Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
Born	July 28, 1929 Southampton, New York, USA
Died	May 19, 1994 (cancer) (age 64) New York, New York, USA
Occupation	First Lady of the United States, later Doubleday editor
Predecessor	Mamie Eisenhower
Successor	Lady Bird Johnson
Spouse	John F. Kennedy (1953-1963) Aristotle Onassis (1968-1975)
Children	Arabella, Caroline, John, Patrick
Parents	John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Norton Lee Bouvier (Auchincloss Morris)

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was first the wife of John F. Kennedy whom she married in 1953 and was known as Jacqueline Kennedy or Jackie Kennedy. She served as First Lady of the United States from 1961 until 1963 when she was widowed. In 1968, she married Aristotle Onassis and was known as Jacqueline Onassis, Jackie Onassis, or more informally as Jackie O. She preferred her first name to be pronounced in the French fashion (IPA: /ʒa'klin/). She was also a style setter in the 60's.

[edit] Family and early life

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born at Southampton Hospital in Southampton, New York, into New York society. She was the elder daughter of John Vernou Bouvier III (1891–1957) and Janet Norton Lee Bouvier (Auchincloss Morris) (1907–1989).

Her name commemorated both sides of her family ("Jackie" celebrating three generations of "Jacks" on her father's side and "Lee" celebrating the surname of her maternal grandparents).

In attempts to get on the social register both sides of her family were to make exaggerations about her heritage with Bouviers making claims she descended from the royal Fontaines in France and the Lees declaring she was part of the "Virginia Lees."^[1] She was of mostly Irish, Scottish, and English descent; her French paternal ancestry is distant, with her last French ancestor being Michel Bouvier, a Philadelphia-based cabinetmaker who was her great-great-grandfather.

Jacqueline was joined by a sister, Caroline Lee, in 1933. Her father, nicknamed "Black Jack", was a playboy stockbroker whose womanizing led to his eventual divorce from Janet when Jackie was a young girl. While Black Jack never remarried, Janet married as her second husband, Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. (In her later years, she married Bingham Morris.)

Jacqueline spent summers of her first 12 years at the estate of her paternal grandparents called Lasata in East Hampton where she became an accomplished equestrienne competing with her favorite horse Danceuse, meaning "female dancer" in French.

After her parents' formal divorce in 1942 and her mother's remarriage, she was to continue her equestrienne activities at the Auchincloss's Hammersmith Farm.

She loved reading, painting, writing poems, and shared a warm relationship with her father. Her relationship with her mother, though, was often distant.

[edit] Education, introduction to society and first job

• 1935-1942 The Chapin School -New York City- Kindergarten and grammar school
• 1942-1944 Holton Arms School- Washington D.C.- grammar school and first year of high school.
• 1944-1947 Miss Porter's School - Farmington, Connecticut- High School
• 1947-1949 Vassar College- Poughkeepsie, New York- Freshman and Sophomore years of College
• 1949-1950 University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne- Paris, France -Junior year abroad program through Smith College
• 1950-1951 George Washington University- Washington, D.C. - 4th year of college. Graduated with a B.A in French Literature
• 1954 Georgetown University- Georgetown, Washington D.C. American History Continuing Education Classes^[2]

While Jackie was at Vassar, she was named "Debutante of the Year" for the 1947–48 season.

In 1951, Jacqueline took her first job as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for The Washington Times-Herald. Her job was to ask witty questions of the people she met in Washington, D.C. The questions and amusing responses would then appear alongside the interviewee's photograph in the newspaper. One of Jacqueline's subjects for this assignment was a young Massachusetts Senator: John F. Kennedy.

[edit] Kennedy marriage

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her official White House portrait by Aaron Shickler, 1970

Jacqueline was engaged to a young stockbroker, John Husted, in December 1951. In courting, Jackie had commuted to New York City from Washington to meet Husted. In New York City she stayed at the apartment of her father, Black Jack Bouvier, who liked Husted. However, this engagement was called off in March 1952, at the advice of Jackie's mother, Janet, who felt Husted who made $17,000/year was not affluent enough despite his family being on the social register.^[3][4] Jackie is reported to have told cohorts that Husted was "immature" and his work was too tame.^[5] Years later, Jacqueline's explanation of the engagement's end was that she and Husted were not very serious.[1]

Jacqueline and Kennedy were to be at the same functions several times between 1948 and 1952. The first was at a wedding of a mutual friend on Long Island in 1948. In May 1951 she met him at a dinner party at the home Charles and Martha Bartlett in Washington, DC. Kennedy accompanied her out to the car but discovered Husted was in the car. In the winter of 1951-52 they attended a large event in Palm Beach, Florida. After the engagement with Husted was called off the Bartletts hosted another dinner party on May 8, 1952 and that's when the romance took off.^[6]

The announcement of the couple's engagement did not result in universal delight within the Bouvier family. According to an article in Time magazine, "[Jacqueline] telephoned me to tell me the news", Black Jack Bouvier's sister Maude Bouvier Davis explained, "but she said, 'You can't say anything about it because the Saturday Evening Post is about to come out with an article on Jack called "The Senate's Gay Young Bachelor", and this would spoil it.'" Another aunt, Michelle Bouvier Putnam, was dismissive of the media hubbub surrounding the forthcoming nuptials, saying, "The whole Kennedy clan is unperturbed by publicity. We feel differently about it. Their clan is totally united; ours is not."[2]

Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy married on September 12, 1953, at Newport, Rhode Island. The bride's gown and the bridesmaids' dresses were made by Ann Lowe, a well-known black fashion designer; the reception was held at Hammersmith Farm, with guests numbering nearly 2,000 people. After the wedding, they returned to Washington, D.C. after a brief honeymoon. Unfortunately, early on in their marriage, Senator Kennedy suffered crippling pain in his back from a wartime injury and he had two operations. As he was recovering from surgery, Mrs. Kennedy encouraged him to write a book, Profiles in Courage, which is about several U.S. senators who had risked their careers to fight for the things in which they believed. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.

The marriage had its problems arising from John F. Kennedy's affairs and debilitating health issues, both of which were hidden from the public. Jacqueline spent much of her time and money early in their marriage redecorating their home and shopping for clothes. Many of these garments in the early days were of the Scaasi label^[7]).

John and Jackie Kennedy spent their first years of marriage in a townhouse on N Street in Georgetown, Washington, D.C..

Jacqueline was fond of her father-in-law, Joseph P. Kennedy, and the affection was returned. He saw the great PR potential of her as a politician's wife. Jackie's relationship with Rose Kennedy was more distant. She was also close to her brother-in-law, Robert ("Bobby"). Yet she was not fond of the competitive, sporty, and somewhat abrasive nature of the Kennedy clan. She was quieter and more reserved. Jackie preferred to have time alone with John rather than with him and the entire family. The Kennedy sisters nicknamed her "the deb", and Jacqueline was always reluctant to join in the traditional family touch-football games. Once, she broke her leg in a game of baseball with them.

[edit] Children

[edit] Candidate's Wife

Jacqueline Kennedy campaigning alongside her husband in Appleton, Wisconsin, in March 1960

In January 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for Presidency of the United States, and began working very long hours and traveling all around the country. Jackie had taken an active role in the campaign, even speaking to grocery store shoppers over the PA system in one town. In Appleton, Wisconsin, she signed autographs for Junior High School Students, commenting that her signature would be more legible than Jack's. Campaigning in West Virginia hit Jacqueline the hardest, as she had not witnessed this kind of poverty before. Later, in the White House, when the need for new glassware came up, Jackie suggested Morgantown Glassware from the impoverished state supply it.

A few weeks before her husband’s campaign for President, Jacqueline learned that she was pregnant and due to the previous stillbirth of Arabella, her doctors instructed her to remain at home. From Georgetown, Jacqueline helped her husband by answering thousands of campaign letters, taping TV commercials, giving interviews both televised and printed and by writing a weekly newspaper column, Campaign Wife, which was distributed across the country. She was ably assisted by her personal secretary, Mary Barelli Gallagher, who continued her post during the White House Years; she stopped working for Jackie several months after Mrs. Kennedy moved to New York City. In 1969, Gallagher published her best-selling tell-all memoir, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy.

In the general election on November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly beat Republican Richard Milhous Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.

[edit] First Lady of the United States

LBJ, President Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy looking at astronaut Alan Shepard on television, May 5, 1961

Jackie gave caesarian section birth to John F. Kennedy, Jr. two weeks after his father's election. Jackie toured the White House shortly after. She later said that she was dismayed to find nothing of the past in the house. Mamie Eisenhower walked her around the vast house, never telling her there was a wheelchair for her use. Jackie left the Executive Mansion and went home to collapse. She was still in frail health when Jack became the 35th President of the United States and she First Lady in January, 1961. She was one of the youngest First Ladies in history, just behind Frances Folsom Cleveland.

First Lady was a title Jackie was not comfortable with. She said it sounded like the name of a saddle horse. Instead she asked to be addressed as "Mrs. Kennedy". Like any first lady, she was forced into the public spotlight with everything in her life under scrutiny. When asked what she felt was the major role of the First Lady, before she entered the White House, she said, "I think the major role of the First Lady is to take care of the President so that he can better serve the people."

While she did not mind giving interviews or being photographed, she was worried about the effect it would have on her children. Jackie was determined to protect them from the press and give them a normal childhood. She allowed very few photographs to be taken of them and yet when she was gone, the President would let the White House photographer Cecil Stoughton snap away.

Mrs. Kennedy planned numerous social events that brought the First Couple into the Nation's cultural spotlight. She had also invited artists, writers, scientists, poets, and musicians alike to mingle with politicians, diplomats, and statesmen. She spoke fluent English and French, as well as Spanish and Italian.^{[citation needed]}, This appreciation for art, music, and culture marked a new chapter in American history. Jackie's skill at entertaining gave White House events the reputation of being magical. For instance, she orchestrated a dinner at Mount Vernon in honor of President Ayub Khan, whom President Kennedy wanted to honor for his role in supporting the U.S. in a recent crisis; she banished large U-shaped dining tables, replacing them with round tables that seated eight. Her social graces were legendary, as can be noted from the way she communicated with De Gaulle in Paris and Nikita Kruschev in Vienna. The President's summit in Vienna turned out to be a disaster, but the Premier's enjoyment of Mrs. Kennedy's company was subsequently deemed one of the few positive outcomes. When Soviet Premier Khrushchev was asked to shake President Kennedy's hand for a photo, the Communist leader said, "I'd like to shake her hand first."^[8]

[edit] French influence on the Kennedy White House

John F. Kennedy, unidentified woman, André Malraux, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson at an unveiling of the Mona Lisa at the National Gallery of Art.

Due in part to her French ancestry, Jacqueline had always felt a bond with France, which was reinforced by her education there. This was a love that would later be reflected in many aspects of her life, such as the menus she chose for White House State Dinners and her taste in clothing and her love for the Ballet. She chose French interior designer Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen to consult on the White House Restoration and decoration of the private family quarters on the second and third floors of the Executive Mansion. Mrs. Kennedy recruited a Vietnamese-born French chef to become White House chef, leaving a similar post in Paris, much to the displeasure of his former employer.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Fashion sense

Mrs. Kennedy, the president, André Malraux, Marie-Madeleine Lioux Malraux, Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson having just descended the White House Grand Stair on their way to the State Dining Room for a dinner on the occasion of the French cultural minister's visit, May 11, 1962. Mrs. Kennedy wears candy pink silk-dupioni shantung gown designed by Guy Douvier for Christian Dior.

She had a strong preference for French Haute Couture clothes designers, but these clothes were expensive, and she feared wearing them might be perceived as disloyalty to American designers. She often got around such restrictions by having American dressmakers like Chez Ninon in New York copy or adapt contemporary French designs for her. For her state wardrobe, she chose the Hollywood designer Oleg Cassini. During her days as First Lady, she would become a fashion icon domestically and internationally. Her trademark pieces were her pill box hat, sleeveless shift, and bug eyed sunglasses.

[edit] White House restoration

The White House Blue Room as redecorated by Stéphane Boudin in 1962. Boudin chose the period of the Madison administration, returning much of the original French Empire style furniture.

The White House Red Room as designed by Stéphane Boudin during the administration of John F. Kennedy. Boudin furnished the room primarily in the American Empire style with many pieces by the cabinetmaker Charles-Honoré Lannuier. Decorative tapes for the Napoleonic campaign style drapes were woven by the firm Tassinari et Chatel.

The restoration of the White House was Jacqueline's first major project. She was dismayed during her pre-inauguration tour of the White House, which was conducted by Mamie Eisenhower. The rooms were furnished with undistinguished pieces that lacked a sense of history. Her first efforts, begun her first day in residence (with the help of society decorator Sister Parish), were to make the family quarters attractive and suitable for family life and included the addition of a kitchen on the family floor and rooms for her children. Upon almost immediately exhausting the funds appropriated for this effort, she established a fine arts committee to oversee and fund the restoration process; she also asked early American furniture expert Henry du Pont. Her skillful management of this project was hardly noted at the time, except in terms of gossipy shock at repeated repainting of a room, or the high cost of the antique Zuber wallpaper panels installed in the family dining room ($12,000 in donated funds), but later accounts have noted that she managed the conflicting agendas of Parish, du Pont, and Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen with seamless success; she initiated the revision of the White House guidebook, whose sales further funded the restoration; she initiated a Congressional bill establishing that White House furnishings would be the property of the Smithsonian Institution, rather than available to departing ex-presidents to claim as their own; and she wrote personal requests to those who owned pieces of historical interest that might be donated to the White House. On February 14, 1962, Mrs. Kennedy took American television viewers on a tour of the White House with Charles Collingwood of CBS. In the tour she said, "I just feel that everything in the White House should be the best- the entertainment that's given here. If it's an American company you can help, I like to do that. If not- Just as long as it's the best." Working with Rachel Lambert Mellon Mrs. Kennedy oversaw redesign and replanting of the White House Rose Garden and the East Garden, which was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden after her husband's assassination.

[edit] Tour of France

Before the Kennedys visited France, a television special was shot in French with Jackie on the White House lawn. When the First Couple visited France, she'd already won the hearts of the French people, impressing Charles de Gaulle and the French public with her French. At the conclusion of the visit, Time magazine seemed delighted with the First Lady and noted, "There was also that fellow who came with her." Even President Kennedy joked, "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris-and I have enjoyed it!"

[edit] Tour of India and Pakistan

President Ayub Khan and Jacqueline Kennedy with Sardar.

At the urging of President Kennedy's ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith Mrs. Kennedy undertook a tour of India and Pakistan, taking her sister Lee Radziwill along with her, which was amply documented in photojournalism of the time as well as in the journals and memoirs of Professor Galbraith. At the time, Ambassador Galbraith noted a considerable disjunction between Mrs Kennedy's widely-noted concern with clothes and other frivolity and, on personal acquaintance, her considerable intellect.

Empress Farah Pahlavi and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in a friendly chat.

In Lahore, President Ayub Khan presented Mrs Kennedy with a subsequently much-photographed horse, Sardar (the Urdu term meaning `leader'); subsequently this gift was widely misattributed to the king of Saudi Arabia, including in the various recollections of the Kennedy White House years by President Kennedy's friend the Newsweek and subsequently Washington Post journalist and editor Benjamin Bradlee. It has never become clear whether this general misattribution of the gift was mere carelessness or a deliberate effort to deflect attention from the USA's preference for Pakistan over India during the years when India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru (whom President Kennedy strongly eschewed) was attempting to forge a policy of non-alignment vis-a-vis the USA and the Soviet Union, whereas American and western public opinion in general was sympathetic to India. At the same time, she had a friendly chat with Iranian Empress Farah Pahlavi.

[edit] Death of an infant son

Jack and Jackie with John Jr. and Caroline in Hyannis Port, on August 4th, 1962.

Jackie gave birth to a premature son, whom she and Jack named Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, via emergency caesarian section at Otis Air Force Base on August 7, 1963. Because his lungs were not fully developed, Patrick could not breathe and he was air lifted to Boston's Children's Hospital where he was placed in an oxygen-rich, pressurized room. He died of Hyaline Membrane Disease (now known as Respiratory Distress Syndrome) on August 9, 1963. Jackie told Jack there was one thing she would not be able to bear, and that would be to lose him.

After Patrick's death, Jackie kept a low profile at the White House. The President suggested she visit her sister in Europe as a way to recuperate from Patrick's death. She spent considerable time relaxing in the Mediterranean region during the early autumn. She and her sister were guests aboard the Aristotle Onassis's yacht, Christina, during this period. Jackie made her first public appearance at the White House in mid-November, 1963.

[edit] Texas trip and assassination of John F. Kennedy

The Presidential limousine before the assassination. Jacqueline is in the back seat to the President's left.

John asked her to accompany him on a campaign trip to Texas. She told him she'd go anywhere he needed her. On November 21, 1963 they left Andrews Air Force Base, first stopped in San Antonio, and then went to Houston where they toured the NASA facilities. Their last stop that day was in Ft. Worth. After a breakfast with the Ft. Worth Chamber of Commerce on November 22, 1963 at a Texas hotel, President and Mrs. Kennedy flew to Dallas's Love Field. A short motorcade was to take them to the Trademart. Jackie was seated next to John in the limousine when he was shot and killed in Dealy Plaza. The Presidential party was driven to Parkland Hospital where the President was pronounced dead. Jackie fought the attending physicians to be at her husband's side in Trauma Room 1.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] President Kennedy's funeral and suspected assassin's death

Jacqueline led the nation in mourning as the President lay in state at first the White House and then the U.S. Capitol. The funeral service was held for the President at St. Matthew's Cathedral. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery and Jackie was the first to light the eternal flame at the grave site. The London Evening Standard reported: "Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people ... one thing they have always lacked: majesty."

Following the assassination, she was forced to step back from the official public view. She was spared the ordeal of appearing at the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, due to his death on November 24, 1963 at the hands of Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner who killed Oswald while the alleged assassin was in police custody. She did, however, make a brief appearance in Washington to honor the Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, who had bravely climbed aboard the limousine in Dallas to shield her and the President.

[edit] Life following the assassination

Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, John Jr., Caroline, and Peter Lawford depart the U.S. Capitol after a lying-in-state ceremony for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 24 November 1963

A week after the assassination on November 29, the President's widow was interviewed in Hyannis Port by Theodore H. White of Life magazine. In that session, she compared the Kennedy years in the White House to King Arthur's mythical Camelot, commenting that Jack often played the title song of Lerner and Loewe's musical recording before retiring to bed. She also quoted Queen Guenivere from the musical ; trying to express how the loss felt. "Now he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man."

The steadiness of Jacqueline Kennedy during the assassination and funeral won her admiration around the world. Secretly she dealt with suicidal feelings, but told family and friends that it was her children that kept her going. Following Jack's death, Jackie and her children remained in their quarters in the White House for two weeks, preparing to vacate. Former President Truman, saying "It's your house", encouraged Lyndon Johnson to have her vacate the house sooner than she did. Johnson made several phone calls that were recorded via dictabelt from the Oval Office to Jackie in the Residence. The two had shared several letters and notes back and forth through messengers since the assassination. In the first call on December 2, 1963, she told him that she knew how rare it was to have something in a President's handwriting and that she now had more in his handwriting than she did in Jack's. The President encouraged her to come and visit with him to spend time talking. Upon touring the House with Lady Bird Johnson, she told the incoming first lady, "Don't be afraid of this house, some of my happiest years were spent here."

After spending the Winter of 1964 in Averill Harriman's home in the Georgetown section of Washington D.C. through the winter of 1964, Jackie decided to purchase a luxury apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York in the hope of having more privacy. She sold the home she had built in Atoka, Virginia, where she had intended to retire with her husband. She spent a year in mourning, making no public appearances, then zealously guarded her privacy. During this time, her daughter Caroline told her schoolteacher that her mother cried frequently.

She perpetuated her husband's memory by visiting his grave site on important anniversaries and attending selected memorial dedications. These included the 1967 christening of the Navy aircraft carrier named USS John F. Kennedy in Newport News, Virginia, and a memorial in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. In May, 1965, Jacqueline Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II jointly dedicated the United Kingdom's official memorial to President Kennedy at Runnymede, England. This memorial included several acres of soil given in perpetuity from Great Britain to the United States of America on the meadow where Magna Carta had been signed by King John in 1215.

She oversaw plans for the establishment of the John F. Kennedy Library, which is the repository for official papers of the Kennedy Administration. Original plans to have the library situated in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard University, proved problematic for various reasons. The finished library, designed by I.M. Pei, includes a museum and was dedicated in Boston in 1979 by President Carter, nearly 16 years after the assassination. The governments of many nations donated money to erect the library, in addition to corporate and private donations.

[edit] Onassis marriage

On October 20, 1968, Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping tycoon, on Skorpios, Greece. Four and a half months earlier her brother-in-law, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Los Angeles. At that point, Jacqueline decided the Kennedys were being "targeted", and that she and her children had to leave the United States. Marriage to Onassis appeared to make sense: he had the money and power to give her the protection she wanted, while she had the social cachet he craved. He ended his affair with opera diva Maria Callas to marry her. Jackie gave up Secret Service protection and franking privilege, to which a widow of a president of the United States is entitled, after her marriage to Onassis.

For a time, the marriage brought her adverse publicity and seemed to tarnish the image of the grieving presidential widow. However, others viewed the marriage as a positive symbol of the "modern American woman" who would not be afraid to look after her own financial interests and to protect her family. The marriage initially seemed successful, but stresses soon became apparent. The couple rarely spent time together. Though Onassis got along with Caroline and John, Jr. (his son Alexander introduced John to flying; ironically, both would die in plane crashes), Jacqueline did not get along with step-daughter Christina Onassis. She spent most of her time traveling and shopping.

In the 1970s, the First Lady's sister Lee Radziwill discussed creating a documentary with Albert and David Maysles about Jacqueline's girlhood in East Hampton. At about the same time, Jackie's aunt on her father's side Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale "Big Edie" and her daughter "Little Edie" received unwanted national attention when the National Enquirer ran an expose on the deplorable conditions of their East Hampton mansion, Grey Gardens. The Suffolk County, New York Board of Health made a raid ordering them to clean up the property which was falling into disrepair and was being overrun with feral cats. Jacqueline and Aristotle Onassis donated $32,000 to clean the house and install a new furnace and plumbing system and cart away 1,000 bags of garbage.

The Maysles interviewed the Edies and showed the footage of Radziwill and she confiscated the film.^[9] However the Maysles were to return and the focus of their documentary was to be the Edies instead of the First Lady and it has become the cult documentary Grey Gardens.

Onassis was in the early stages of filing for divorce when he died on March 15, 1975; Jacqueline was with her children in New York. Her legacy was severely limited by a rumored prenuptial agreement and by legislation that Onassis had caused the Greek government to approve, which limited how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. Jacqueline eventually accepted Christina's offer of $26,000,000, waiving all other claims to the Onassis estate.

[edit] Invasion of privacy

When a paparazzo photographed Jackie Onassis nude on a Greek island, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt bought the photos and published them in the August 1975 issue, much to her and the Kennedy family's embarrassment, though to the considerable amusement of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] Final years

Following Onassis's death in 1975, Jacqueline became a widow a second time. Now that her children were older, she decided to find work that would be fulfilling to her. Since she had always enjoyed writing and literature, Jacqueline accepted a job offer as an editor at Doubleday, living in New York City, Martha's Vineyard and the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts. From the mid 1970s until her death, her companion was Maurice Tempelsman, a Belgian-born industrialist and diamond merchant who was long separated from his wife. Among the many books she edited was Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Universe. He expressed his gratitude in the acknowledgements in Volume 2. Jacqueline Onassis's continuing charisma is indicated by the delight the Canadian author Robertson Davies took in discovering that at a commencement exercise at an American university at which he was being honored, Jacqueline Kennedy was on hand, circulating among the honorees. On the other hand, her efforts on behalf of Doubleday to enlist Frank Sinatra, the Duchess of Windsor and Queen Elizabeth II as Doubleday authors were firmly rebuffed.

Jacqueline Onassis also appreciated the contributions of African-American writers to the American literary canon and encouraged Dorothy West, her neighbor on Martha's Vineyard and the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, to complete The Wedding: a multi-generational story about race, class, wealth, and power in the United States. The novel received great literary acclaim when it was published by Doubleday in 1995 and Oprah Winfrey introduced the story in 1998 to millions of Americans via a television film of the same name starring Halle Berry. Dorothy West acknowledged Jacqueline Onassis's kind encouragement in the frontispiece.

In January 1994, Onassis was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer. Her diagnosis was announced to the public in February. The family was initially optimistic, and she stopped smoking at the insistence of her daughter. Onassis continued her work with Doubleday, but curtailed her schedule greatly. By April 1994, the cancer had spread, and she made her last trip home from Cornell hospital on May 18, 1994. A large crowd of wellwishers, tourists, and reporters gathered on the street outside her penthouse apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, and she died in her sleep at 10:15 pm on Friday, May 19, at the age of 64. Jacqueline Kennedy was eulogized at Saint Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church at Park Avenue and East 84th Streeet in Manhattan, which was the same church where she was baptized in 1929. She was then buried next to her first husband, President John F. Kennedy, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.^[10] The New York Daily News ran an issue the next day saying, "Missing Her".

[edit] Legacy and memorials

Grave of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis at the Arlington National Cemetery.

As a concession to a grieving world, audio of her private funeral, along with a special television broadcast, was broadcast around the world on May 23. She was buried beside her assassinated husband at the Arlington National Cemetery.^[11] At her funeral, her son, John, described three of her attributes as the love of words, the bonds of home and family, and her spirit of adventure.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, throughout her life, sought to preserve and protect America’s cultural heritage. The results of her hard work can be viewed at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. While she was First Lady, she helped to stop the destruction of historic homes in Lafayette Square, because she knew that these buildings were an important part of the nation’s capital and played an essential role in its history. Later, in New York City, she led a historic preservation campaign to save and renovate Grand Central Terminal, New York's beloved historic railroad station, from demolition. Today, more than 500,000 people each day pass through it and can enjoy its full beauty thanks to her restoration efforts. Today a plaque inside the terminal acknowledges her prominent role in its preservation. In the 1980s, she was a major figure in protests against a planned skyscraper at Columbus Circle which would have cast large shadows on Central Park.

From her apartment windows in New York she had a splendid view of a glass enclosed wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The wing displays the Temple of Dendur, a gift from Egypt to the United States in gratitude for the generosity of the Kennedy administration, which had been instrumental in saving several temples and objects of Egyptian antiquity that would otherwise have been flooded after the construction of the Aswan Dam.

Many Americans will always remember how she captivated the attention of her nation and the rest of the world with her intelligence, beauty, and grace. With a deep sense of devotion to her family and country she dedicated herself to raising her children and to making the world a better place through art, literature, and a respect for history.

The companion book for the series of interviews between mythologist Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, was created under the direction of Onassis. The book's editor, Betty Sue Flowers, writes in the Editor's Note to The Power of Myth: "I am grateful...to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the Doubleday editor, whose interest in the books of Joseph Campbell was the prime mover in the publication of this book." A year after her death in 1994, Moyers dedicated the companion book for his PBS series, The Language of Life to Onassis. The dedication read: To Jacqueline Onassis. As you sail on to Ithaka. Ithaka was a reference to the C.P. Cavafy poem that Maurice Tempelsman read at her funeral.

[edit] Memorials

Like her assassinated husband, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's legacy has been memorialized in various aspects of American and to a later extent, non-American culture. They include:

• A high school called Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School for International Careers, was dedicated by New York City in 1995, in Jackie's honor. It is the only high school in the United States named in her honor. [3] It is located at 120 West 46th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, and was formerly the High School for the Performing Arts.
• Central Park's main reservoir was renamed in her honor, so it is called the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.^[12]
• The residence hall on the southeast corner at the intersection of I and 23rd Streets of the George Washington University had been renamed into Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Hall [4].
• Near the White House, a garden was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden in her honor, shortly after the assassination of her husband.
• In 2007, her name, along with her assassinated husband's, is onboard the Japanese SELENE mission to the moon.

[edit] In popular culture

Main article: List of references to Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in popular culture

Due to the popularity of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis throughout the 1960s, she is frequently referenced and depicted in various forms of popular culture including films, cartoon series, computer games and music.

The shorthand "Jackie-O" is another common informal name, and is also the name of the Jacqueline Kennedy-type character, played by actress Parker Posey, in the film The House of Yes.

[edit] Jacqueline Kennedy portrayals

As of 2007, there are several actresses who have portrayed Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis:

• Francesca Annis in Onassis: The Richest Man in the World
• Caprice Benedetti in Timequest
• Marianna Bishop in A Woman Named Jackie (Bishop played a young Jackie)
• Jacqueline Bisset in America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy Junior Story
• Blair Brown in the Kennedy miniseries
• Cortnie Campbell in The End of a Dynasty
• Juanin Clay in the miniseries Robert Kennedy & His Times
• Margaret Colin in the play Jackie: An American Life
• Robin Curtis in LBJ: The Early Years
• Jennifer Dale in Hoover vs. the Kennedys: The Second Civil War
• Roma Downey in A Woman Named Jackie
• Jodie Farber in Malcolm X
• Sarah Michelle Gellar in A Woman Named Jackie (Gellar played a teenage Jackie)
• Rhoda Griffis in Love Field
• Jill Hennessy in Jackie, Joan and Ethel
• Sarah Hyland in the Broadway musical, Grey Gardens
• Elizabeth Lambert in the Dark Skies episode "Moving Targets"
• Elizabeth Marley in The Hoax
• Rhea Perlman in How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale
• Stephanie Romanov in Thirteen Days
• Cristine Rose in The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald
• Jaclyn Smith in Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy
• Anna Valle in Callas e Onassis
• Susan Waldrop in A Peace of Jackie
• Mary Chris Wall in Ruby
• Joanne Whalley in Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis
• Jesalyn White in LBJ vs. the Kennedys: Chasing Demons
• Laura Yonker in the Days That Shook the World episode "JFK"

[edit] Books about

• Farewell, Jackie: A Portrait of Her Final Days, Edward Klein, Viking Books, 2004.
• All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy, St. Martin's Press, 2003.
• Just Jackie: Her Private Years, Ballatine Books, 1999.
• The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years, Pocket Books, 1996.
• The Death of a President, by William Manchester, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1967.
• "What Would Jackie Do? An Inspired Guide to Distinctive Living", by Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway, Gotham Books, 2006.
• What Jackie Taught Us: Lessons from the Remarkable Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Tina Santi Flaherty, 2005
• As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Family and Friends, Perigee Trade, 1997
• jackiestyle, by Pamela Clarke Keogh, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.
• Jackieby Naomi West & Catherine Wilson Editions de la Martiniere 2006

[edit] Plays and theatre works about

• Jackie-O an opera by Michael Daugherty [5] - Houston Opera Studio, Houston, TX
• JACKS by Lys Anzia [6] - Fremont Centre Theatre [7], South Pasadena, CA
• Cirque Jacqueline by Andrea Reese [8] - Triad Theater, NY, NY
• Jackie, An American Life by Gip Hoppe [9] - Wilber Theatre, Boston, MA
• Jackie Undressed by Andree Stolte [10] - Eagles Dare Theater, NY, NY
• The Secret Letters of Jackie & Marilyn by Mark Hampton and Michael Sharp [11], O'Reilly Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA
• Jackie" by Naomi West & Catherine Wilson Editions de la Martiniere

[edit] See also

• John F. Kennedy
• Kennedy Curse

[edit] References and further reading

• Abbott, James A. A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin. Boscobel Restoration Inc.: 1995. ISBN 0-9646659-0-5.
• Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. ISBN 0-442-02532-7.
• Abbott, James A. Jansen. Acanthus Press: 2006. ISBN 0-926494-33-3.
• Baldrige, Letitia. In the Kennedy Style: Magical evenings in the Kennedy White House. Doubleday: 1998. ISBN 0-385-48964-1.
• Bowles, Hamish, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Rachel Lambert Mellon. "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. bulfinch Press/Little, Brown and Company: 2001. ISBN 0-8212-2745-9.
• Cassini, Oleg. A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing the First Lady for the White House. Rizzoli International Publications: 1995. ISBN 0-8478-1900-0.
• West, J.B. with Mary Lynn Kotz. Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan: 1973. SBN 698-10546-X.
• Wolff, Perry. A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy. Doubleday & Company: 1962.
• Exhibition Catalogue, Sale 6834: The Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis April 23-26, 1996. Sothebys, Inc.: 1996.
• The White House: An Historic Guide. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 2001. ISBN 0-912308-79-6.

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

• Obituary, NY Times, May 20, 1994
• White House biography
• Unofficial biography
• Arlington Cemetery biographical information
• Jackie Handbook
• Kennedy Assassination Chronicles (Fall 1995)PDF (183 KiB) - contains much of "the Camelot interview".
• National First Ladies' Library
• Last Will and Testament of Jackie Onassis