Lee Radziwill

Lee Radziwill

Lee Radziwill (left) and Krishna Hutheesing in India, 1962
Born Caroline Lee Bouvier
March 3, 1933
Southampton, New York
Occupation actress, public relations executive, interior decorator
Religion Roman Catholicism
Spouse(s) Michael Temple Canfield
(m. 1953–1959; annulled)
Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł
(m. 1959–1974; divorced)
Herbert Ross
(m. 1988–2001; divorced)
Children Anthony Stanislas Albert Radziwill
Anna Christina Radziwill
Parent(s) John Vernou Bouvier III
Janet Norton Lee
Relatives Jacqueline Lee Bouvier (sister)
Janet Jennings Auchincloss (half-sister)

Caroline Lee Bouvier (born March 3, 1933) is an American socialite, public relations executive, interior decorator, and former actress. She is the younger sister of the late First Lady, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy. Her niece Caroline Bouvier Kennedy is named after her. She was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1996.[1][2]

Early life and ancestry

Born in Southampton, New York, Caroline Lee Bouvier, named "Lee" after her maternal grandfather James T. Lee, is the daughter of stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and socialite Janet Norton Lee.[3]

Marriages and children

Radziwill has been married three times. Her first marriage, in April 1953, was to Michael Temple Canfield, a publishing executive who had been adopted as an infant by the American publisher Cass Canfield. Canfield's mother was the American socialite Kiki Preston. It was rumoured that his biological father was Prince George, Duke of Kent, a member of the British Royal Family; if so, then Canfield would be a first cousin of the present Queen. Radziwill and Canfield divorced in 1959, and the marriage was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church in November 1962.[4]

Her second marriage, on March 19, 1959, was to the Polish prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł, who divorced his second wife, the former Grace Maria Kolin,[5] and received a Roman Catholic annulment of his first marriage to marry the former Mrs. Canfield (his second marriage had never been acknowledged by the Roman Catholic Church, so no annulment was necessary).[4] Radziwill's second marriage ended in divorce in 1974.[6]

On September 23, 1988, Radziwill became the second wife of American film director and choreographer Herbert Ross.[7] They divorced in 2001, shortly before his death.

Career and fame

In the 1960s, Radziwill attempted to forge a career as an actress. Her acting attempt was unsuccessful, but she did receive international publicity. Largely untrained, she received dismal reviews in the 1967 production of The Philadelphia Story, starring as spoiled Main Line heiress Tracy Lord. The play was staged at the Ivanhoe Theatre in Chicago, and Radziwill's performance was widely panned. A year later, she appeared in a television adaptation of the Hollywood film Laura, which was also badly received.[8] Radziwill discontinued her acting work.

She visited India and Pakistan along with her elder sister Jacqueline Kennedy (then First Lady of the United States) in March 1962.

The two English homes, a townhouse in London, and a manor house called Turville Grange in Turville, that she shared with her second husband, were decorated by Italian stage designer Renzo Mongiardino and were greatly admired and frequently photographed by Cecil Beaton and Horst P. Horst. She herself worked briefly as an interior decorator, as well, in a style much influenced by her association with Mongiardino. Her clientele were the wealthy; she once decorated a house "for people who would not be there more than three days a year".[9] She was seen in celebrity company, such as on the The Rolling Stones American Tour 1972,[10] during which she accompanied Truman Capote.

For some years, Radziwill was a public relations executive for Giorgio Armani, the Italian fashion designer.

Radziwill received the Légion d'honneur from the French government in 2008. It was presented to her at the home of Bernard-Henri Lévy and Arielle Dombasle in Paris.

Her Paris and Manhattan apartments were featured in the April 2009 issue of Elle Décor magazine. She was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over 50s by the Guardian in March 2013.[11]

She interviewed producer Sofia Coppola for a June 2013 blog article about Coppola's film The Bling Ring and about the loss of privacy.[12]

References within popular culture

In 1973, Lee Radziwill introduced documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles to her reclusive cousin Edith Bouvier Beale and aunt Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale. The resultant 1976 release, titled Grey Gardens after the name of the Beale home, was later turned into a 2006 musical of the same name in which the characters of Lee and Jackie Bouvier appear as visiting children in retrospect. An HBO television movie based upon the Grey Gardens story appeared in 2009 and featured both Radziwill and her sister Jackie as children and as adults who later assisted their aunt and cousin to refurbish their dilapidated, condemned home.

Titles and styles

References

Notes

  1. ↑ VF Staff (1996). "World's Best Dressed Women". The International Hall of Fame: Women. Vanity Fair. Retrieved February 15, 2012.
  2. ↑ Ultimate Style – The Best of the Best Dressed List. 2004. p. 160. ISBN 2 84323 513 8.
  3. ↑ "Janet Lee Auchincloss Morris, 81". Janet Lee Auchincloss Morris, a leading member of society in Newport, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C., and the mother of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Roman Catholics: The Law's Delay". New York Cit: Time-Life. February 28, 1964. Retrieved September 4, 2009.
  5. ↑ Lundy, Darryl, ed. "Grace Maria Kolin". ThePeerage.com, September 28, 2010
  6. ↑ "For Princess Lee Radziwill, It's the End of a Marriage" "People", July 29, 1974
  7. ↑ "Lee Bouvier Radziwill Weds Herbert Ross, Film Director". New York Times. September 24, 1988. Retrieved June 21, 2007. Lee Bouvier Radziwill and Herbert Ross were married yesterday evening at the bride's home in New York by Justice E. Leo Milonas of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court, First Department. After the ceremony, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the sister of the bride, gave a dinner party for the couple at her home in New York. Rudolf Nureyev, the dancer and director of the Paris Opera Ballet, and John Taras, the associate director of American Ballet Theatre, attended the couple.
  8. ↑ Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), pages 388–389.
  9. ↑ New York Magazine, "The Decorating Establishment" February 12, 1979.
  10. ↑ Keys, Bobby. Every Night's a Saturday Night (Counterpoint, 2012) page 159
  11. ↑ Cartner-Morley, Jess; Mirren, Helen; Huffington, Arianna; Amos, Valerie (March 28, 2013). "The 50 best-dressed over 50s". The Guardian (London).
  12. ↑ Radziwell, Lee (June 9, 2013). "In Praise of Privacy". The New York Times Style Magazine. Retrieved June 10, 2013.

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lee Radziwill.
  • Clarke, Gerald (1988). Capote, A Biography (1st ed.). New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-241-12549-6.
  • Evans, Peter (2004). Nemesis: The True Story. Regan Books. ISBN 978-0-06-058053-7 [0-06-058053-4].
  • Magazine Paris Match July 6, 2008 page 16.
  • Radziwill, Lee (2003). Happy Times. New York: Assouline. ISBN 978-1-614-28054-5.