Jackie Kennedy's Transformation Was Absolutely Stunning
When you think of Jacqueline "Jackie" Kennedy Onassis, you most likely think about her time as a former first lady. The late cultural icon was born into a wealthy family but always had a desire to be an independent woman, free to pursue her own interests. Ironically, she also seemed to be aware that life is short, and she wanted to make the most of hers.
As Natalie Portman, who played Jackie in the 2016 movie "Jackie," wrote of the first lady for Time magazine's "100 Women of the Year" series, "She had the unimaginable composure to understand the historical and public importance of her reaction to her husband's assassination, even amid her personal grief and trauma. ... In our current age of obsession over how we present ourselves to the world, she is a model of one who found beauty amid tragedy to truly appreciate her precious, only life."
What's perhaps even more interesting than Jackie's enduring impact on American society and culture is how she came to be an icon in the first place. She is often associated with her first husband, John F. Kennedy, but the fact is she became an icon in her own right well before her marriage to the future president.
Jackie Kennedy came from a privileged but broken family
Born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, Jackie grew up in a wealthy family in New York. Her father was a successful Wall Street stockbroker, which helped afford Jackie a comfortable childhood that also included boarding school and private ballet and French lessons. She also became well-versed in the arts and writing, and she was also known for being a passionate — yet sometimes mischievous — student, according to her official biography from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. While there's no doubt she had a financially stable upbringing, she made the most of the opportunities she had, and many of these shaped her pursuits as an adult.
Although Jackie may have seemingly had a picture-perfect childhood, her family life was not so picturesque. This was due to her parents' divorce when Jackie was 10 years old. At the time, things were understandably emotionally challenging for her, and it was made more difficult by the fact that divorce was uncommon in the early 1940s. After her parents divorced, Jackie's mother remarried another wealthy man, according to Britannica. This also undoubtedly helped ensure she and her younger sister would still maintain their comfortable upbringing and likely helped Jackie pursue her interests.
As a young girl, Jackie Kennedy was an award-winning horse rider
Not only did Jackie Kennedy (then Bouvier) love art and literature growing up, but she was also a lover of horses from a young age. Jackie was just a year old when she first rode a horse, and she quickly picked up the sport of horseback riding from there. In 1940, The New York Times reported, "Jacqueline Bouvier, an eleven-year-old equestrienne from East Hampton, Long Island, scored a double victory in the horsemanship competition. ... The occasions are few when a young rider wins both contests in the same show" (via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum).
Jackie's love for these magnificent animals also became a lifelong passion long after her competitive horseback riding days were over. Although, her future husband, John F. Kennedy, was allergic to horses, he still encouraged her to pursue her hobby of horseback riding, according to Politico. Later, when she had children, Jackie also ensured that her little ones were exposed to horseback riding from a young age with their own ponies.
In 1962, knowing that Jackie had an affinity for horses, the Pakistani government gifted the First Lady a horse named Sardar. According to The Presidential Pet Museum, Sardar was given to Jackie by then-President Muhammad Ayub Khan, whom Jackie had gone horseback riding with during a trip to Pakistan on the very horse she was gifted. Horseback riding remained a pastime of Jackie's for the rest of her life.
Jackie Kennedy was heavily influenced by her time in Paris during college
In the 19th century, Jackie Kennedy's father's side of the family immigrated to the United States from France. This may have influenced her parents to enroll her in French language lessons as a child. It only seemed natural that Jackie would continue her interests in French language and culture as she grew up. This all seemed to culminate when she went to Paris during her junior year of college. Later, The New York Times reported that Jackie reflected on the overseas experience, saying, "[It was] the high point in my life, my happiest and most carefree year." By this time, Jackie was fluent in French, which undoubtedly allowed her to navigate the country and its culture with ease.
Her time in France impacted Jackie's adult life in a number of ways. Not only was she influenced by French high fashion and culture, but her heritage and experience in Paris also served her future husband well when he traveled to France as president. In fact, John F. Kennedy once joked of his overseas trip in 1961, "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris, and I have enjoyed it" (via JSTOR Daily).
Although Americans didn't take kindly to Jackie's French essence at first, the public grew to adore her in time as they admired the chicness and intelligence she exuded.
After college, Jackie Kennedy pursued a career in writing and photography
Jackie Kennedy (then Bouvier) first attended Vassar College where she studied some of her childhood interests. During her senior year, after she came home following her junior year in France, Jackie decided to transfer to the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Soon after graduation, she secured her first job as the Washington Times-Herald's "Inquiring Camera Girl," according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
As her title suggested, Jackie's job was to take pictures of human interest stories. However, her role went beyond picture-taking, as she also wrote a column based on interviews she conducted as she walked around Washington, D.C. Ironically, she even interviewed Richard Nixon, the man whom her future husband would run against in the 1960 presidential election.
The irony of Jackie's first job wasn't lost on historians, who noted that her desire was to be a writer and not a wife, as was customary during the 1950s. "She's asking strangers on the streets of Washington, ten years before becoming the world's most famous woman," author and first lady biographer Carl Sferazza Anthony described in an interview with CBS News. These characteristics highlight the fact that Jackie was not only comfortable being an independent woman but also that she wasn't afraid to explore the world on her own.
She settled down with John F. Kennedy in 1953
In 1953, Jackie Bouvier became part of the Kennedy family when she married John F. Kennedy, the aspiring politician and second-eldest son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy. According to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Jackie and John met in 1951 and wed in a beautiful and expensive event on September 12, 1953, in Rhode Island.
Interestingly, JFK initially had a connection with Jackie's younger sister, Lee. As biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli told People magazine, "JFK and Lee actually got along better than Jackie and JFK ... And Janet felt that Jackie [who was four years older than Lee] needed to get settled. Lee did not need to get settled yet."
Some historians and biographers also highlight the fact that while JFK came from a famous family and went on to become president, Jackie was the one who may have been settling. In his interview with CBS News, author and historian Carl Sferazza Anthony noted, "I think the presumption has been that her life only became interesting after she married him, when in fact, because she was so interesting, he married her." Nevertheless, Jackie's marriage to JFK inevitably changed her life dramatically.
Jackie Kenedy experienced tragic losses while growing her family
Jackie Kennedy was pregnant five times, though only two of her children survived, according to Steven Levingston's "The Kennedy Baby: The Loss That Transformed JFK" (via HuffPost). Jackie was first pregnant in 1955, but she experienced a miscarriage a few months later. The following year, Jackie became pregnant again. About a month away from her due date, Jackie went into labor early. Tragically, the baby was delivered stillborn. At the time, John F. Kennedy was sailing the Mediterranean and didn't plan to race back to the U.S. until his friend, George Smathers, reportedly told him, "You better haul your ass back to your wife if you ever want to run for president."
In 1957, the couple's daughter, Caroline, was born. The couple's son, John F. Kennedy Jr., was born a few years later in 1960 — just a couple of weeks after JFK won the presidential election against Richard Nixon. Jackie gave birth to another baby boy, Patrick, in 1963. Tragically, Patrick was born prematurely and survived just about two days. The loss was understandably difficult for Jackie, but it also brought her closer to her husband, according to Levingston's book. Jackie would remain a devoted mother to Caroline and John Jr.
The new mom became one of the nation's youngest first ladies
Jackie Kennedy was just 31 years old when her husband, John F. Kennedy, was elected president. In fact, according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum's profile of Jackie as her time in the White House, she was the third youngest first lady. Having given birth to John F. Kennedy Jr. shortly after JFK's victory, Jackie was also the first first lady to have an infant son in the new century. While she publicly stated that being a wife and mother was her priority, Jackie's influence had a far greater reach than this. She sought to restore and update the interior of the White House while concurrently redefining the roles of a first lady due to her travels with the president and her regular media appearances. Jackie also went on to establish the White House Historical Association in 1962.
Jackie was not only the youngest of the nation's first ladies in some 80 years, but she also became one of the most popular. The public in the United States and in the countries she traveled to with her husband were impressed by Jackie's grace, intelligence, and appearance. As Natalie Portman wrote of the former first lady for Time magazine, "She crafted her family's Camelot story into a carefully controlled narrative, to allow the nation to have the sort of royalty they desired."
The world mourned with Jackie Kennedy after her husband's assassination
This admiration of the popular first lady suddenly changed to empathy after the murder of John F. Kennedy in 1963. On November 22 of that year, the president was assassinated in his motorcade in Dallas, Texas. Jackie was also traveling in the car — she was sitting directly beside her husband when he was shot. At the time, Jackie was only 34 years old and the mother of two young children.
Both Jackie's bravery and grace were on full display during this unimaginably difficult time. As Natalie Portman pointed out in her Time magazine tribute to Jackie, the first lady was also in charge of her husband's funeral, which was "based on Lincoln's that gave a ritual and pageantry, cementing her husband's legend."
In private, Jackie struggled a great deal more than she let on in public. As biographer Barbara Leming wrote in Vanity Fair, Jackie struggled with frequent nightmares and depression. She often turned to drinking as a way to cope. Some of the signs that Jackie exhibited could very well be classified as those associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition that was not yet recognized in the 1960s, explained Leming. "Jackie Kennedy would relive the sliver of time between the first gunshot, which had missed the car, and the second, which hit both the president and Texas governor John Connally," Leming wrote. "Those three and a half seconds became of cardinal importance to her." Jackie's identity also changed within moments from first lady to the president's young widow.
Jackie Kennedy lived a much quieter life after marrying her second husband
While the country may not have been ready to see Jackie Kennedy move on, the former first lady was ready to do so by 1968. In October of that year, Jackie married Aristotle Onassis, a wealthy Greek businessman who was more than 20 years her senior. Jackie had known Onassis for several years, according to Britannica. After marrying, Jackie went by Jackie Kennedy Onassis and was subsequently nicknamed "Jackie O."
As happens with popular public figures such as Jackie, there was a lot of speculation about why the former first lady married Onassis and whether she was truly happy. While her marriage was largely kept out of the public eye, Time magazine reported that some details came out after Onassis' death in 1975. These included separate interests and hobbies that ultimately led to the couple spending time apart.
Onassis also reportedly accused Jackie of somehow being cursed after John F. Kennedy's assassination, dubbing her "the witch." Some rumored that Onassis stayed at the White House on the night of JFK's funeral in 1963; however, biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli told People, "I can't imagine the grief Jackie was going through. I don't think anything happened between them at that moment."
Jackie Kennedy later focused on old hobbies and interests of hers
After losing two husbands, Jackie Kennedy Onassis focused on her own life. Some of this entailed going back to some of her old hobbies and personal interests. Writing was one of Jackie's early interests in life, and she later turned her passion into a career as an editor. According to Britannica, she worked for both Viking Press and Doubleday. Additionally, she put her combined love for history and art along with her previous work on the White House restoration by helping to preserve landmarks. One notable example is New York City's Grand Central Terminal, which she reportedly helped save in the 1970s.
Although Jackie never remarried after her second husband's death, she reportedly shared deep connections with other men. Most notably, she was in a 12-year relationship with Maurice Tempelsman until the time of her death in 1994, according to Town & Country magazine.
Nearly 30 years after her death, Jackie Kennedy remains an icon in American culture
Jackie Kennedy Onassis died at the age of 64 from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Just days before Jackie's death, she had been scheduled to receive cancer treatments from the Weill Cornell Medical Center (previously known as the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center), according to the Los Angeles Times, However, after doctors told her that her cancer could not be cured, Jackie decided to live out her remaining days in her home rather than the hospital. She was with her two adult children, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and John F. Kennedy, Jr, as well as her longtime boyfriend, Maurice Tempelsman, at the time of her death.
Jackie's son, John Jr., expressed loving sentiments about his late mother at her funeral, admiring her "love of words, the bonds of home and family, and her spirit of adventure" (via White House).
Decades after Jackie's death, famed Spanish fashion designer Manolo Blahnik weighed in on the late Kennedy, providing perhaps the best explanation of the public's admiration of the former first lady. As he told People magazine, "Mrs. Kennedy was that magic that you cannot explain. She typified America — just shining, full of optimism and intelligence."