This weekend, The New York Times released tapes of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis speaking to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., her deceased husband’s most devoted supporter. In the tapes, which were recorded after President Kennedy was assassinated, Jackie speaks candidly on a number of topics, including her marriage (which she calls “Victorian or Asiatic”) and world leaders (she called Charles DeGaulle an “egomaniac” and Indira Ghani a “prune”).
Her best comment? About Nikita Khrushchev’s daughter: “She looked like some Wehrmacht blonde who ran a concentration camp!”
For the few of you who haven’t consumed America’s Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (what, you haven’t read it?), Jackie O wasn’t a very nice person. As a rabid consumer of Kennedy lore, these comments shock me little.
But they’re fun to read—even better than the CIA wires that were released on WikiLeaks. A good Monday afternoon diversion of the evil-hearted and glamour obsessed.
Last week, I had a fancy lunch with my grandmother, my aunt, and Blara in Manhattan.
At the end of the meal everyone but me pulled out their vanity mirrors and their cosmetic pouches, and started re-applying their make-up.
“Brienne!” my grandmother said. “Put some lipstick on!”
I obediently reached into the side pocket of my bag, and pulled out a tube of pale pink Lancomé lipstick. It was a free sample that Blara had gifted to my grandmother, who had then gifted it to me. “Don’t give that to her, she’s a nasty bitch!” Blara had screamed as she watched the transaction occur right before her very eyes.
I carefully applied the matte color, and facetiously smacked my lips together.
Across the table, my grandmother had my sister’s face pinched in her left hand. With her right, she was smearing bright red lipsticks underneath her cheek bones. “I have a heavy hand with make-up,” she said as she blurred the war-paint stripes into a bright, diffuse flush.
“Do you like it, Nana?” I asked her, puckering my lips.
“It’s a little natural,” she said with exasperation. “I like Blara’s color better.”
Blara grinned at me, the blood red color on her lips in serious danger of seeping over the boundaries of her lips, and onto the finely downed skin of her chin. It had already made its way onto one of her front teeth. “I like make-up!” she exclaimed.
“I’m natural in general, Nana,” I said, teasingly. “I don’t wear a lot of make-up. I live in Brooklyn.”
“Don’t say that!” she screamed in horror.
My aunt started laughing hysterically. “That’s a line for the blog,” she said, dabbing at the tears springing from the bottom of her eyes. Her mascara, recently re-applied, stayed intact.
As much as I love snow, there’s nothing I wouldn’t give to be by the Mediterranean right now, sitting on a cobblestoned street, reading a book.
“The only time Jackie touched me, she was at the 21 Club, and she came out and grabbed my wrist and said’—his foghorn voice whispered—’You’ve been hunting me for three months now.’ She loved being pursued.’ Some of her other endearments included ‘You stay away from me!’ and ‘I thought you were in jail!” -Tad Friend on Ron Galella’s relationship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
(I need a Ron Galella!)
