Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams

by Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince

God had a talent for creating exceptional women--Helen of Troy and Cleopatra come to mind. So does Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, who lives again in this "warts-and-all" portrait. It's being released on the 20th anniversary of the tragic death, in 1994, of the icon who changed America's beliefs about what a woman of style, power, and influence could accomplish "behind the throne" of men whose careers changed the course of history.

During her tumultuous life, she zealously guarded her privacy and her secrets, but in the wake of her death, more and more revelations have emerged about her frustrations, her rage, her passions, her towering strengths, and her delicate fragility, which she hid from the glare of the world behind oversized sunglasses. Within this posthumous biography, a three-dimensional woman emerges through the compilation of some 1,000 eyewitness testimonials from men and women who knew her over a period of decades.

The public epitome of charm, grace, and elegance, the private, chain-smoking Jackie was known for her sharp wit and her acid tongue, dissing some of the great men and women she encountered. Examples include such figures as Nancy Reagan (“I heard she used to give the best head in Hollywood when she was a starlet at MGM”); Queen Elizabeth II (“pompous, stuffy, a heavy trip, and seriously pissed off at me for turning on Philip”); or Martin Luther King, Jr. (“a terrible man and a tricky, phony, skirt-chaser and race baiter”).

This outspoken testimonial to the flimsier side of Camelot contains a cornucopia of gossip and intrigue, including details about Jackie’s scandalous love affairs with her two brothers-in-law (Bobby and Teddy), and her penchant for movie star seductions (Warren Beatty, Paul Newman, William Holden).

Also detailed are her famous feuds with Grace Kelly, Marilyn Monroe, and Maria Callas; her almost unknown love affairs with Spain’s greatest matador and with Peter Lawford; her night in Georgetown coping with LBJ’s aborted seduction; her friend Rudolf Nureyev’s pursuit of both her and Bobby; her interchanges with Lem Billings, JFK’s homosexual “First Friend” whom Bobby defined as “Jack’s other wife”); her blood feud with Christina Onassis; her sibling rivalry with Lee Radziwill; her illicit affair with a senator nicknamed “Gorgeous George; her love-hate relationship with Frank Sinatra; and her Italian fling with Fiat’s kingpin, Gianni Agnelli, who taught her all about La Dolce Vita during the summer of 1962.

Conceived in direct and sometimes defiant contrast to the avalanche of more breathlessly respectful testimonials to the life and legacy of “America’s Queen,” this book is the latest installment in Blood Moon’s endlessly irreverent BABYLON series.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

700 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2014

About the author

Darwin Porter (1937-) is an American travel writer, producing numerous titles, mostly for the Frommer guidebook series, over a 50-year career span.

Reviews

[Lee]

This book is salacious in its details. You have to take it with a grain of salt. It even describes itself as the Jackie scandals of years ago with the "tabloid standard of today." And that's what it is, a tabloid book. This should, by no means, be anyone's first book to read about Jackie because you should read some more credible books to wade through tabloid rumour and truth. However, never failed to entertain and filled with information that, at very least, makes you wonder...

[Dianne Hopen]

Thankfully the media were more restrained from denigrating political figures during the Kennedy presidency but unfortunately the authors of this book dig into all of the most salacious accounts of the lives of Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Regardless of what's true or false the reader needs to be forewarned of the bawdy nature of the details of their lives as written in this book. For those readers who cannot resist the opportunity to take a look at what the authors declare as being "A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams" be aware this is no literary gem.

[Annmbray]

Totally trashy and even raunchy read but fun to revisit the famous jet set names of my childhood...Porfirio Rubirosa, for example. It was DEFINITELY a vacation sort of read. Now on to something of a bit more substance!

[Mary Catherine]

im ashamed to have read this book its libelous

[Maryann Fox]

A no holds barred expose on Jackie Kennedy Onassis -very enlightening-some relationships were rumored and some never before heard of. For those who thought she was saintly this book proves them wrong and tells of her relationships during the White House years and during her widowhood and during her marriage to Ari and after.

[Dale Stonehouse]

If you like Jackie and JFK gossip, this is the book to read. It is overlong and most of the stories are second and third-hand, but that doesn't make them untrue or uninteresting. It seems to be aimed at the myth of the glamorous first lady, but I don't think it will be hurt that much. Be forewarned that as usual, there is a significant gay slant in the work of this author.

[Joan]

Trashy....reads like a number of tabloid articles from long ago put together for a "sensational story". Many misspellings, incorrect dates and laughable quotes. While not a fan of Kennedy/Camelot PR this book is not worth a read.

[Jeanne Etcheverry]

Astonishingly bad writing

Some interesting gossipy tidbits especially if you've never read much about her life. But the awful, disorganized mess and the poor writing make it a painful reading experience.