Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

"Jacqueline Bouvier" redirects here. For the fictional TV cartoon character on The Simpsons, see Bouvier family § Jacqueline Bouvier.

"Jackie O" redirects here. For other uses, see Jackie O (disambiguation).

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
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First Lady of the United States
In office January 20, 1961 – November 22, 1963
Preceded by	Mamie Eisenhower
Succeeded by	Lady Bird Johnson
Personal details
Born	July 28, 1929 Southampton, New York, USA
Died	May 19, 1994 (cancer) (aged 64) New York, New York, USA
Spouse(s)	John F. Kennedy (1953–63) Aristotle Onassis (1968–75)
Relations	John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Lee Bouvier
Children	Arabella, Caroline, John and Patrick Kennedy
Occupation	First Lady of the United States, Doubleday editor

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was the wife of John F. Kennedy from 1953 to 1963 and was known as Jacqueline Kennedy or Jackie Kennedy. She served as First Lady of the United States from 1961 until her husband's assassination in 1963. From 1968 until his death in 1975, she was married to Aristotle Onassis and was known as Jacqueline Onassis, Jackie Onassis, or more informally as Jackie O. In later years she had a successful career as a book editor. She preferred her first name to be pronounced in the French manner (IPA: /ʒaklin/)..

Family and early life

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born at Southampton Hospital in Southampton, New York, into New York society. She was the elder daughter of John Vernou Bouvier III (1891–1957) and Janet Norton Lee Bouvier (Auchincloss Morris) (1906–1989).

Her name commemorated both sides of her family ("Jacqueline" celebrating three generations of "Jacks" on her father's side and "Lee" celebrating the surname of her maternal grandparents).

In attempts to get on the social register both sides of her family were to make exaggerations about her heritage with Bouviers making claims she descended from the royal Fontaines in France and the Lees declaring she was part of the "Virginia Lees." She was of mostly Irish, Scottish, and English descent; her French paternal ancestry is distant, with her last French ancestor being Michel Bouvier, a Philadelphia-based cabinetmaker who was her great grandfather.

Jacqueline was joined by a sister, Caroline Lee, known as Lee, in 1933. Her father, nicknamed "Black Jack", was a playboy stockbroker whose womanizing led to his eventual divorce from Janet when Jackie was a young girl. While Black Jack never remarried, Janet married her second husband, Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. and had two children with him, Jacqueline's half-siblings Janet Jennings and James Auchincloss. In her later years, Jacqueline's mother married Bingham Morris.

Jacqueline spent summers of her first 12 years at the estate of her paternal grandparents called Lasata in East Hampton where she became an accomplished equestrienne competing with her favorite horse Danseuse, meaning "female dancer" in French.

After her parents' formal divorce in 1942 and her mother's remarriage, she was to continue her riding at the Auchincloss's Hammersmith Farm.

She loved reading, painting, writing poems, and shared a warm relationship with her father. Her relationship with her mother, though, was often distant.

Education, introduction to society and first job

• 1935–42 The Chapin School — New York City — Kindergarten and grammar school
• 1942–44 Holton Arms School — Bethesda, Maryland — grammar school and first year of high school.
• 1944–47 Miss Porter's School — Farmington, Connecticut — High School
• 1947–49 Vassar College — Poughkeepsie, New York — Freshman and Sophomore years of College
• 1949–50 University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne — Paris, France -Junior year abroad program through Smith College
• 1950–51 The George Washington University — Washington, D.C. — 4th year of college. Graduated with a B.A in French Literature
• 1954 Georgetown University — Georgetown, Washington D.C. American History Continuing Education Classes

While Jacqueline was at Vassar, she was named "Debutante of the Year" for the 1947–48 season.

In 1951, Jacqueline took her first job as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for The Washington Times-Herald. Her job was to ask witty questions of the people she met in Washington, D.C. The questions and amusing responses would then appear alongside the interviewee's photograph in the newspaper. One of Jacqueline's subjects for this assignment was a young Massachusetts Congressman named John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy marriage

Jacqueline Kennedy at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island on the day of her wedding in 1953.

Jacqueline was engaged to a young stockbroker, John Husted, in December 1951. In courting, Jackie had commuted to New York City from Washington to meet Husted. In New York City she stayed at the apartment of her father, Black Jack Bouvier, who liked Husted. However, the engagement was called off in March 1952, on the advice of Jackie's mother, Janet. She felt Husted, who made $17,000 per year, was not affluent enough, even though his family was on the social register. Jackie is reported to have told cohorts that Husted was "immature" and his work was too tame. Years later, Jacqueline's explanation of the engagement's end was that she and Husted were not very serious.

Jacqueline and Kennedy were at the same functions several times between 1948 and 1952. The first was the wedding of a mutual friend on Long Island in 1948. In May 1951 she met him at a dinner party at the home of Charles and Martha Bartlett in Washington, DC. Kennedy accompanied her out to the car but discovered Husted was in the car. In the winter of 1951–52 they attended a large event in Palm Beach, Florida. After the engagement with Husted was called off, the Bartletts hosted another dinner party on May 8, 1952 and the romance began.

The announcement of the couple's engagement did not result in universal delight within the Bouvier family. According to an article in Time magazine, "[Jacqueline] telephoned me to tell me the news", Black Jack Bouvier's sister Maude Bouvier Davis explained, "but she said, 'You can't say anything about it because the Saturday Evening Post is about to come out with an article on Jack called "The Senate's Gay Young Bachelor" and this would spoil it.'" Another aunt, Michelle Bouvier Putnam, was dismissive of the media hubbub surrounding the forthcoming nuptials, saying, "The whole Kennedy clan is unperturbed by publicity. We feel differently about it. Their clan is totally united; ours is not."

Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy married on September 12, 1953, at Newport, Rhode Island. The bride's gown and the bridesmaids' dresses were made by Ann Lowe, a well-known fashion designer; the reception was held at Hammersmith Farm, with guests numbering nearly 2,000 people. After the wedding, they returned to Washington, D.C. following a brief honeymoon. Early in their marriage, Senator Kennedy suffered crippling pain in his back from a wartime injury and he had two operations. As he was recovering from surgery, Mrs. Kennedy encouraged him to write a book, Profiles in Courage, which is about several U.S. senators who had risked their careers to fight for the things in which they believed. The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1957.

The marriage had problems arising from John F. Kennedy's alleged affairs and his debilitating health issues, both of which were hidden from the public. Jacqueline spent much of her time and money early in their marriage redecorating their home and shopping for clothes. Many of these garments in the early days were designer clothing by Scaasi.

For their first years of marriage, John and Jacqueline Kennedy lived in a townhouse on N Street in Georgetown, Washington, D.C..

Jacqueline was fond of her father-in-law, Joseph P. Kennedy, and the affection was returned. He saw the great PR potential of her as a politician's wife. Jackie's relationship with Rose Kennedy was more distant. She was also close to her brother-in-law, Robert ("Bobby"). Yet she was not fond of the competitive, sporty, and somewhat abrasive nature of the Kennedy clan. She was quieter and more reserved. She preferred to have time alone with John rather than with him and the entire family. The Kennedy sisters nicknamed her "the deb", and Jacqueline was always reluctant to join in the traditional family touch-football games. Once, she broke her ankle in a game of touch-football with them.

Children

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
Arabella Kennedy	August 23, 1956	August 23, 1956	Stillborn daughter; reburied along with her brother Patrick Bouvier Kennedy next to their father shortly after the President's death in 1963 and again at the permanent Kennedy gravesite in 1967.
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy	November 27 1957		Married to Edwin Schlossberg; has two daughters and a son. She is the last surviving child of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr.	November 25 1960	July 16 1999	Married to Carolyn Bessette; died in plane crash in 1999.
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy	August 7 1963	August 9 1963	Died from hyaline membrane disease, which is now more commonly called respiratory distress syndrome.

Candidate's wife

Jacqueline Kennedy campaigning alongside her husband in Appleton, Wisconsin, in March 1960

In January 1960, Senator John Kennedy announced his candidacy for Presidency of the United States, and began working very long hours and traveling all around the country. Jackie had taken an active role in the campaign, even speaking to grocery store shoppers over the PA system in one town. In Appleton, Wisconsin, she signed autographs for junior high school students, commenting that her signature would be more legible than Jack's. Campaigning in West Virginia hit Jacqueline the hardest, as she had not witnessed that degree of poverty before. Later, in the White House, when the need for new glassware came up, Jackie suggested that Morgantown Glassware from the impoverished state supply it.

A few weeks before her husband’s campaign for President began, Jacqueline learned that she was pregnant and due to the previous stillbirth of an unnamed daughter, her doctors instructed her to remain at home. From Georgetown, Jacqueline helped her husband by answering thousands of campaign letters, taping TV commercials, giving interviews both televised and printed and by writing a weekly newspaper column, Campaign Wife, which was distributed across the country. She was assisted by her personal secretary, Mary Barelli Gallagher, who continued her post during the White House Years; she stopped working for Jackie several months after Mrs. Kennedy moved to New York City. In 1969, Gallagher published her best-selling tell-all memoir, My Life with Jacqueline Kennedy.

In the general election on November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly beat Republican Richard Milhous Nixon in the 1960 presidential election.

First Lady of the United States

Mrs. Kennedy, the president, André Malraux, Marie-Madeleine Lioux Malraux, Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson having just descended the White House Grand Stair on their way to a dinner with the French cultural minister, May 1962. Mrs. Kennedy wears a gown designed by Guy Douvier for Christian Dior.

Jackie gave birth by caesarian section to John F. Kennedy, Jr. two weeks after his father's election. Jackie toured the White House shortly after. Mamie Eisenhower walked her around the vast house, never telling her there was a wheelchair for her use. Jackie left the White House and went home to collapse. She was still in frail health when her husband became the 35th President of the United States and she First Lady in January, 1961. She was one of the youngest First Ladies in history, just behind Frances Folsom Cleveland and Julia Tyler.

She asked to be addressed as "Mrs. Kennedy". Like any First Lady, she was forced into the public spotlight with everything in her life under scrutiny. When asked what she felt was the major role of the First Lady, before she entered the White House, she said, "I think the major role of the First Lady is to take care of the President so that he can better serve the people."

While she did not mind giving interviews or being photographed, she was worried about the effect it would have on her children. Jacqueline was determined to protect them from the press and give them a normal childhood. She allowed very few photographs to be taken of them but when she was gone, the President would allow the White House photographer Cecil Stoughton to take pictures of the children.{{cn}

Mrs. Kennedy planned numerous social events that brought the First Couple into the Nation's cultural spotlight. She had also invited artists, writers, scientists, poets, and musicians to mingle with politicians, diplomats, and statesmen. She spoke fluent English and French. This appreciation for art, music, and culture marked a new chapter in American history. Jackie's skill at entertaining gave White House events the reputation of being magical. For instance, when she orchestrated a dinner at Mount Vernon in honor of Pakistan's President Ayub Khan, whom President Kennedy wanted to honor for his role in supporting the U.S. in a recent crisis, she banished large U-shaped dining tables, replacing them with round tables that seated eight. Her social graces were legendary, as can be noted from the way she communicated with Charles De Gaulle in Paris and Nikita Khruschev in Vienna. The President's summit in Vienna turned out to be a disaster, but the Premier's enjoyment of Mrs. Kennedy's company was subsequently deemed one of the few positive outcomes. When Soviet Premier Khrushchev was asked to shake President Kennedy's hand for a photo, the Communist leader said, "I'd like to shake her hand first."

French influence in the Kennedy White House

Due in part to her French ancestry, Jacqueline had always felt a bond with France, which was reinforced by her education there. This was a love that would later be reflected in many aspects of her life, such as the menus she chose for White House State Dinners and her taste in clothing and her love of ballet. She chose French interior designer Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen to consult on the White House Restoration and decoration of the private family quarters on the second and third floors of the Executive Mansion. Mrs. Kennedy recruited a Vietnamese-born French chef to become White House chef.

White House restoration

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The White House Blue Room as redecorated by Stéphane Boudin in 1962. Boudin chose the period of the Madison administration, returning much of the original French Empire style furniture.

The restoration of the White House was Jacqueline Kennedy's first major project. She was dismayed during her pre-inauguration tour of the White House, which was conducted by Mamie Eisenhower, to find little of historic significance in the house. The rooms were furnished with undistinguished pieces that she felt lacked a sense of history. Her first efforts, begun her first day in residence (with the help of society decorator Sister Parish), were to make the family quarters attractive and suitable for family life and included the addition of a kitchen on the family floor and rooms for her children. Upon almost immediately exhausting the funds appropriated for this effort, she established a fine arts committee to oversee and fund the restoration process; she also asked early American furniture expert Henry du Pont to consult. Her skillful management of this project was hardly noted at the time, except in terms of gossipy shock at repeated repainting of a room, or the high cost of the antique Zuber wallpaper panels installed in the family dining room ($12,000 in donated funds), but later accounts have noted that she managed the conflicting agendas of Parish, du Pont, and Stéphane Boudin of Maison Jansen with seamless success; she initiated publication of the first White House guidebook, whose sales further funded the restoration; she initiated a Congressional bill establishing that White House furnishings would be the property of the Smithsonian Institution, rather than available to departing ex-presidents to claim as their own; and she wrote personal requests to those who owned pieces of historical interest that might be donated to the White House. On February 14, 1962, Mrs. Kennedy took American television viewers on a tour of the White House with Charles Collingwood of CBS. In the tour she said, "I just feel that everything in the White House should be the best — the entertainment that's given here. If it's an American company you can help, I like to do that. If not — Just as long as it's the best." Working with Rachel Lambert Mellon Mrs. Kennedy oversaw redesign and replanting of the White House Rose Garden and the East Garden, which was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden after her husband's assassination. Jacqueline Kennedy's efforts on behalf of restoration and preservation a the White House left a lasting legacy in the form of the White House Historical Association, the Committee for the Preservation of the White House which was based upon her White House Furnishings Committee, a permanent Curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust.

Tour of France

Before the Kennedys visited France, a television special was shot in French with Jackie on the White House lawn. When the First Couple visited France, she'd already won the hearts of the French people, impressing Charles de Gaulle and the French public with her French. At the conclusion of the visit, Time magazine seemed delighted with the First Lady and noted, "There was also that fellow who came with her." Even President Kennedy joked, "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris — and I have enjoyed it!"

Tour of India and Pakistan

President Ayub Khan and Jacqueline Kennedy with Sardar.

At the urging of President Kennedy's ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, Mrs. Kennedy undertook a tour of India and Pakistan, taking her sister Lee Radziwill along with her, which was amply documented in photojournalism of the time as well as in the journals and memoirs of Professor Galbraith. At the time, Ambassador Galbraith noted a considerable disjunction between Mrs Kennedy's widely-noted concern with clothes and other frivolity and, on personal acquaintance, her considerable intellect.

In Lahore, Pakistani President Ayub Khan presented Mrs Kennedy with a subsequently much-photographed horse, Sardar (the Urdu term meaning ‘leader’); subsequently this gift was widely misattributed to the king of Saudi Arabia, including in the various recollections of the Kennedy White House years by President Kennedy's friend, journalist and editor Benjamin Bradlee. It has never become clear whether this general misattribution of the gift was carelessness or a deliberate effort to deflect attention from the USA's preference for Pakistan over India. At the same time, she had a friendly chat with Iranian Empress Farah Pahlavi.

Death of an infant son

Jacqueline gave birth to a premature son, whom she and John named Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, via emergency caesarian section at Otis Air Force Base on August 7, 1963. Because his lungs were not fully developed, Patrick could not breathe and he was air lifted to Boston's Children's Hospital where he was placed in an oxygen-rich, pressurized room. He died of Hyaline Membrane Disease (now known as Respiratory Distress Syndrome) on August 9, 1963. Jacqueline told President Kennedy there was one thing she would not be able to bear, and that would be to lose him.

After Patrick's death, Jacqueline kept a low profile at the White House. The President suggested she visit her sister in Europe as a way to recuperate from Patrick's death. She spent considerable time relaxing in the Mediterranean region during the early autumn. She and her sister were guests, along with Mr. & Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., aboard Aristotle Onassis's yacht, Christina, during this period. Jacqueline made her first public appearance at the White House in the middle of November 1963.

Assassination and Funeral of John F. Kennedy

Main article: Assassination of John F. Kennedy

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The Presidential limousine before the assassination. Jacqueline is in the back seat to the President's left.

When President Kennedy asked her to accompany him on a campaign trip to Texas, she told him she would go anywhere he needed her. On November 21, 1963 they left Andrews Air Force Base, first stopped in San Antonio, and then went to Houston where they toured NASA facilities. Their last stop that day was in Ft. Worth. After a breakfast the next day, November 22, with the Ft. Worth Chamber of Commerce at The Hotel Texas, President and Mrs. Kennedy flew to Dallas's Love Field. A short motorcade was to take them to the Trademart where he was scheduled to speak. Jackie was seated next to her husband in the limousine when he was shot and mortally wounded in Dealey Plaza. Vice President Johnson and his wife followed in another car in the motorcade. After the President was hit, Jacqueline climbed out of the back seat and crawled toward the Secret Service agent who was at the back. After his death she refused to remove her blood-stained clothing, and regretted having washed the blood off of her face and hands. She continued to wear the famous stained pink suit as she stood next to Johnson on board the plane when he took the oath of office as President.

Jacqueline Kennedy in Givenchy, Robert Kennedy, John Jr., Caroline, and Peter Lawford depart the U.S. Capitol after a lying-in-state ceremony for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 24 November 1963

Jacqueline led the nation in mourning as the President lay in repose at the White House and then lay in state in the Capitol rotunda. The funeral service was held for the President at St. Matthew's Cathedral. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery and Jackie was the first to light the eternal flame at the grave site. Lady Jean Campbell reported back to The London Evening Standard: "Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people… one thing they have always lacked: majesty."

Following the assassination, she stepped back from official public view. She was spared the ordeal of appearing at the trial of Lee Harvey Oswald, due to his murder while in police custody on November 24, 1963. She did, however, make a brief appearance in Washington to honor the Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, who had climbed aboard the limousine in Dallas to try to shield her and the President.

Life following the assassination

A week after the assassination on November 29, the President's widow was interviewed in Hyannisport by Theodore H. White of Life magazine. In that session, she compared the Kennedy years in the White House to King Arthur's mythical Camelot, commenting that John often played the title song of Lerner and Loewe's musical recording before retiring to bed. She also quoted Queen Guinevere from the musical, trying to express how the loss felt. "Now he is a legend when he would have preferred to be a man."

The steadiness and courage of Jacqueline Kennedy during the assassination and funeral won her admiration around the world. Following John's death, Jackie and her children remained in their quarters in the White House for two weeks, preparing to vacate. Johnson made several phone calls that were recorded via dictabelt from the Oval Office to Jackie in the residence; the two also shared several letters and notes back and forth through messengers since the assassination. In the first call on December 2, 1963, she told him that she knew how rare it was to have something in a President's handwriting and that she now had more in his handwriting than she did in Jack's. The President encouraged her to come and visit with him to spend time talking.

After spending the winter of 1964 in Averill Harriman's home in the Georgetown section of Washington D.C., Jackie decided to purchase a luxury apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue in New York in the hope of having more privacy. She sold the home she had built in Atoka, Virginia, where she had intended to retire with her husband. She spent a year in mourning, making no public appearances, then zealously guarded her privacy. During this time, her daughter Caroline told her school teacher that her mother cried frequently.

She perpetuated her husband's memory by visiting his grave site on important anniversaries and attending selected memorial dedications. These included the 1967 christening of the Navy aircraft carrier named USS John F. Kennedy, which has been decommissioned in 2007, in Newport News, Virginia, and a memorial in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. She requested and lit an eternal flame over her husband's grave. In May 1965, Jacqueline Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II jointly dedicated the United Kingdom's official memorial to President Kennedy at Runnymede, England. This memorial included several acres of soil given in perpetuity from the United Kingdom to the United States of America on the meadow where the Magna Carta had been signed by King John in 1215.

She oversaw plans for the establishment of the John F. Kennedy Library, which is the repository for official papers of the Kennedy Administration. Original plans to have the library situated in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Harvard University, proved problematic for various reasons, so it is situated in Boston. The finished library, designed by I.M. Pei, includes a museum and was dedicated in Boston in 1979 by President Carter, nearly 16 years after the assassination. The governments of many nations donated money to erect the library, in addition to corporate and private donations.

Onassis marriage

On October 20, 1968, Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping tycoon, on Skorpios, Greece. Following this, her legal name was changed to Jacqueline Onassis. Four and a half months earlier her brother-in-law, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, had been assassinated in Los Angeles. At that point, Jacqueline feared that the Kennedys were being "targeted", and that she and her children had to leave the United States. Marriage to Onassis appeared to make sense: he had the money and power to give her the protection she needed, while she had the social cachet he craved. He allegedly ended his affair with opera diva Maria Callas to marry her. Jacqueline gave up Secret Service protection and franking privilege, to which a widow of a president of the United States is entitled, after her marriage to Onassis.

For a time, the marriage brought her adverse publicity and seemed to tarnish the image of the grieving presidential widow. However, others viewed the marriage as a positive symbol of the "modern American woman" who would not be afraid to look after her own financial interests and to protect her family. The marriage initially seemed successful, but stresses soon became apparent. The couple rarely spent time together. Though Onassis got along with Caroline and John, Jr. (his son Alexander introduced John to flying; coincidentally, both would die in plane crashes), Jacqueline did not get along with step-daughter Christina Onassis. She spent most of her time traveling and shopping.

In the 1970s, the First Lady's sister Lee Radziwill discussed creating a documentary with Albert and David Maysles about Jacqueline's girlhood in East Hampton. At about the same time, Jackie's aunt on her father's side Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale "Big Edie" and her daughter "Little Edie" received unwanted national attention when the National Enquirer ran an expose on the deplorable conditions of their East Hampton mansion, Grey Gardens. The Suffolk County, New York Board of Health made a raid ordering them to clean up the property which was falling into disrepair and was being overrun with feral cats. Jacqueline and Aristotle Onassis donated $32,000 to clean the house and install a new furnace and plumbing system and cart away 1,000 bags of garbage.

The Maysles interviewed the Edies and showed the footage of Radziwill and she confiscated the film. However the Maysles were to return and the focus of their documentary was to be the Edies instead of the First Lady and it has become the cult documentary Grey Gardens.

Jacqueline was with her children in New York. Her legacy was severely limited by a rumored prenuptial agreement and by legislation that Onassis had allegedly persuaded the Greek government to approve, which limited how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. Jacqueline eventually accepted Christina's offer of $26,000,000, waiving all other claims to the Onassis estate.

Invasion of privacy

When a paparazzo photographed Jackie Onassis nude on a Greek island, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt bought the photos and published them in the August 1975 issue, much to her and the Kennedy family's embarrassment.

Final years

Jackie Kennedy's Official White House Portrait.

Onassis's death in 1975 made Jacqueline, then 46, a widow for the second time. Now that her children were older, she decided to find work that would be fulfilling to her. Since she had always enjoyed writing and literature, Jacqueline accepted a job offer as an editor at Viking Press and then, in 1978, moved to Doubleday as an associate editor under an old friend, John Sargent, living in New York City, Martha's Vineyard and the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis, Massachusetts. From the mid 1970s until her death, her companion was Maurice Tempelsman, a Belgian-born industrialist and diamond merchant who was long separated from his wife. Among the many books she edited was Larry Gonick's The Cartoon History of the Universe. He expressed his gratitude in the acknowledgments in Volume 2. Jacqueline Onassis's continuing charisma is indicated by the delight the Canadian author Robertson Davies took in discovering that at a commencement exercise at an American university at which he was being honored, Jacqueline Kennedy was on hand, circulating among the honorees. On the other hand, her efforts on behalf of Doubleday to enlist Frank Sinatra, the Duchess of Windsor and not surprisingly Queen Elizabeth II as Doubleday authors were firmly rebuffed.

Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1986 during a visit from the current President and First Lady, Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

Jacqueline Onassis also appreciated the contributions of African-American writers to the American literary canon and encouraged Dorothy West, her neighbor on Martha's Vineyard and the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, to complete The Wedding: a multi-generational story about race, class, wealth, and power in the United States. The novel received great literary acclaim when it was published by Doubleday in 1995 and Oprah Winfrey introduced the story in 1998 to millions of Americans via a television film of the same name starring Halle Berry. Dorothy West acknowledged Jacqueline Onassis's kind encouragement in the foreword.

She also worked to preserve and protect America’s cultural heritage. The notable results of her hard work include Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C, and Grand Central Terminal, New York's beloved historic railroad station. While she was First Lady, she helped to stop the destruction of historic homes in Lafayette Square, because she knew that these buildings were an important part of the nation’s capital and played an essential role in its history. Later, in New York City, she led a historic preservation campaign to save and renovate Grand Central Terminal from demolition. A plaque inside the terminal acknowledges her prominent role in its preservation. In the 1980s, she was a major figure in protests against a planned skyscraper at Columbus Circle which would have cast large shadows on Central Park.

From her apartment windows in New York she had a splendid view of a glass enclosed wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art which displays the Temple of Dendur. This was a gift from Egypt to the United States in gratitude for the generosity of the Kennedy administration, who had been instrumental in saving several temples and objects of Egyptian antiquity that would otherwise have been flooded after the construction of the Aswan Dam.

In January 1994, Onassis was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of cancer. Her diagnosis was announced to the public in February. The family was initially optimistic, and she stopped smoking at the insistence of her daughter. Onassis continued her work with Doubleday, but curtailed her schedule. By April 1994, the cancer had spread, and she made her last trip home from New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center on May 18, 1994. A large crowd of wellwishers, tourists, and reporters gathered on the street outside her penthouse apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, and she died in her sleep at 10:15 pm on Thursday, May 19, at the age of 64, , on what would have been her father's 103rd birthday.

Jacqueline Onassis's funeral was held on May 23 at Saint Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church at Park Avenue and East 84th Street in Manhattan, which was the same church where she was baptized in 1929. As a concession to a grieving world, audio of her private funeral, along with a special television broadcast, was broadcast around the world. At her funeral, her son, John, described three of her attributes as the love of words, the bonds of home and family, and her spirit of adventure. She was then buried next to President John F. Kennedy, and near their son Patrick and daughter Arabella at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. The New York Daily News ran an issue the next day saying, "Missing Her".

Legacy, memorials, and honors

Grave of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis at the Arlington National Cemetery.

Since her death, many Americans remember how she captivated the attention of her nation and the rest of the world with her intelligence and grace. With a deep sense of devotion to her family and country she dedicated herself to raising her children and to making the world a better place through art, literature, and a respect for history.

The companion book for a series of interviews between mythologist Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, was created under the direction of Onassis, prior to her death. The book's editor, Betty Sue Flowers, writes in the Editor's Note to The Power of Myth: "I am grateful… to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, the Doubleday editor, whose interest in the books of Joseph Campbell was the prime mover in the publication of this book." A year after her death in 1994, Moyers dedicated the companion book for his PBS series, The Language of Life to Onassis. The dedication read: To Jacqueline Onassis. As you sail on to Ithaka. Ithaka was a reference to the C.P. Cavafy poem that Maurice Tempelsman read at her funeral.

In December 1999 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was among 18 included in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th Century, from a poll conducted of the American people.

Like her assassinated husband, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis's legacy has been memorialized in various aspects of American and to a later extent, non-American culture. They include:

• A high school called Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School for International Careers, was dedicated by New York City in 1995, in Jackie's honor. It is the only high school in the United States named in her honor. It is located at 120 West 46th Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, and was formerly the High School for the Performing Arts.
• Central Park's main reservoir was renamed in her honor, so it is called the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.
• The residence hall on the southeast corner at the intersection of I and 23rd Streets of the George Washington University had been renamed into Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Hall [1].
• Near the White House, a garden was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden in her honor, shortly after the assassination of her husband.
• In 2007, her name, along with her assassinated husband's, is onboard the Japanese Kaguya mission to the moon, as part of The Planetary Society's Messages From Earth project.
• On The Simpsons, Marge's mother's name is Jacqueline Bouvier (though this is her married name).

Cultural depictions of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Main article: Cultural depictions of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

An American icon from the 1960s and beyond, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is frequently alluded to and depicted in various forms of popular culture, including films, television series, cartoon series, computer and video games and music. Numerous books and plays have been written about her, as she remains symbolic of 20th century America.

Films about

• Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1981, TV)
• Kennedy (1983, TV)
• LBJ: The Early Years (1987, TV)
• A Woman Named Jackie (1991, TV)
• Love Field (1992)
• Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (2000, TV)
• Thirteen Days (2000)
• Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot (2001) (TV)
• Timequest (2002)
• America's Prince: The John F. Kennedy, Jr. Story (2003, TV)
• The Hoax (2006)

Books about

• Farewell, Jackie: A Portrait of Her Final Days, Edward Klein, Viking Books, 2004.
• All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy, St. Martin's Press, 2003.
• Just Jackie: Her Private Years, Ballatine Books, 1999.
• The Kennedy Curse: Why Tragedy Has Haunted America's First Family for 150 Years, Pocket Books, 1996.
• Diana & Jackie, Maidens, Mothers, Myths, by Jay Mulvaney, St. Martin's Press, 2002.
• The Death of a President, by William Manchester, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1967.
• "What Would Jackie Do? An Inspired Guide to Distinctive Living", by Shelly Branch and Sue Callaway, Gotham Books, 2006.
• What Jackie Taught Us: Lessons from the Remarkable Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Tina Santi Flaherty, 2005
• As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Family and Friends, Perigee Trade, 1997
• Jackie, the Clothes of Camelot, by Jay Mulvaney, St. Martin's Press, 2001.
• jackiestyle, by Pamela Clarke Keogh, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.
• Jackie by Naomi West & Catherine Wilson Editions de la Martiniere 2006
• America's Queen The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. By Sarah Bradford. Illustrated. 500 pp. Viking, New York 2000.

Plays and theatre works about

• Jackie-O an opera by Michael Daugherty — Houston Opera Studio, Houston, TX.
• JACKS by Lys Anzia [2] — Fremont Centre Theatre, South Pasadena, CA.
• Cirque Jacqueline by Andrea Reese — Triad Theater, NY, NY.
• Jackie, An American Life by Gip Hoppe — Wilber Theatre, Boston, MA.
• Jackie Undressed by Andree Stolte — Eagles Dare Theater, NY, NY.
• The Secret Letters of Jackie & Marilyn by Mark Hampton and Michael Sharp, O'Reilly Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA.
• Jackie" by Naomi West & Catherine Wilson Editions de la Martiniere
• The First Lady by Herman van Veen and Lori Spee

Songs About

• Jackie Will Save Me by American rock band Shiny Toy Guns
• "Jackie's Strength" by Tori Amos
• "Tire Me" by Rage Against the Machine
• "Jacqueline/Jackie-O" by Strung Out

Further reading

• Abbott, James A. A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin. Boscobel Restoration Inc.: 1995. ISBN 0-9646659-0-5.
• Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. ISBN 0-442-02532-7.
• Abbott, James A. Jansen. Acanthus Press: 2006. ISBN 0-926494-33-3.
• Baldrige, Letitia. In the Kennedy Style: Magical evenings in the Kennedy White House. Doubleday: 1998. ISBN 0-385-48964-1.
• Bowles, Hamish, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Rachel Lambert Mellon. "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years." The Metropolitan Museum of Art. bulfinch Press/Little, Brown and Company: 2001. ISBN 0-8212-2745-9.
• Cassini, Oleg. A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing the First Lady for the White House. Rizzoli International Publications: 1995. ISBN 0-8478-1900-0.
• West, J.B. with Mary Lynn Kotz. Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan: 1973. SBN 698-10546-X.
• Wolff, Perry. A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy. Doubleday & Company: 1962.
• Exhibition Catalogue, Sale 6834: The Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis April 23–26, 1996. Sothebys, Inc.: 1996.
• The White House: An Historic Guide. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 2001. ISBN 0-912308-79-6.

External links

• Obituary, NY Times, May 20, 1994
• White House biography
• Unofficial biography
• Arlington Cemetery biographical information
• Jackie Handbook
• Jackie's jewelry replicas
• Template:PDFlink — contains much of "the Camelot interview".
• National First Ladies' Library
• Last Will and Testament of Jackie Onassis