Jackie Onassis Dies Shy Glamour Characterized Ex-First Lady by Robert D
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Jackie Onassis dies Shy glamour characterized ex-first lady By Robert D. McFadden The New York Times NEW YORK — Jiequeline Kennedy Onassis, the widow of President John F. Kenfiedy and of the Greek shipping magnate Aris- totle Onassis, died of a form of cancer of the lymphatic system Thursday at her apartment. She was 64 years old. Onassis, who had enjoyed ro- bust good health nearly all her life, began being treated for non-Hodg- kin's lymphoma in early January and had been undergoing chemo- therapy and other treatments in recent months while continuing her work as a book editor and her social, family and other personal routines. But the disease, which attacks Daily News lymph nodes in the neck, armpits and groin, which are a major com- ponent of the body's immune sys- FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1994 tem, grew progressively worse. Onassis entered the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for the last time on Monday, but returned to her Fifth Avenue apartment on Wednesday after her doctors said there was no more they could do. In recent years Onassis had lived quietly but not in seclusion, working at Doubleday; joining ef- forts to preserve historic New York buildings; spending time with her son, daughter and grand- children; jogging in Central Park; getting away to her estates in New Jersey, at Hyannis, Mass., and on Martha's Vineyard, and going about town with Maurice Tern- pelsman, a financier who had be- come her closest companion. Surviving her are her daughter, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg; a son, John F. Kennedy Jr.; her sis- ter, Lee Ross, and three grandchil- dren, Rose, Tatiana and Jack Schlossberg. She almost never granted inter- See ONASSIS / Back Page A life in the public eye The first lady arrives in Dallas with President assassinated later that day, ending an era that Kennedy on Nov.. 22, 1963. Kennedy was was likened by his widow to Camelot.. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis died Thursday of Associated Pm5a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at 64. Onassis joins her son and President Clinton at the Kennedy Library, sumptuous cetenration of Ameri- cana that 56 million television viewers saw in 1961 as the first ONASSIS / From Page 1 lady, inviting America in, gave a guided tour for the CBS and NBC views on her past — the last was television networks. nearly 30 years ago — and for dec- "She really was the one who ades she had not spoken publicly made over the White House into a about Kennedy, his presidency or living stage — not a museum - their marriage. but a stage where American history Although she was one of the and art were displayed," said Hugh world's most famous women — an Sidey, who was a White House cor- object of fascination to generations respondent for Time magazine at of Americans and the subject of the time. He said she told him: "1 countless articles and books that re- want to restore the White House to explored the myths and realities of its original glory." the Kennedy years, the terrible There was more. She brought in images of the president's 1963 as- a French chef and threw elegant sassination in Dallas, and her and memorable parties. The guest made-for-tabloids marriage to the lists went beyond prime ministers wealthy Onassis — she was a quin- and potentates to Nobel laureates tessentially private person, poised and distinguished artists, musicians and glamorous, but shy and aloof. and intellectuals. Operatic and pop- , They were qualities that spoke of ular voices, the cello of Pablo Ca- her upbringing in the wealthy and sals, string trios and quartets and fiercely independent Bouvier and whole orchestras filled the rooms Auchincloss families, of mansion with glorious sound. life in East Hampton and commo- Americans gradually became fa- dious apartments in New York and miliar with the whispering, inti- Paris, of Miss Porter's finishing mate quality of her voice, with the school and Vassar College and cir- head scarf and dark glasses at the cles that valued a woman's skill taffrail of the Honey Fitz on a sum- with a verse-pen or a watercolor mer evening on the Potomac, with brush, at the reins of a chestnut the bouffant hair and formal smile mare or the center of a whirling for the Rose Garden and the bare- charity cotillion. foot romp with her children on a She was only 23, working as an Cape Cod beach. inquiring photographer for a Wash- There was an avalanche of arti- ington newspaper and taking in the cles and television programs on her capital night life of restaurants and fashion choices, her hair styles, her parties, when she met John F. Ken- tastes in art, music and literature, nedy, the young bachelor congress- and on her travels with the presi- man from Massachusetts, at a din- dent across the nation and to Eu- ner party in 1952. She thought him rope. On a visit to New York, she quixotic after he told her he intend- spoke Spanish in East Harlem and ed to become president. French in a Haitian neighborhood. But a year later, after Kennedy Arriving in France, a stunning had won a seat in the U.S. Senate understated figure in her pillbox and was already being discussed as hat and wool coat as she rode with a presidential possibility, they were the president in an open car, she married at Newport, RI., in the so- enthralled crowds that chanted cial event of 1953, a union of pow- "Vive Jacqui" on the road to Paris, erful and wealthy Roman Catholic and later, in an evening gown at a families whose scions were hand- dinner at Versailles, she mes- some, charming, trendy and smart. merized the austere Charles De It was a whiff of American royalty. Gaulle. And after Kennedy won the pres- When the state visit ended, a be- idency in 1960, there were 1,000 mused President Kennedy said: "I days that seemed to raise up a na- am the man who accompanied Jac- tion mired in the Cold War. There queline Kennedy to Paris — and I were babies in the White House for have enjoyed it." the first time in this century, and But the images of her that burned Jackie Kennedy, the vivacious young mother who was disinterest- ed in the nuances of politics, busily transformed her new home into a To OUR READERS place of elegance and lofty culture. She set up a White House fine In order to provide complete arts commission, hired a White coverage of the death of Jac- House curator and redecorated the queline Onassis, People and On mansion with early 19th century This Day have been moved to furnishings, museunr'quality paint- Page 18. They will return to the ings and objets d'art, creating a Back Page on Saturday. Jacqueline Kennedy receives the flag that draped her husband's casket at Arlington National Cemetery, .Fiercely protective. of her privacy, Onassis was dogged by paparazzi, Ron Galena, whotook tooK this snap and thousands of others: - • most deeply were those in Dallas one brief shining moment that was on Nov. 22, 1963: her lunge across known as Camelot.' the open limousine as the assassin's " . There'll never be another bullets hit, the Schiaparelli pink Camelot again." suit stained with her husband's White recalled: "So the epitaph blood, her gaunt stunned face in the on the Kennedy administration be- blur of the speeding motorcade, came Camelot — a magic moment and the anguish later at Parkland in American history, when gallant Memorial Hospital as The doctors men danced with beautiful women, gave way to the priest and a new when great deeds were done, when era. artists, writers and poets met at the In the aftermath, some things White House and the barbarians were not so readily apparent: her beyond the walls were held. back." refusal to change clothes on the But White, an admirer of Ken- flight back to Washington to let nedy, added that her characteriza- Americans see the blood; her re- tion was a misreading of history fusal to take sleeping pills that and that the Kennedy Camelot might dull her capacity to arrange never existed, though it was a time the funeral, whose planning she when reason was brought to bear dominated. She stipulated the ri- on public issues and the Kennedy derless horse in the procession and people were "more often right than the eternal flame by the grave at Arlington. And in public, what the world wrong and astonishingly incorrupt- years with Viking before joining saw was a figure of admirable self- ible." Doubleday's staff in 1978. control, a black-veiled widow who Five years later, with notions of Jacqueline Bouvier was born on walked beside the coffin to the toll- her as the grieving widow faded but July 28, 1929, in East Hampton, ing drums with her head up, who with Americans still curious about N.Y., to John Vernou Bouvier M reminded 3-year-old John Jr. to sa- her life and conduct, the former and Janet Lee Bouvier. lute at the funeral and who looked first lady, who had moved to New A sister, Caroline, known as Lee, with solemn dignity upon the pro- York to be near family and friends was born four years later. From the ceedings. She was 34 years old. and had gotten into legal disputes beginning, the girls knew the trap- A week later, it was the first lady with photographers and writers pings and appearances of consider- who bestowed the epitaph of Ca- portraying her activities, shattered able wealth.