In 1996, Sotheby’s auctioned more than 5,500 items from the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who had died two years earlier.
The winning bids shattered all presale estimates: A monogrammed silver tape measure went for $48,875, a faux pearl necklace for $211,500. The four-day total topped an astonishing $34 million. “Most of the items were not exceptional works of art or craftsmanship, nor were they even from the White House era,” Elizabeth Beller writes in a new book. “They were all Jackie.”
The enduring romance and glamour of Camelot cannot be overstated. The Kennedys were the closest this country gets to a royal family, and Jackie’s beloved son — handsome, playful, adored — was America’s crown prince and most eligible bachelor. When John Jr. married Carloyn Bessette a few months after the auction, the fashion publicist was transformed into an international celebrity overnight.
They were a beautiful couple. She was a tall, elegant blonde with a cool reserve that complemented his effortless charm. Many people believed that one day John Jr. would become president and she would be first lady. That dream ended tragically when John, Carolyn and her sister died in a plane crash in the summer of 1999.
Now, 25 years later, Beller has written a biography, “Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.” The writer, who never met Carolyn, very much wants her subject to be remembered as extraordinary in her own right, not an ordinary young woman pulled into the Kennedy orbit.
To underscore her point, the book opens with an author’s note: Beller says she wants to defend the “slanderous” rumors that Carolyn was shallow, difficult and manipulative, characterizations she attributes to a “dysfunctional culture,” the anti-feminist patriarchy and the media. Her decision to write this book “was not so much a choice as a compulsion.”
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Author: Faith N
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