Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

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

"Jackie O." redirects here. For other uses, see Jackie O.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
File:Jackie Kennedy Color Portrait.jpg
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	(1929-07-28)July 28, 1929 Southampton, New York
Died	May 19, 1994(1994-05-19) (aged 64) New York City, New York
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	John F. Kennedy (1953–1963) Aristotle Onassis (1968–1975)
Children	Arabella, Caroline, John Jr. and Patrick Kennedy
Alma mater	Vassar College - attended Sorbonne- attended The George Washington University (B.A.)
Occupation	First Lady of the United States, Book Editor at Viking Press (1975-1977), Book editor at Doubleday (1978-1994)
Signature

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was the wife of the 35th president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and served as First Lady during his presidency from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. She was later married to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis from 1968 until his death in 1975. In later years she had a successful career as a book editor. She is remembered for her contributions to the arts and historic preservation, her style and elegance, and her public stoicism in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination.

Early life

Born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier in Southampton, New York, she was the daughter of John Vernou Bouvier III, a Wall Street stock broker, and his wife Janet Norton Lee, who was later known as Janet Lee Auchincloss after her 1940 divorce from Bouvier and subsequent 1942 marriage to Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr.. She had a younger sister, Lee Radziwill, born in 1933 with the name Caroline Lee Bouvier. Caroline, who was known as Lee, had an anulled marriage to Stanislaw Radziwill from 1958 to 1974 and then was married to Herbert Ross from 1988 to 2001. Through Janet's second marriage, Jacqueline gained a half sister named Janet Auchincloss and a half-brother named James Auchincloss.

On her mother's side, Jacqueline was of half Irish decent, and on her father's side, one-sixteenth French and an unknown percentage Scottish, and English. Michael Bouvier, Jacqueline's great-great-grandfather and closest French ancestor, was a contemporary of Joseph Bonaparte and Stephen Girard. He was a Philadelphia-based cabinetmaker, merchant and real estate speculator.

Bouvier spent her early years between New York City and East Hampton, New York at the Bouvier family estate, "Lasata". Following their parents' divorce, Jacqueline and Lee divided their time between their mother's homes in McLean, Virginia and Newport, Rhode Island and their father's homes in New York City and Long Island.

At a very early age she became an enthusiastic equestrienne, a sport that would remain a lifelong passion. As a child, she also enjoyed drawing, reading and lacrosse.

Education and young adulthood

Bouvier pursued her secondary education at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland (1942–1944) and Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut (1944–1947).

When she made her society debut in 1947, Hearst columnist Igor Cassini dubbed her Debutante of the Year.

Bouvier spent her first two years of college at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and spent her junior year (1949–1950) in France at the University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne in a program through Smith College. Upon returning home to the United States, she transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1951 with a bachelor of arts degree in French literature. Bouvier's college graduation coincided with her sister's high school graduation, and the two spent the summer of 1951 on a trip through Europe. This trip was the subject of Kennedy's only autobiographical book, One Special Summer, which is also the only one of her publications to feature her drawings.

Following her graduation, Bouvier was hired as the Inquiring Photographer for The Washington Times-Herald. The job involved asking witty questions of people she met and taking the picture of the interviewee, which was published next to their comments. During this time, she was engaged to a young stock broker, John Husted, for a period of three months.

Kennedy marriage and family

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

Jacqueline and then-Senator John Kennedy were involved in the same social circle and often attended the same functions. In May 1952, at a dinner party organized by mutual friends, they were formally introduced for the first time. The two began dating soon afterward, and their engagement was officially announced on June 25, 1953.

Bouvier married Kennedy on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island in a Mass celebrated by Archbishop Richard Cushing. An estimated 700 guests attended the ceremony and 1,200 attended the reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm.

The wedding cake was created by Plourde's Bakery in Fall River, Massachusetts. Kennedy's wedding dress, now housed in the Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, and the dresses of her attendants were created by designer Ann Lowe of New York City.

The two honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico and settled in McLean, Virginia.

Jacqueline suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in 1956. That same year, the couple sold their estate, Hickory Hill to Robert and Ethel Kennedy and moved to a townhouse on N Street in Georgetown. Kennedy subsequently gave birth to a second daughter, Caroline, in 1957, and a son, John, in 1960, both via Caesarian section.

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
Arabella Kennedy	August 23, 1956	August 23, 1956	Stillborn daughter.
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	Magazine publisher and lawyer. Married to Carolyn Bessette. Both Kennedy and his wife died in a plane crash, as did Lauren Bessette, Carolyn's sister, on July 16, 1999, off Martha's Vineyard in a Piper Saratoga II HP piloted by Kennedy.
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy	August 7, 1963	August 9, 1963	Died from Hyaline Membrane Disease, today more commonly called Infant Respiratory Distress Syndrome. at the age of two days.

First Lady of the United States

Campaign for Presidency

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

On January 2, 1960, John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Presidency and launched his nationwide campaign. Though she had initially intended to take an active role in the campaign, Kennedy learned that she was pregnant shortly after the campaign commenced. Due to her previous difficult pregnancies, Kennedy's doctor instructed her to stay at home. From Georgetown, Kennedy participated in her husband's campaign by answering letters, taping TV commercials, giving televised and printed interviews, and writing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, "Campaign Wife." She made rare personal appearances.

As First Lady

Mrs. Kennedy, the president, André Malraux, Marie-Madeleine Lioux Malraux, Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson having just descended White House Grand Staircase on their way to a dinner with the French cultural minister, April 1962. Mrs. Kennedy wears a gown designed by Oleg Cassini.

In the general election on November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly beat Republican Richard Nixon in the U.S. presidential election. A little over two weeks later, Mrs. Kennedy gave birth to the couple's first son, John, Jr. When her husband was sworn in as president on January 20, 1961, Kennedy became, at age 31, one of the youngest First Ladies in history, behind Frances Folsom Cleveland and Julia Tyler.

Like any First Lady, Kennedy was thrust into the spotlight and while she did not mind giving interviews or being photographed, she preferred to maintain as much privacy as possible for herself and her children.

Kennedy is remembered for reorganizing entertainment for White House Social events, seeking to restore several White House interiors, her taste in clothing worn during Kennedy's Presidency, her popularity among foreign dignitaries, and leading the country in mourning after her husband's assassination in 1963.

Kennedy ranks among the most popular of First Ladies.

Social success

As First Lady, Kennedy devoted much of her time to planning social events at the White House and other state properties. She often invited artists, writers, scientists, poets, and musicians to mingle with politicians, diplomats, and statesmen.

Perhaps due to her skill at entertaining, Kennedy proved quite popular among international dignitaries. When Soviet Premier Khrushchev was asked to shake President Kennedy's hand for a photo, Krushchev said, "I'd like to shake her hand first." Jacqueline was well received in Paris, France when she visited with Kennedy, and when she traveled with Lee to India in 1962.

The President and Mrs. Kennedy at La Morita, Venezuela, on December 16, 1961

White House restoration

File:BoudinBlueRoom.jpg

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 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 Boudin 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, and later were, 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. Her efforts on behalf of restoration and preservation at 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.

Broadcasting of the White House restoration greatly helped the Kennedy administration. The United States sought international support during the Cold War, which it achieved by affecting public opinion. Mrs. Kennedy’s celebrity and high profile status made viewing the tour of the White house very desirable. The tour was taped and distributed to 106 countries since there was a great demand from the elite as well as people in power to see the film. In 1962 at the 14th Annual Emmy Awards (NBC, May 22), Bob Newhart emceed from the Hollywood Palladium; Johnny Carson from the New York Astor Hotel; and NBC newsman David Brinkley hosted at the Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington D.C. and took the spotlight as a special Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Trustees Award was given to Jacqueline Kennedy for her CBS-TV tour of the White House. Lady Bird Johnson accepted for the camera-shy First Lady. The actual Emmy statuette is on display in the Kennedy Library located in Boston, Massachusetts. Focus and admiration for Jacqueline Kennedy took negative attention away from her husband. By attracting worldwide public attention, the First Lady gained allies for the White House and international support for the Kennedy administration and its Cold War policies.

Foreign trips

Before the Kennedys visited France, a television special was shot in French with Mrs. Kennedy on the White House lawn. When the Kennedys visited France, she'd already won the hearts of the French people, impressing the French public with her ability to speak 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!"

Pakistani President Ayub Khan and Jacqueline Kennedy with Sardar.

At the urging of John Kenneth Galbraith, President Kennedy's ambassador to India, 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 Galbraith's journals and memoirs. 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.

While in Karachi she found some time to take a ride on a camel with her sister. In Lahore, Pakistani President Ayub Khan presented Mrs. Kennedy with a 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. While at a reception for herself at Shalimar Gardens, Mrs. Kennedy told guests "all my life I've dreamed of coming to the Shalimar Gardens. It's even lovelier than I'd dreamed. I only wish my husband could be with me." While in Lahore, she had a friendly chat with Iranian Empress Farah Pahlavi, whom many compared to Mrs. Kennedy.

Death of youngest son

Main article: Patrick Bouvier Kennedy

Early in 1963, Kennedy became pregnant again and curtailed her official duties. She spent most of the summer at the Kennedys' rented home on Squaw Island, near the family's Cape Cod compound at Hyannis Port, where she went into premature labor on August 7, 1963. She gave birth to a boy, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, via emergency Caesarian section at Otis Air Force Base, five and a half weeks prematurely. His lungs were not fully developed, and he died at Boston Children's Hospital of hyaline membrane disease (now known as respiratory distress syndrome) on August 9, 1963. The couple was devastated by the loss of their infant son, and that tragedy brought them closer together than ever before.

Assassination and funeral of John F. Kennedy

Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination

John & Jacqueline Kennedy at Love Field in Dallas on the day of the assassination

On November 21, 1963, the First Couple left the White House for a political trip to Texas, stopping in San Antonio, Houston, and Fort Worth that day. After a breakfast on November 22, the Kennedys flew from Carswell Air Force Base to Dallas's Love Field on Air Force One, accompanied by Texas Governor John Connally and his wife Nellie. A 9.5-mile (15.3 km) motorcade was to take them to the Trademart where the President was scheduled to speak at a lunch. Mrs. Kennedy was seated next to her husband in the limousine, with the Governor and his wife seated in front of them. Vice President Johnson and his wife followed in another car in the motorcade.

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

After the motorcade turned the corner onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza, Mrs. Kennedy heard what she thought to be a motorcycle backfiring, and did not realize that it was a gunshot until she heard Governor Connally scream. Within 8.4 seconds, two more shots had rung out, and she leaned toward her husband. The final shot struck the President in the head. Mrs. Kennedy, who had been thrust into a state of shock by the disaster, climbed out of the back seat and half crawled over the trunk of the car (she later had no recollection at all of having done this). Her Secret Service agent, Clint Hill, later told the Warren Commission that he thought she had been reaching for a piece of the President's skull that had blown off. Hill ran to the car and leapt onto it, directing Mrs. Kennedy back to her seat. The car rushed to Dallas's Parkland Hospital, and on arrival there, the president's body was rushed into a trauma room. Mrs. Kennedy, for the moment, remained in a room for relatives and friends of patients just outside.

A few minutes into her husband's treatment, Mrs. Kennedy, accompanied by the President's doctor, Admiral George Burkley, left her folding chair outside Trauma Room One and attempted to enter the operating room. Nurse Doris Nelson stopped her and attempted to bar the door to prevent Mrs. Kennedy from entering. She persisted, and the President's doctor suggested that she take a sedative, which she refused. "I want to be there when he dies," she told Burkley. He eventually persuaded Nelson to grant her access to Trauma Room One, saying "It's her right, it's her prerogative".

Later, when the casket arrived, the widow removed her wedding ring and slipped it onto the President's finger. She told aide Ken O'Donnell, "Now I have nothing left."

Jackie wearing her blood-stained pink Oleg Cassini suit while Johnson took oath of office as president.

After the president's death, Mrs. Kennedy refused to remove her blood-stained clothing, and regretted having washed the blood off her face and hands. She continued to wear the blood-stained pink suit as she went on board Air Force One and stood next to Johnson when he took the oath of office as President. She told Lady Bird Johnson, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack."

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

Mrs. Kennedy took an active role in planning the details of the state funeral for her husband, which was based on Abraham Lincoln's. The funeral service was held at St. Matthew's Cathedral, Washington D.C., and the burial at Arlington National Cemetery; the widow led the procession there on foot and would light the eternal flame at the grave site, a flame that had been created at her request. Lady Jean Campbell reported back to The London Evening Standard: "Jacqueline Kennedy has given the American people… one thing they have always lacked: Majesty." The widow was not unaware of the powerful effect she was making. Though Mrs. Kennedy was deeply distraught by the loss, she also showed a steely determination to make this the solemn outgoing show of her husband's era; Lyndon Johnson was practically eclipsed on November 25.

Following the assassination and the media coverage which had focused intensely on her during and after the burial, Mrs. Kennedy stepped back from official public view. 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, Mrs. Kennedy was interviewed in Hyannisport on November 29 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 the President 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.

Jackie Kennedy's Official White House Portrait

The steadiness and courage of Kennedy during her husband's assassination and funeral won her admiration around the world. Following his death, Kennedy and her children remained in their quarters in the White House for two weeks, preparing to vacate. Kennedy and her children spent the winter of 1964 in Averell Harriman's home in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., before purchasing her own home on another block of the same street. Later in 1964, In the hope of having more privacy for her children , Mrs. Kennedy decided to acquire an apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York and sold her new Georgetown house; she also sold the country home in Atoka, Virginia, where she and President Kennedy had intended to retire. She spent a year in mourning, making few public appearances; during this time, Caroline told one of her teachers that her mother cried frequently.

Mrs. Kennedy perpetuated her husband's memory by attending selected memorial dedications. These included the 1967 christening of the Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) (decommissioned in 2007), in Newport News, Virginia, and a memorial in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. They also included the dedication of the United Kingdom's official memorial to President Kennedy at Runnymede, England and the dedication of a park near New Ross, Ireland. 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 Jimmy Carter.

File:Launch ceremony USS JFK May1967 (2).jpg

Caroline Kennedy breaks a bottle of champagne against the hull of the US Navy aircraft carrier named after her father. Her mother and her younger brother John F. Kennedy, Jr. look on with smiles at the launch ceremonies for the USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) in May 1967.

Onassis marriage

During her widowhood, Jacqueline was romantically linked by the press to a few men, notably David Ormsby-Gore and Roswell Gilpatric, but nothing came out of it.

The wedding to Onassis took place on October 20, 1968, on Skorpios, Onassis's private island in the Ionian Sea, Greece. Jacqueline gave up Secret Service protection and her 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 much adverse publicity and seemed to tarnish the image of the grieving presidential widow, and she became the target of paparazzi who were following her everywhere much to her displeasure and dismay. Despite it all, the marriage initially seemed successful enough, the couple dividing their time between New York City, Paris and Skorpios.

Then tragedy struck again, Onassis's only son Alexander died in a plane crash in January 1973. The once invincible Onassis was left a broken and disillusioned man and the marriage turned sour. His health began deteriorating rapidly and he died in Paris, on March 15, 1975. Her legacy was severely limited under Greek law, which limited how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. After two years of legal battle, Jacqueline eventually accepted from Christina Onassis, Onassis's daughter and sole heir, a settlement of $26,000,000, waiving all other claims to the Onassis estate.

Later years

Onassis's death in 1975 made Mrs. Onassis, 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, in 1975 Jacqueline accepted a job offer as an editor at Viking Press. But, in 1978, the President of Viking Press, Thomas H. Guinzburg, authorized the purchase of the Jeffrey Archer novel Shall We Tell the President?, which was set in a fictional future presidency of Edward M. Kennedy and described an assassination plot against him. Although Guinzburg cleared the book purchase and publication with Mrs. Onassis, upon the publication of a negative Sunday New York Times review which asserted that Mrs. Onassis held some blame for its publication, she abruptly resigned from Viking Press the next day. She then 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.

She also continued to be the subject of much press attention, most notoriously involving the photographer Ron Galella. He followed her around and photographed her as she went about her day-to-day activities, obtaining candid, iconic photos of her. She ultimately obtained a restraining order against him and the situation brought attention to paparazzi-style photography. In 1995, John F. Kennedy Jr. allowed Galella to photograph him at public events.

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. Mrs. 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.

Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1986 during a visit from the 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 felt 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, the project was cancelled, but a large twin towered skyscraper would later fill in that spot in 2003, the Time Warner Center.

From her apartment windows in New York City 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.

Death

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 and doctors were initially optimistic, and she stopped smoking at the insistence of her daughter. Onassis continued her work with Doubleday, but curtailed her schedule. By April, 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 well-wishers, tourists, and reporters gathered on the street outside her apartment. Onassis died in her sleep at 10:15 p.m. on Thursday, May 19, two and a half months before her 65th birthday. In announcing her death, Jacqueline's son, John Kennedy Jr. stated, "My mother died surrounded by her friends and her family and her books, and the people and the things that she loved. She did it in her own way, and on her own terms, and we all feel lucky for that."

Onassis' funeral was held on May 23 at Saint Ignatius Loyola Church in Manhattan - the church where she was baptized in 1929. At her funeral, her son described three of her attributes as the love of words, the bonds of home and family, and the spirit of adventure. She was buried alongside her first husband, her son, and her daughter at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

In her will, Onassis left her children an estate valued at $200 million by its executors.

Fashion icon

President Habib Bourguiba (of Tunisia), his wife Moufida Bourguiba, President Kennedy and Jacqueline, in an Oleg Cassini "Nefertiti" dress, 1961.

During her husband's presidency, Jacqueline Kennedy became a symbol of fashion for women all over the world. She retained French-born American fashion designer and Kennedy family friend Oleg Cassini in the fall of 1960 to create an original wardrobe for her as First Lady. From 1961 to late 1963, Cassini dressed Mrs. Kennedy in many of her most iconic ensembles, including her Inauguration Day fawn coat and Inaugural gala gown as well as many outfits for her visits to Europe, India and Pakistan. Mrs. Kennedy's clean suits, sleeveless A-line dresses and famous pillbox hats were an overnight success around the world and became known as the "Jackie" look. Although Cassini was her primary designer, Mrs. Kennedy also wore ensembles by French fashion legends such as Chanel, Givenchy, and Dior. More than any other First Lady her style was copied by commercial manufacturers and a large segment of young women.

In the years after the White House, her style changed dramatically. Gone were the modest "campaign wife" clothes. Wide-leg pantsuits, large lapel jackets, silk Hermes head scarves and large, round, dark sunglasses were her new look. She often chose to wear brighter colors and patterns and even began wearing jeans in public. She also experimented with different styles, often wearing a large amount of jewelry, hoop earrings with her hair pulled back, and gypsy skirts.

Legacy

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

In December 1999, 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.

Honors and memorials

Onassis' legacy has been memorialized in various aspects of American culture. They include:

• A high school named Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School for International Careers, was dedicated by New York City in 1995, the first high school 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.

Joggers run around this reservoir in the northern portion of New York's Central Park

• Central Park's main reservoir was renamed in her honor as the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.
• At George Washington University, a residence hall located on the southeast corner of I and 23rd streets NW in Washington, D.C. was renamed Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Hall in honor of the alumna.
• The White House's East Garden was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden in her honor.
• In 2007, her name and her first husband's were included on the list of people aboard the Japanese Kaguya mission to the moon launched on September 14, as part of The Planetary Society's "Wish Upon The Moon" campaign. In addition, they are included on the list aboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.
• A school and an award at the American Ballet Theatre have been named after her in honor of her childhood study of ballet.
• 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.

Cultural depictions

Main article: Cultural depictions of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Onassis is frequently alluded to and depicted in various forms of popular culture, including films, television series, cartoon series, video games and music. Numerous books and plays have been written about her.

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.
• Perry, Barbara A. Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier University Press of Kansas: 2004. ISBN 978-0-7006-1343-4.
• Taraborrelli, J. Randy. Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of Camelot. Warner Books: 2000. ISBN 0-446-52426-3
• 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

• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at IMDb
• Obituary, NY Times, May 20, 1994
• Template:PDFlink — contains much of "the Camelot interview."
• National First Ladies' Library
• Last Will and Testament of Jackie Onassis
• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at Find a Grave
• Historical TV Footage from Dallas TV Station KDFW Exclusive television coverage—most from the KRLD -TV/KDFW Collection at the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza