The Importance of Being Jackie

ftmigA9 `f o`> S6C-A) (4-1c/ (44W /kW The Importance of Being Jackie If you don't know, celebrity biographies aren't going to tell you. JACK AND JACKIE Portrait of an American Marriage. By Christopher Andersen. Illustrated. 400 pp. New York: William Morrow & Company. $24. ALL TOO HUMAN The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy. By Edward Klein. Illustrated. 406 pp. New York: Pocket Books. $23. JACQUELINE BOUVIER An Intimate Memoir. By John H. Davis. Illustrated. 208 pp. New York: John Wiley & Sons. $24.95. JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS The Making of a First Lady: A Tribute. By Jacques Lowe. Illustrated. 128 pp. Los Angeles: General Publishing Group. $30. By Larissa MacFarquhar AssocIATED pREss John F. Kennedy's inauguration, Jan. 18, 1961. HERE are those who get the Leaving West Palm Beach, Fla., for Jackie Onassis thing and those who don't. This became clear "J," when she died two years ago, $211,500 for a set of fake pearls. T This is what needs to be explained. and even more so during the bewilder- ing auction of her belongings last spring. A large measure of her reputation But beyond this basic dichotomy — a derives from the role she played in the matter of instinct and deepest sentiment services for John Kennedy. Copying Lin- — there is a further divide, which is the coln's funeral was her idea, as was tht eternal flame at Arlington. (She was also generational one People who were around when John the one who came up with the brilliant if cheesy Camelot metaphor.) People who F. Kennedy was shot tend to wonder about her as a person. (Was she a good watched the procession at the time say mother? How did she cope with her hus- her dignity helped them recover from the band's infidelity?) But to many of us trauma of the assassination. For those of born after Camelot was over, who are us who were not alive then, this can be accustomed to seeing her and her samu- hard to understand. Certain events leave rai hair share tabloid pages with space an imprint so profound that they require aliens and Michael Jackson, the mys- their own anthropology: people who lived tery of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is through them belong to a different cul- not her inner self but the enduring allure ture from those who did not. The posthumous crop of Jackie of her public persona: $85,000 for a ciga- rette lighter engraved with a gold letter Larissa MacFarquhar is a contributing editor at New York magazine and at Lingua Franca. books unfortunately contributes little to trappings: summers in the Hamptons, an understanding of her public impact. horses, a society debut. With the exception of Jacques Lowe's It was an unfortunate consequence "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: The Mak- of her being a political wife that her ing of a First Lady" (which is mostly amusing, catty side had to remain hid- pictures), they are celebrity biogra- den. The real Jackie could be delightful- phies of the usual type — worshipful, yet ly bitchy. She referred to Lyndon and crammed with tabloidy details. (Jackie Lady Bird Johnson as "Colonel Corn- losing her virginity in a Paris elevator; pone and his little pork chop." She re- she and the President shooting up speed quired her designer to make all her in the White House.) dresses unique, wanting "no fat little One of the things the books do bring women hopping around in the same out is the wonderful way she went about gown." When Congressional wives gave being an aristocrat. American aristo- a party for her, she didn't bother to show crats generally try to be understated up but went to the ballet instead. She and tasteful, not understanding that the had, as a man who knew her put it, "a whole purpose of aristocrats now is to whim of iron." put on a show — to dress up and make Above all, she was expensive. Jack- life more exciting for the rest of us. ie was the kind of woman who is paid for Jackie was not an old-fashioned aristo- in camels. In 1955, Joseph Kennedy re- crat, thank goodness, so she did every- portedly offered her $1 million (about thing aristocrats are supposed to. She $12 million in today's dollars) to ignore spent fantastic sums on clothes. She was his son's philandering. When she mar- always late. She spoke in a demure, ried Aristotle Onassis in 1968, he forked whispery voice. She patronized the arts. over $3 million up front for the privilege, She was too smart to be a Marie An- gave her $5 million in jewelry during toinette, but she knew how to play the their first year of marriage and paid her role. Once when Robert Kennedy and his an allowance of $30,000 a month. father, Joseph, were discussing air pol- Of the four recently published Jack- lution, she suggested the Air Force fly ie books, Christopher Andersen's "Jack around spraying Chanel No. 5. and Jackie" — which sketches the child- Of course, whether Jackie was a hoods of both, then focuses on the mar- real aristocrat, whatever that is, is a riage — is the most worth reading. It is matter of some debate. The Bouviers' odd that Mr. Andersen bills his book as glittering French genealogy was bra- "a great American love story," since zenly invented by her grandfather. Still, it's clear from his (and others') account Jackie was certainly an aristocrat of the of the marriage that, at least initially, it Social Register variety. Born in 1929 to a was nothing of the sort — she would nev- philandering, charming, handsome er have married him if he hadn't been drunkard, John (Black Jack) Bouvier rich, and he would never have married (and Janet Bouvier, nee Lee, daughter her if his father hadn't said he had to for of a self-made Irish banker), she was career reasons. Still, Mr. Andersen, the raised with all the usual upper-class author of books about Madonna and THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 5 employed a "Scandinavian snooper- ette" (as the unfortunate woman was called by Jackie's grandfather) to en- trap her husband into verifiable adul- tery. Mr. Davis has also dug up a bizarre Mick Jagger, comes the closest to mak- little tidbit that will be relished by con- ing Jackie sparkle. spiracy theorists: a close friend of Jack- "All Too Human," by the journalist ie's father, with whom Jackie played as Edward Klein, examines much the a child, later moved to Texas and be- same material that Mr. Andersen does, came "the principal mentor and friend" but through a moist, Harlequin-ro- of Lee Harvey Oswald. mance haze. The general tone is con- veyed by the chapter and section titles: HE books do not always agree "Pleasure First," "Indiscreet," "Love about matters of fact. For in- Lies Bleeding" and, more obscurely, stance, did Jackie's mother de- "Bongo, Bongo, Bongo." It comes Tliberately conspire to get her across even better in Mr. Klein's father too drunk to give his daughter sweaty description of Jackie's deflor- away at her wedding, as Mr. Klein says ation: "Her skirt bunched up above her she did? When John Kennedy's sister hips, the backs of her thighs pressed Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948, against the decorative open grillwork. was she with her fiancé (as Mr. Klein ... When the elevator jolted to a stop, says) or her "married lover" (Mr. An- Mr. she was no longer a demi-vierge." dersen)? The discrepancies are telling. Klein's first chapter contains this aston- Mr. Klein in particular adopts the an- ishing description of the author meeting noying habit of putting quotation marks with his subject: "She fixed me with around conversations whose precise those widely spaced, asymmetrical content he cannot possibly know. brown eyes in a gaze that could only be Jacques Lowe's "Jacqueline Ken- described as adoring." nedy Onassis" is a book of photographs, John H. Davis is a career Jackie accompanied by a brief text. Mr. Lowe cousin — he spent summers with her as took some of the most famous pictures a child, and has written three books of the couple: Jack and Jackie with baby about Jackie and the Bouviers. The lat- Caroline nibbling Jackie's pearls; Jack- est, "Jacqueline Bouvier: An Intimate ie at Hyannis Port in that marvelous yel- Memoir," which covers her life until her low-and-white check dress; the trip to first wedding, is enlivened by the fact Paris. Above all else, Jackie was fabu- that Mr. Davis obviously loathes Jack- lous in photographs, so paging through ie's mother and includes many nasty de- Mr. Lowe's book is a pleasure — that is, tails about her — for instance, how she if you can forget what she herself thought of people who liked to look at her. After being stared at all night at the inaugural ball, Jackie compared her guests to "mesmerized cattle." ❑ .

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