in a carefully controlled environment, a symbol of one of the worst days in her life and in U.S. history.

Watch Next .css-smpm16:after{background-color:#323232;color:#fff;margin-left:1.8rem;margin-top:1.25rem;width:1.5rem;height:0.063rem;content:'';display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;}

Assassinations

The Manhunt for John Wilkes Booth

Indira Gandhi

Alexei Navalny

Martin Luther King Jr.

James Earl Ray

Malala Yousafzai

Who Killed JFK? You Won’t Believe Us Anyway

Lee Harvey Oswald

John F. Kennedy

Abraham Lincoln

Princess Diana's death haunted John F. Kennedy Jr.'s wife before couple's tragic plane crash: book

Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy was haunted by Princess Diana’s death a few years before her own death.

On Aug. 31, 1997, the Princess of Wales died from injuries she sustained in a car crash. She was 36.

That summer, a group of paparazzi camped outside the Hotel Ritz in Paris in hopes of getting shots of Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed. They pursued their car to the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, where their driver, who attempted to outrun the photographers, lost control of the vehicle.

All three perished. Diana’s bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, suffered severe facial trauma.

JOHN F. KENNEDY JR. AND CAROLYN BESSETTE WERE WORKING ON THEIR MARRIAGE BEFORE TRAGIC PLANE CRASH, BOOK CLAIMS

Like Diana, the wife of John F. Kennedy Jr. grappled with relentless photographers eager to scrutinize her every move. Elizabeth Beller, author of a new biography, "Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy," told Fox News Digital Diana’s tragic death affected the Calvin Klein publicist during her final years.

READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP

"She realized right away that Diana was being chased by paparazzi, and that was something Carolyn was struggling with herself every single day," said Beller. "Diana’s death left a profound mark on her. She was already terrified, but Diana’s death terrified her even more. I believe it led her to seclude herself at home."

A "rattled" Bessette-Kennedy urged her husband to call Diana’s sons — Prince William and Prince Harry — to give his condolences. 

The lawyer and magazine publisher was all too familiar with losing a parent so suddenly. His father, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963. Kennedy Jr. turned 3 years old at his father’s funeral.

"She suggested John offer his condolences to William and Harry," said Beller. "Diana’s death affected John too. He didn’t know them, but it wasn’t an outlandish thing to do. The Kennedys had been around the royal family . There was a monument to JFK in London. There are photos of Little John holding Prince Philip’s hand. The families were very much intertwined, even if John didn’t know William and Harry personally."

Despite his wife’s urgency, Kennedy Jr. never called the grieving princes.

"It sounded like something John would have been quick to do, but I think he, too, was so rattled by Diana’s death and realizing it was because of the paparazzi," Beller explained. "He also realized how much it frightened Carolyn. It was too much for him in his life. And seeing someone deal with their parent being mourned in a public way was, I think, overwhelming for him and everything he had been through.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT NEWSLETTER

"It was unusual for him, but he stepped back," Beller continued. "Some George [magazine] staffers mentioned they had discussions that they needed to run something about Diana’s death . John missed the first meeting about it. He was upset, understandably so."

Beller said Bessette-Kennedy reportedly wondered if she would suffer a similar fate. At the time, the couple was being hounded by photographers outside their Tribeca home in New York City.

According to Beller’s book, Bessette-Kennedy kept commenting "those poor boys" to her husband, referring to William and Harry. However, Kennedy Jr. insisted that "their situations greatly differed."

"I was able to lead a normal life from about the age of 5," he said, as quoted in Beller’s book.

Beller said it’s likely Kennedy Jr. may have regretted not reaching out to the princes.

"They struggled with the news," Beller said of the couple. "It was a difficult summer."

LIKE WHAT YOU’RE READING? CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENTERTAINMENT NEWS

Beller said, at the time, the press depicted Bessette-Kennedy as "a harpy" who was "manipulative and controlling." But those who knew and loved her insisted she was anything but.

"She was described as a caretaker," said Beller. "She tried to always be a helper to the people in her life. She would go out of her way to make someone comfortable. … There was this misconception because paparazzi would catch [the couple] outside abruptly and go wild if they saw them arguing. Unfortunately, their argument in Washington Square Park was etched in stone. … But that’s not who she was.

"We all know couples fight," said Beller. "Maybe both have tempers. But I think if couples don’t fight, you’re not living in the same house. I think the public assumed that every moment between them was toxic because of a fight they saw on video. That’s just not the case. They had many, many, many more times together where they laughed and enjoyed one another. They helped each other grow."

But a happily ever after wasn’t meant to be. On July 16, 1999, the couple was killed when a plane, piloted by Kennedy Jr., crashed into the waters off of Martha’s Vineyard. Her sister Lauren Bessette, who was with them, also died.

Beller said, before the tragedy, Kennedy Jr. "really did try to protect" his terrified wife from the paparazzi, who refused to leave her alone.

"He asked them to back off. It interfered with everything," said Beller. "They did not leave her alone. They camped out every single day. It became another thing they had to contend with between the press and all the outside forces in their lives. … God knows people are struggling with many larger things in this world, but I think when you’re doing it in a fishbowl and everyone’s watching you, it just adds this extra pressure. And she brought her vulnerabilities to it. The media scrutiny just exacerbated any tension.

"Celebrities often break because of the intense media scrutiny," Beller reflected. "I hope that, this time, the media can be kinder and gentler. We’re at a very interesting juncture right now with the media, AI and the internet, which can sort of get to this toxic herd mentality. But we’re also at a juncture where we have a chance to do better. … It’s the only way to move forward."

Original article source: Princess Diana's death haunted John F. Kennedy Jr.'s wife before couple's tragic plane crash: book