Jackie Onassis dies Shy glamour characterized ex-first lady By Robert D. McFadden 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, Schlossberg; a son, John F. Kennedy Jr.; her sis- ter, Lee Ross, and three grandchil- dren, Rose, Tatiana and . 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 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. Their Long Island es- melot upon a Kennedy presidency her almost saintly public image by tate was called Lasata, an American that, while deeply flawed in the announcing plans to marry Aristo- Indian word meaning place of minds of many political analysts tle Onassis. peace. There was also a commo- and ordinary citizens, had for many It was a field day for the tab- dious apartment on Park Avenue in Americans come to represent some- loids, a shock to members of her . thing magical and mythical. own family and a puzzlement to AlthoUgh the family lived well the general public, given the Ca- during the Depression, Bouvier's It happened in an interview she melot-Kennedy mystique. fortunes in the stock market rose herself requested with Theodore H. The prospective bridegroom was and fell after huge losses in the White, the reporter-author and much shorter, and more than 28 crash of 1929. The marriage also Kennedy confidant who was then years older, a canny businessman foundered. In 1936, Bouvier and writing for Life magazine. and not even American. his wife separated, and their di- The conversation, he said in a Moreover, her brother-in-law, vorce became final in 1940. 1978 book, "In Search of History," Robert Kennedy, had been assas- In June 1942, Janet Lee Bouvier swung between history and her hus- sinated earlier in the year, and the married Hugh Auchincloss, who, band's death, and while none of prospective marriage even posed a like her first husband, was a stock- JFK's political shortcomings were problem for the Vatican, which broker. Auchincloss had been sub- mentioned — stories about his liai- hinted that she might become a stantially better able to weather the sons with women were known only public sinner. Great Depression; his mother and to insiders at the time — she There were additional unseemly benefactor was the former Emma seemed determined to "rescue Jack details — a prenuptial agreement Brewster Jennings, daughter of from all these 'bitter people' who that covered money and property Oliver Jennings, a founder of Stan- were going to write about him in and children. But they were mar- dard.Oil with John D. Rockefeller. history." ried in 1968, and for a time the From her earliest days, Jacque- She told him that the title song world saw a new, more outgoing line Bouvier attracted attention, as of the musical "Camelot" had be- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. But much for her intelligence as for her come "an obsession with me" late- within a few years there were re- beauty. ly. She said that at night before ported fights over money and other John H. Davis, a cousin who bedtime, her husband had often matters and accounts that each was wrote "The Bouviers," a family his- played it, or asked her to play it, being seen in the company of tory, in 1993, described her as a on an old Victrola in their bed- others. young woman who outwardly room. White quoted her as saying: While the couple was never di- seemed to conform to social norms. "And the song he loved most vorced, the marriage was widely re- But he wrote that she possessed a came at the very end of this rec- garded as over long before Onassis "fiercely independent inner life ord, the last side of Camelot, sad died in 1975, leaving her a widow which she shared with few people Camelot. . 'Don't let it be for- for the second time. anii would one day be partly re- got, that once there was a spot, for She took her first publishing job sponsible for her enormous suc- after his death, working for two cess." mington, Conn., an institution that in addition to its academic offer- ings emphasized good manners and the art of conversation. Its students simply called it Farmington. Just as Jacqueline picked Miss Porter's, she also picked Vassar College, which she entered in 1947, not long after she was named "Deb- utante of the Year" by Igor Cassini, who wrote for the Hearst newspa- pers under the byline Cholly Knick- erbocker. He described her as a "re- gal brunette who has classic features and the daintiness of Dres- den porcelain." He noted that the popular Bou- vier had "poise, is soft-spoken and intelligent, everything the leading debutante should be." She did well at Vassar, especially in courses on the history of religion and Shakespeare, and made the dean's list. The late Charlotte Cur- tis, who became society editor of The New York Times and who was a student at Vassar at the same time, once wrote that Bouvier was Associated Press not particularly thrilled with being The former first lady shattered her saintly image, puzzled the public and in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and re- fed the tabloids by marrying millionaire in 1968. ferred to her college as "that John Vernou Bouvier Jr., her damned Vassar," even though the grandfather, wrote a history of the invitations continued to flow in from young men at Harvard, Yale, Bouvier family called "Our Fore- Princeton and other leading univer- bears." The history indicates that sities. the Bouviers were descended from French nobility. In 1949, for her junior year, she Stephen Birmingham, who wrote decided to apply to a program at the biography "Jacqueline Bouvier Smith College for a year of study Kennedy Onassis" (Grosset & in France. Dunlap), called the grandfather's She loved Paris, and when the book-"a work of massive self-de- year was up she decided not to re- ception." Davis called it "a wishful turn to Vassar to finish her bache- lor's degree but to go instead to history." University in From the documentation at Washington. hand, the Bouviers, who originat- ed in southern France, had ap- C. David Heymann, author of parently been drapers, tailors, "A Woman Named Jackie" (Lyle glovers, farmers and even domes- Stuart, 1989), said Hugh Auchin- tic servants. The very name Bou- doss had feared that if Jacqueline vier means cowherd. had returned to Paris and stayed The family's original immigrant, there for any length of time, she Michel Bouvier, left a troubled might not have ever returned to the France in 1815 after serving in Na- . Her mother came to poleon's defeated army and settled agree with him. in Philadelphia. A man of consider- They may have been right; she able industry, he started as a han- would later recall her stay in Paris dyman and later became a furni- as a young woman as "the high ture manufacturer and, finally, a point in my life, my happiest and land speculator. most carefree year." After the divorce, Jacqueline re- In Washington, she met and was mained in touch with her father, briefly engaged to John Husted, a but she also spent a great deal of stockbroker. Through her stepfa- time with the Auchinclosses, who ther's contacts, she was able to get a had a large estate in Virginia called job as a photographer at The Wash- Merrywood and another in New- ington Times-Herald. port, R.I., called Hammersmith She continued her work for The Farm. Washington Times-Herald and she When she was 15, Jacqueline enjoyed Washington's restaurants nicked Miss Porter's School in Far- and parties. It was at one such party, given in May 1952 by Charles Bartlett, Washington cor- respondent for The Chattanooga Times, that she met Kennedy, who would soon capture the Senate seat ize, as well as several nundred exu- berant French people named Bou- vier, all of them apparently claiming some sort of cousinhood. Theodore C. Sorensen wrote in "Kennedy" that de Gaulle had turned to Kennedy at a luncheon at the Elysee Palace and said, "Your wife knows more French held by Henry Cabot Lodge. history than any French woman." Some time afterward, they began The social skills she acquired at seeing each other, and the courtship East Hampton and Farmington gathered momentum. In 1953, were much in evidence. Her par- while she was in London on assign- ties were nothing short of spectac- ment, Kennedy called her and pro- ular. When the president of Paki- posed. stan visited Washington, he heard Their engagement was not imme- an orchestra, took a boat ride, and diately made public by the Ken- had pouiet chasseur, accompanied nedy family because it might have by couronne de riz Clamart and, headed off a flattering article due to for dessert, some framboises a la appear in the Saturday Evening creme Chantilly at a table graced Post entitled, "Jack Kennedy - by silverware, glassware and china Senate's Gay Young Bachelor." from Tiffany and Bonwit Teller. The article appeared in the June 13 Before she left it, she placed a issue and the engagement was an- plaque in the Lincoln bedroom that nounced on June 25. They were said, "In this room lived John Fitz- married Sept. 12, 1953. gerald Kennedy with his wife, Jac- There were trials in her personal queline, during the 2 years, 10 life. In 1955 she suffered a miscar- months and 2 days he was presi- riage, and in 1956 she had a still- dent of the United States — Jan. born child by Caesarean section. 10, 1961 - Nov. 22, 1963." Pat Nix- Kennedy, who had only narrowly on had the plaque removed after missed winning the Democratic she and her husband moved in in vice presidential nomination in 1969. 1956, began to worry that they To some, Jacqueline Kennedy might not be able to have children. seemed to fall from grace as her They moved into a rented George- year of mourning ended. She was town home after Kennedy sold his photographed wearing a miniskirt; Virginia home to his brother, Rob- she was escorted to lunch and din- ert. ner and various social gatherings by BUt in 1957 Caroline Bouvier prominent bachelors, including Kennedy was born. Three years , Marlon Brando and later she gave birth to John F. Ken- Mike Nichols; she toured the Se- nedy Jr. A third child, Patrick Bou- ville Fair on horseback in 1966 vier Kennedy, lived only 39 hours and, in a crimson jacket and a rak- and died less than four months be- ish. broad-brimmed black hat, fore President Kennedy's assassina- tossed down a glass of sherry. tion in ,963. "I know," she said, "that to visit After Kennedy was elected pres- Sevilla and not ride horseback at ident in 1960, the mystique and the fair is equal to not coming at aura around the first lady began to all." grow rapith), especially after she To some Americans she was no and her husband made the state vi- longer just the grieving widow of sit to France in 1961. their martyred president; she was Her elegance and fluency in young, attractive and she clearly French captured their heart„;, and wanted to live her life with a cer- at a glittering dinner at Versailles tain brio. she seemed to quite mesmerize de But she found she also needed Gaulle, a man not easy to mesmer- more privacy. The more private she became the more curious the public seemed about her conduct. New Yorkers might be considered the most private of all Americans; ur- ban apartment-dwelling grants ano- nymity to those who seek it.