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Tag: carolyn bessette

  • Kelly Klein: The Muse Who Shaped ’90s Fashion With Her Friend Carolyn Bessette Kennedy

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    Together with Kelly, Calvin Klein took his eponymous brand to the next level. She was the one who came up with the idea of adapting men’s underwear for women. From the casual comment “there’s something sexy about wearing your boyfriend’s underwear” came one of the brand’s best-sellers and iconic designs, generating $70 million in 1984. Kelly Rector became a true reflection of the Calvin Klein woman, one who encapsulated glamour and sophistication in a simple cashmere knit dress. The couple married in 1986 while on a business trip to Rome. She wore an ensemble of silk pencil skirt, matching blazer, and a lace bodice, designed by Calvin. They were married until 2006, when their divorce was made official, although the couple had separated 10 years earlier.

    Ron Galella, Ltd./Getty Images

    But beyond being Calvin Klein’s wife or his muse, Kelly now defines herself on her Instagram account’s bio as a “designer, photographer, interior designer, author, ceramacist, and mother.” She has edited seven photography books. The first one, Pools, launched in 1992 at a party in New York where all the personalities of the moment were present. In 2015, she published a retrospective of her own photographs, many of which have been published in magazines such as Vogue and Interview. In an interview with Equestrian Living, she credited her parents with helping her develop her aesthetic sensibility. “I think both of my parents were quite stylish,” admits Kelly. “My dad was a film director, so he was quite creative, and mom was an antique dealer who collected art and antiques. She’s had many stores, so I think I got a lot of my art background by growing up with ‘50s and ‘60s furniture in the house, and maybe that inspired me for my modernism background. I was surrounded by the arts growing up, so yes, they definitely had an influence on me.”

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    Marta Martínez Tato

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  • Here’s if Carolyn Bessette’s Family Received Any Money After JFK Jr. Left Most of His Will to His Wife Before Their Fatal Plane Crash

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    With Ryan Murphy’s Love Story airing on Hulu, all eyes are back on John F Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette‘s tragic story.

    Carolyn Bessette married John F. Kennedy Jr. in 1996 after they started dating in 1994. During their life, they were scrutinized by the media since he was a big New York socialite as well as having to bear the fame of being the only son of the late President John F. Kennedy. The couple, alongside her sister Lauren, were killed in a plane crash off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard on July 16, 1999, on their way to a wedding. 

    What was Carolyn Bessette’s net worth?

    While Carolyn Bessette’s net worth isn’t known, it’s believed that she shared her wealth with her husband John F. Kennedy Jr. whose net worth was estimated at $30M. She worked as a publicist for Calvin Klein in the years leading up to her death.

    JFK Jr. named Carolyn to inherit his estate if he died. “I give all my tangible property (as distinguished from money, securities, and the like), wherever located, other than my scrimshaw set previously owned by my father, to my wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy,” it read.

    “I give and devise all my interest in my cooperative apartment located at 20-26 Moore Street, Apartment 9E, in said New York, including all my shares therein and any proprietary leases with respect thereto, to my said wife, Carolyn.’” If Carolyn were also to die—which she did—John’s sister Caroline and her children were next in line to inherit his personal possessions.

    Carolyn and Lauren Bessette’s family sued the Kennedy family for wrongful death and were awarded $15m. JFK Jr.’s sister Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg paid their family from the sum from the money she received from her brother’s 50 percent stake in George magazine, which was sold to the publishing group Hachete, according to the Telegraph.

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    Lea Veloso

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  • ‘Love Story’: Inside Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s Final Days

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    Onassis began receiving chemotherapy in January of 1994. She publicly disclosed her diagnosis, saying initially that the prognosis looked good. She even continued to work as an editor at Doubleday. But by March her cancer had spread to her spinal cord and brain. When the cancer spread to her liver in May of 1994, doctors deemed her condition terminal. As “America’s Widow” depicts, Onassis decided to leave New York Hospital of her own volition on May 18, choosing to spend her remaining time at her Upper East Side home. The next evening, at 10:15 p.m., Jackie O died in her sleep with her children by her side.

    Love Story’s third episode eschews the fox-hunt accident, instead choosing to portray Jackie’s deteriorating condition at home. An early scene finds Watts as Onassis sitting by her lit fireplace, going through her old letters, rereading each one and then tossing them into the fire. “I don’t need my personal correspondence memorialized in The Smithsonian,” she says when Kelly’s John asks her why she is destroying her keepsakes. According to Jackie’s former lover, architect Jack Warnecke—whom she fell for while he designed JFK’s presidential grave memorial—Onassis really did make a habit of burning her old letters as her health declined.

    John F. Kennedy Jr, Caroline Kennedy, and Jacquline Onassis Kennedy at the rededication for the John F. Kennedy President Library and Museum in Boston on Oct. 29, 1993.John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe/Getty Images

    Journalist J. Randy Taraborrelli interviewed Warnecke in 1998 for his biography of the first lady, Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, which was released in 2023 and excerpted in People. Given Onassis’s fiercely private nature, Warnecke requested that Taraborrelli not publish their interview until 10 years after Warnecke’s own death, which occurred in 2010 when the architect was 91. “As I took my seat, Jackie handed me a stack of envelopes neatly tied together with yarn,” Warnecke told Taraborrelli. “My presence that evening was part of a ritual. Every night that week, she was inviting a trusted friend or family member to her home to take part in it.”

    According to Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, Jackie read each letter before placing it into the fireplace. “There were letters from Jackie’s children, John and Caroline…. There were also letters from Jack Kennedy, Aristotle Onassis, her father, Jack Bouvier, and even a few from me,” Warnecke told Taraborrelli. “She held one of the photographs and stared at it. It was her and Jack [Kennedy] on the day of his inauguration. ‘Keep this for me, will you?’ she asked.”

    Before she died, Jackie O wrote one final letter to her son. According to Us Weekly, in the three-episode CNN docuseries American Prince, family friend Gary Ginsberg revealed that Jackie O wrote a heartfelt letter full of words of encouragement to her then 33-year-old son. “I understand the pressure you’ll forever have to endure as a Kennedy, even though we brought you into this world as an innocent,” she wrote, repeated almost word for word in the Love Story episode. “You, especially, have a place in history. No matter what course in life you choose, all I can ask is that you…continue to make me, the Kennedy family, and yourself proud.”

    Image may contain Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis John F. Kennedy Jr. Adult Person Body Part Finger Hand Face and Head

    Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and John F. Kennedy Jr. attends a tribute on the anniversary of the birth of John F. Kennedy, May 24, 1993.Brooks Kraft LLC/Sygma/Getty Images

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    Chris Murphy

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  • ‘Love Story’ Exclusive: First Look at Ryan Murphy’s JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette

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    Kicking Love Story off with Kennedy Jr. and Bessette was Murphy’s idea, though the series was created by Connor Hines, who serves as an executive producer and wrote six of the nine episodes. “There is no American crown. There isn’t a monarchy here. There’s not that culture,” Simpson explains. Unless, of course, you’re talking about the Kennedys. JFK Jr. “came the closest that we ever had to an American prince. We all saw him grow up. We saw him lose his father. We saw him go to college, go to law school. He had the same obsessive following that the princes in England did.” And who could resist telling the story of how America’s prince found his Cinderella?

    Bessette wasn’t exactly toiling in obscurity before she met her Prince Charming; she grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, after all. But through her own tenacity, talent, and, yes, effortless beauty—she was voted “Ultimate Beautiful Person” in high school—Bessette created a glamorous life for herself in New York. “She was somebody who had been a shopgirl in Boston, who’d risen her way up to the corporate suite at Calvin Klein and was living a ’90s New York female dream,” Simpson says. When Bessette met Kennedy Jr., her profile rose to heights for which she was not, perhaps, prepared. “It was dynamic and incredible,” Simpson says of the pair’s meeting. “They quickly became the most famous couple in America.”

    Rather than looking to established stars to play Kennedy Jr. and Bessette, Simpson and Murphy sought to cast relative unknowns. Simpson had been “blown away” by Pidgeon’s Tony-nominated performance in the Broadway hit Stereophonic. “We had one day of reading Carolyns, and she got the job.”

    Finding the right person to play Kennedy Jr. proved far trickier. “John had a very specific look that is old-school-movie-star handsome. We’re talking early Richard Gere,” Simpson says. “He was a broad-shouldered, masculine guy, a man who had hair on his chest.” They had some 3,000 people read for the role. “Anybody who was between the ages of, let’s say, 29 and 39.” Still, they kept coming up empty.

    As it got dangerously close to the start of production, Murphy instructed Simpson and the casting team to go back into the “slush pile” of contenders and see whom they might have overlooked. They ultimately found three people to look at more closely, having them do an old-fashioned screen test opposite Pidgeon in New York, complete with cameras and makeup. There, a Canadian model turned actor, who’d flown in from Portland, Oregon, won over the room. “We sat there, and crew members kept coming up to me going, ‘You have to cast this guy,’ over and over,” Simpson says. “‘Please make it this guy.’” And just like that, Paul Anthony Kelly clinched the part.

    “I walked into the chemistry read, and it was myself and several other gentlemen also reading for the role. But there was something about Sarah,” Kelly says. “We had chemistry, obviously, but there was an unspoken sense of support for each other. Like, ‘Okay, I’m here for you.’” Pidgeon felt it too. “We both went to the airport right after the final screen test, and I just remember the beautiful messages you sent me, like, ‘I’m so ready to do this. I’m ready to jump in,’” she tells Kelly. “It was so reassuring to hear from a stranger this genuine willingness to support each other—this understanding, I think immediately, that this is something that we were doing together.”

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    Chris Murphy

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  • Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s Engagement Ring Was Inspired by Jackie Kennedy

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    Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr., the only son of President JFK Jr., said “I do” on September 21, 1996, in a private ceremony on Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast. Although their small-scale wedding was conducted far from the prying eyes of the paparazzi, the event was captured by photographer Denis Reggie. Their whirlwind romance, which ended tragically when the young couple died in a plane crash in 1999, will serve as the basis for Ryan Murphy’s inaugural season of American Love Story, starring Sarah Pidgeon and Paul Kelly as the couple.

    Bessette, who worked as a publicist for Calvin Klein before marrying “John-John,” became a fashion icon in the ’90s for her chic and simple style. Her minimalist style stretched from her outfits, like her Narciso Rodriguez wedding dress, to her fingertips, specifically her engagement ring. Bessette reportedly hesitated for several weeks before accepting Kennedy’s marriage proposal in 1995, and, in one epic fight in Washington Square Park caught by the paparazzi, Kennedy appeared to rip a ring off her finger. While there may have been drama on the way to the altar, the engagement ring eventually found its rightful place on Bessette’s left ring finger, where it would remain until their untimely deaths.

    Bessette’s engagement ring was a platinum wedding band adorned with diamonds and sapphires. The discreet jewel perfectly complemented the young woman’s minimalist look. The wedding band also had a special sentimental value: It was reportedly inspired by a gold and emerald ring worn by her mother-in-law, Jackie Kennedy. According to journalist and former Real Housewives of New York star Carole Radziwill’s memoir, What Remains, the late first lady’s ring was nicknamed her “swimming ring.” Bessette reportedly told Radziwill that her wedding ring was “a copy of a ring [John’s] mother wore.”

    John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in 1996 (Photo by Robin Platzer/Getty Images)

    Robin Platzer/Getty Images

    It’s unknown which of Jackie Kennedy’s jewels was the inspiration for the “swimming ring.” According to People, Maurice Tempelsman, the diamond dealer and companion of the former first lady before her death in 1994, was involved in the design of Bessette’s engagement ring. John is said to have asked his mother’s friend to make a replica of the swimming ring as a gift for his sweetheart. According to Vogue, however, some believe that the inspiration for Bessette’s engagement ring was a Schlumberger Sixteen Stone ring that also belonged to her mother-in-law.

    Whatever the inspiration, the subtly styled jewel is part of a timeless fashion that Bessette helped to usher in and is sure to inspire future brides looking to infuse their wedding day with a touch quiet luxury.

    This story originally appeared in Vanity Fair France.

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    Olivia Batoul

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