The Importance of Being Jackie
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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 HERE are those who get the Leaving West Palm Beach, Fla., for John F. Kennedy's inauguration, Jan. 18, 1961. Jackie Onassis thing and those who don't. This became clear when she died two years ago, T derives from the role she played In the and even more so during the bewilder- ing auction of her belongings last spring. services for John Kennedy. Copying Lin- But beyond this basic dichotomy — a coln's funeral was her idea, as was the matter of instinct and deepest sentiment eternal flame at Arlington. (She was also — there is a further divide, which is the the one who came up with the brilliant if generational one. cheesy Camelot metaphor.) People who People who were around when John watched the procession at the time say F. Kennedy was shot tend to wonder her dignity helped them recover from the about her as a person. (Was she a good trauma of the assassination. For those of mother? How did she cope with her hus- us who were not alive then, this can be band's infidelity?) But to many of us hard to understand. Certain events leave born after Camelot was over, who are an imprint so profound that they require accustomed to seeing her and her samu- their own anthropology: people who lived rai hair share tabloid pages with space through them belong to a different cul- aliens and Michael Jackson, the mys- ture from those who did not. tery of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is The posthumous crop of Jackie not her inner self but the enduring allure of her public persona: $85.000 for a ciga- Larissa MacFarquhar is a contributing rette lighter engraved with a gold letter editor at New York magazine and at Lingua Franca. "J," $211,500 for a set of take pearls. This is what needs to be explained. A large measure of her reputation sweaty description of Jackie's deflor- THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 5 ation: "Her skirt bunched up above her hips, the backs of her thighs pressed against the decorative open grillwork. ... When the elevator jolted to a stop, she was no longer a de mi-vierge." Mr. Klein's first chapter contains this aston- ishing description of the author meeting with his subject: "She fixed me with books unfortunately contributes little to trappings: summers in the Hampton, those widely spaced, asymmetrical an understanding of her public impact. horses, a society debut. brown eyes in a gaze that could only be With the exception of Jacques Lowe's It was an unfortunate consequence described as adoring." "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: The Mak- of her being a political wife that her John H. Davis is a career Jackie ing of a First Lady" (which is mostly amusing, catty side had to remain hid- cousin — he spent summers with her as pictures), they are celebrity biogra- den. The real Jackie could be delightful- child, and has written three books phies of the usual type — worshipful, yet ly bitchy. She referred to Lyndon and out Jackie and the Bouviers. The lat- crammed with tabloidy details. (Jackie Lady Bird Johnson as "Colonel Corn- st, "Jacqueline Bouvier: An Intimate losing her virginity in a Paris elevator, pone and his little pork chop." She re- emoir," which covers her life until her she and the President shooting up speed quired her designer to make all her irst wedding, is enlivened by the fact in the White House.) dresses unique, wanting "no fat little that Mr. Davis obviously loathes Jack- One of the things the books do bring women hopping around in the same ie's mother and includes many nasty de- out is the wonderful way she went about gown." When Congressional wives gave t' tails about her — for instance, how she being an aristocrat. American aristo- a party for her, she didn't bother to show employed a "Scandinavian snooper- crats generally try to be understated up but went to the ballet instead. She ette" (as the unfortunate woman was and tasteful, not understanding that the had, as a man who knew her put it, "a called by Jackie's grandfather) to en- whole purpose of aristocrats now is to whim of iron." trap her husband into verifiable adul- put on a show — to dress up and make Above all, she was expensive. Jack- tery. Mr. Davis has also dug up a bizarre life more exciting for the rest of us. ie was the kind of woman who is paid for little tidbit that will be relished by con- Jackie was not an old-fashioned aristo- hi camels. In 1955, Joseph Kennedy re- spiracy theorists: a close friend of Jack- crat, thank goodness, so she did every- portedly offered her $1 million (about ie's father, with whom Jackie played as thing aristocrats are supposed to. She $12 million in today's dollars) to ignore a child, later moved to Texas and be- spent fantastic sums on clothes. She was his son's philandering. When she mar- came "the principal mentor and friend" always late. She spoke in a demure, ried Aristotle Onassis in 1968, he forked of Lee Harvey Oswald. 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 HE books do not always agree toinette, but she knew how to play the their first year of marriage and paid her about matters of fact. For in- role. Once when Robert Kennedy and his an allowance of $30,000 a month. stance, did Jackie's mother de- father, Joseph, were discussing air pol- Of the four recently published Jack- liberately conspire to get her lution, she suggested the Air Force fly ie books, Christopher Andersen's "Jack T father too drunk to give his daughter around spraying Chanel No. 5. and Jackie" — which sketches the child- away at her wedding, as Mr. Klein says Of course, whether Jackie was a hoods of both, then focuses on the mar- she did? When John Kennedy's sister real aristocrat, whatever that is, is a riage — is the most worth reading. It is Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1998, matter of some debate. The Bouviers' odd that Mr. Andersen bills his book as was she with her fiancé (as Mr. Klein glittering French genealogy was bra- "a great American love story," since says) or her "married lover" (Mr. An- zenly invented by her grandfather. Still, it's clear from his (and others') account dersen)? The discrepancies are telling. Jackie was certainly an aristocrat of the of the marriage that, at least initially, It Mr. Klein in particular adopts the an- Social Register variety. Born in 1929 to a was nothing of the sort — she would nev- noying habit of putting quotation marks philandering, charming, handsome er have married him if he hadn't been around conversations whose precise drunkard, John (Black Jack) Bouvier rich, and he would never have married content he cannot possibly know. (and Janet Bouvier, née Lee, daughter her if his father hadn't said he had to for Jacques Lowe's "Jacqueline Ken- of a self-made Irish banker), she was career reasons. Still, Mr. Andersen, the nedy Onassis" is a book of photographs, raised with all the usual upper-class author of books about Madonna and accompanied by a brief text. Mr. Lowe took some of the most famous pictures of the couple: Jack and Jackie with baby Caroline nibbling Jackie's pearls; Jack- Mick Jagger, comes the closest to mak- ie at Hyannis Port in that marvelous yel- ing Jackie sparkle. low-and-white check dress; the trip to "All Too Human," by the journalist Paris. Above all else, Jackie was fabu- Edward Klein, examines much the lous in photographs, so paging through same material that Mr. Andersen does, Mr. Lowe's book is a pleasure — that is, but through a moist, Harlequin-ro- if you can forget what she herself mance haze. The general tone is con- thought of people who liked to look at veyed by the chapter and section titles: her. After being stared at all night at the "Pleasure First," "Indiscreet," "Love inaugural ball, Jackie compared her Lies. Bleeding" and, more obscurely, guests to "mesmerized cattle." 0 "Bongo, Bongo, Bongo." It comes across even better in Mr. Klein's .