Manzoni asked if she would permit him to take off his jacket. Simon told her shed give it a try. July 11, 1994. Even so, she never abandoned the Bouvier taste for high fashion and luxury. Her first hit single, Youre So Vain, was released 10 years earlier. The public regarded her as a symbol of American sophistication and style. [9], In 1980, Tempelsman bought, for $1 million, two 500 BC acroliths representing Demeter and Persephone; the pieces consisted of two marble heads, three feet, and three hands. Fondly called Jackie, the former U.S. first lady's death happened just a day after the doctors noted she was fighting a losing battle with cancer and that they could no longer treat her condition. In the ladies room, Simon said. He was also active in promoting relations between America and Africa, serving as chairman for the nonprofit African-American Institute and even helping to underwrite Nelson Mandela's first trip to the U.S. Paraphrasing Eleanor Roosevelt, she once told Robert McNamara, "Nobody can humiliate you without your permission.". (She made members of her staff and those who worked for hermassage therapists, hairdressers, et al swear never to reveal anything about her to anyone. Maurice arranged a meeting with the late American politician and other business associates interested in diamonds. Maurice arranged a meeting with the late American politician and other business associates interested in diamonds. Coincidentally, Albright and I were among 275 women profiled by Bella Abzug and Mim Kelber in their 1987 Women's Foreign . Her private role models were neither queens nor goddesses but adventuresses. Oleg Cassini compared her to Nefertiti when he designed her "Egyptian Aline" silhouette; during her 1961 trip to Paris, the French said, "She is more royal than a queen"; she was called "Durga, Goddess of Power" when she traveled to India in 1962. ; much "ungood" furniture (a painted screen, candelabras, urns, commodes) from the apartment; plus bricabrac that will no doubt be invested with history by the creative experts at Sotheby'san ashtray, a cigarette box, two large tortoise shells, a shovel . I always sensed there were large portions of her life that were cemented over, rooms that were locked, rooms that no one ever entered, to which she had thrown away the key.". He crafted connections with African diamond interests and was close with the Oppenheimer family, becoming one of a select group of buyers allowed to purchase diamonds directly from De Beers. She whispered to him at one point, "You really ought to try the new place around the corner. For example, Simon said that when she won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1988 for Let the River Run in the film Working Girl this was her mothers response: She said, Darling, thats so fantastic, congratulations, but there are so many people who deserved it more, but you won, Simon recalled. She didn't understand why the American public descended on her.". And she also learned to exercise control over her children's exposure to the news media in a very subtle way. Tempelsman purchased them from the later-infamous art dealer Robin Symes. However, in the memoirs he published earlier this year, In Retrospect, he describes a private dinner with Jackie, at her apartment, in 1966. "[3][38] Tempelsman was one of two executors of the will that she had drawn up with her long-time attorney, Alexander D. [40], Last edited on 17 December 2022, at 07:09, Southern African Enterprise Development Fund, National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Business Council for International Understanding, New York University Institute of Fine Arts, "Death of a First Lady: The Companion; Quietly at Her Side, Public at the End", "Clinton and Kennedys: In 30 Years, a Full Circle", "Two Marble Sculptures to Return to Sicily", "Lazare Kaplan sales down as worried buyers reassess strategy", "Fototeca online a comunismului romnesc", "Official Delegation Accompanying the President to Africa", "OPIC Board Approves $250Million to Develop Diamond Cutting and Polishing in Botswana", "OPIC & U.S. Company Partner to Improve Diamond Production and Sales in Emerging Markets", "USAID Signs a $1.5Million Partnership to Improve Economic Opportunities in Angola", "Interview with Ambassador John A. Linehan,Jr", "Congress Holds Hearing on New Partnership for African Development", Bureau of International Information Programs, "AAI Recognizes Tempelsman as Distinguished Trustee", "NDI Board of Directors: Maurice Tempelsman", "Onassis Leaves Estate to Charity and Her Children", "First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: Memorial Tributes in the One Hundred Third Congress of the United States", "Last Will & Testament Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis", "Mrs. Onassis's Estate Worth Less Than Estimated", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Tempelsman&oldid=1127894252, This page was last edited on 17 December 2022, at 07:09. (FORTUNE Magazine) - To Maurice Tempelsman, her friend and companion of some 15 years and an executor of her will, she left a Greek alabaster head of a woman. "And I'm so glad you did," she said, as she smiled and walked away briskly. [10][11][12] Tempelsman is one of fewer than 90 "sightholders" in the world, which means that 10 times a year he is permitted to buy diamonds directly from the powerful De Beers cartel in the City of London. "People will be surprised at how ungood the things are," says one who knew Jackie's apartment well. They vacationed together in Martha's Vineyard and even hosted then-President Bill and Hillary Clinton aboard Tempelsman's 70-foot yacht, the Relemar, the year before Jackie's death. He sensed she had a "good hand" with her own makeup, but, at 64, she was still keen to learn. Jackie herself once spoke revealingly of Isak Dinesen's ability to let "the imagination take over. It forever affected her relationship with Kelly. Her longtime friend, writer Jimmy Breslin, also urged Jackie to do it, saying, You should work as an editor. Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. And he is wise and kind. She added, Only I can decide if he can, and I decided. Maurice Tempelsman always seemed to be there for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. For Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the spirit of Camelot never died. Jackie found out that Robert F. Kennedy had been shot on June 5, 1968, . Cavafy, to which he added his own addendum. When he was 16, Tempelsman began working for his father, a diamond broker. It was only in the last third of her life that she seemed to develop friendships with women. He supported her work as an editor and they shared a love of art collectingAfrican art for him, Greek for her. Jackie had a complicated attitude toward money. ", As the young married Jackie Kennedy, she was "a Beaux Arts type of girl," as Arthur Krock of The New York Times once described her, "merry, arch, satirical, terribly democratic, and, yes, brilliant. Even those inured to the commercial theater of the celebrity auction find it bizarre, even "unseemly," that the public be invited to paw through the personal belongings of the former First Lady. They fled amid the rise of the Nazi party in their country. We laughed and giggled.". Simon describes her friendship with Onassis in a new book, Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie. In a remarkably candid interview, Simon detailed their unlikely relationship and described why she believes Onassis was drawn to her. [33], Tempelsman and Bucholz formally separated in 1984. Despite their wide-age gap, they tied the knot in 1968, surprising the public. The thing is she did it in very sensitive ways. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (Jackie Kennedy) was the wife of John F. Kennedy from 1953 until his assassination in 1963. "It was filled with adventure and wisdom, laughter and love, gallantry and grace. Crowds of people jammed the sidewalks outside her apartment the following month as word spread that she was in the last stages of her cancer battle. As destiny would have it, tragedy would strike the couple and that friendship would later turn into a romance between Maurice and Jackie. On Oct. 20, 1968, the widowed first lady stunned the world when she remarried . [4] During their relationship, he handled Onassis's finances, quadrupling the $26 million that was secured from her late husband's estate. Youve got to marry up, Onassis would tell her, Simon said. ", With the 1960 campaign the sprightly senator's wife became the serene, selfeffacing Madonna, often with child, of Joe Kennedy's myth machine. The kindred spirits included Mike Nichols, Carly Simon, and publisher Joe Armstrong. The public regarded her as a symbol of American sophistication and style. Much about Onassis was tinged with the erotic. During the J.F.K. The two began their lengthy relationship in 1980, five years after the death of Jacqueline Onassis' second husband Aristotle Onassis. Three "family members" is how the official statement after her death put it. Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis off the Isle of Skorpios (August 25, 1970) Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images. "Americans love provenance.". ("Don't make her look like a doll"). He was previously a producer at ABC News, where he worked at Nightline and World News with Diane Sawyer, and at MSNBC. The private nature of their relationship means that few people know precisely when Jackie's friendship with Templesman turned into a romance, but it became clear by the early '80s that for all of Jackie's potential suitors, it was Tempelsman who regularly squired her to events around the city. ", Those with refined sensibilities found it admirable that Jackie seemed to have remained immune to the decor mania of the late 70s and 80s and that she preferred to spend her time working as a book editor, riding, and playing with her grandchildren, rather than pondering species of fringe or the intricacies of upholstery with a decorator. Her publishing career and her contented relationship with financier Maurice Tempelsman speak highly of a woman who fought demons even more implacable than her contemporaries and the rest of us . He set up his brushes and equipment. "Not out of any sinister motive, but because she was a very private person.". It was her taste.". Someone who knew her in later years says, "Jackie was a case study of the child of an alcoholic. The barrage of bad publicity hurt her deeplyit was the first and only misstep with her image. She gave me advice like nobody else did, Simon said. Walking in Central Park was one of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Maurice Tempelsmans favorite pastimes when they lived together on the Upper East Side. Interior designer Georgina Fairholme recalls that Jackie fired a young woman who helped with the horses for taking pictures of the country house in New Jersey.) . Instead, Tempelsman and Jackie lived together in her 15-room Fifth Avenue apartment from the mid '80s until Jackie's death in 1994. "You know how it is," Mrs. Onassis once told me when I was a reporter for The New York Times. Tempelsman became close with her children, attending her daughter Caroline's wedding, and even gained the approval of Jackie's notoriously difficult-to-please mother, Janet Lee Auchincloss, who died five years before her daughter in 1989. Among the subsidiary papers is a sheet, written in her rounded, cerebral hand, specifying only three bequests to close friends: two 18thcentury Indian miniatures to philanthropist and garden expert Bunny Mellon, a copy of J.F.K. The level of love and respect was amazing to see," one of Jackie's doctors remembered after her death. She created a new past, in effect.". William D. Zabel, a leading expert in the field of trusts and estates, says, "The failure to provide any precise guideline for spending huge amounts of money from her newly created foundation makes one wonder what causes Jackie was devoted to other than maintaining her own image and privacy." [37] At Onassis's funeral service, Tempelsman read Constantine P. Cavafy's poem Ithaca, one of her favorites, and concluded by saying: "And now the journey is over, too short, alas, too short. She knew how absentminded he . They were introduced; Manzoni was led into her bedroom, with its large baldachino bed and "millions of books," and from there into the bathroom, which he remembers as being "huge, with an oldfashioned porcelain sink on a pedestal, and windows galore." What the public didn't realize was that Mrs. Kennedy carefully planned and directed all the publicity that the children received. Privately, however, there has been whispering in the gossipy auction world throughout the summer; a confidential source believes that the sale is set for next April. "She went through two terrible times," says Letitia Baldrige. Her companion in her later years was Maurice Tempelsman, a Belgian-born diamond dealer. [When she] wrote Out of Africa, she left out how badly her husband had treated her. Recalls Peter Beard, who spent summers with them aboard the Christina, "Ari was obsessed by mermaids"; Jackie became his sea creature. My mother was still alive then. "Maurice Tempelsman was really quite different. There are various things that he did that by comparison to having a mistress must have hurt more.. ", While Jackie was not known for her donations to charities and public causes, she could be extremely generous privately. Caroline and John Jr., Jackie's children with the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy, mourned their mother's death. [2] [3] He was the longtime companion of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, former First Lady of the United States . The permanent, now-famous gravesite was completed in 1967. Ivana Marie Zelnkov escaped from behind the Iron Curtain to storm New York City and help create the twisted miracle of Donald Trump. "Jackie demanded so little from her friendsit seems only right to respect her privacy," says Drew. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis takes her first walk with Maurice Tempelsman in Central Park after leaving the hospital on April 24, 1994, in New York City | Photo: Steve Allen/Liaison/Getty Images The former first lady ended up having a publishing career and found new love with a diamond dealer named Maurice Tempelsman. Those in the publishing world recall how, when she lunched at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, she would focus completely on her guest, never once looking to the left or right. At 16 he followed his father into the diamond industry, forging contacts that would make him a pillar of the diamond import industry. And she said, Oh, Carly, you got screwed. So, so funny. President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated 20 years earlier. She called her rented cottage in Virginia horse country her "mouse house." She was so wary that she had few close friends. Like a snake shedding skins.". . After President Kennedy's assassination, Jackie worked closely with architect Jack Warnecke to design the eternal flame memorial which now stands in Arlington National Cemetery. As their relationship evolved, Simon felt there were some topics that remained off-limits. Tempelsman is chairman of the board of directors of Lazare Kaplan International Inc. (LKI), the largest diamond company in the United States, noted for its "ideal cut" diamonds sold worldwide under the brand name, Lazare Diamonds. Five years later Jackie met Maurice Tempelsman, with whom she remained in a relationship until her death in 1994. Another lengthy document, required to be filed within nine months of her death, lists those personal possessions disclaimed by her children. Carly Simon at her home in Martha's Vineyard. When the pair discussed payment for her second book, Onassis asked her for the details of the first deal. Jackie was frequently and often unfairly defined, at least in public perception, by her relationships to the men that surrounded her. Only months before she became ill, Langham replaced the bed hangings with Scalamandre glazed cotton in "Tuileries," a lavenderandsalmon pattern of undulating vines and small flowers. It was filled with too many taboos. So farewell, farewell. [2][15] From 1993 to 1997, Tempelsman visited the White House at least ten times, met privately with Hillary Clinton on two occasions, vacationed with the Clintons and the Kennedy family in Martha's Vineyard, and flew to Moscow and back with President Clinton on Air Force One. In the wake of her death, some friends remain silent ("Jackier than thou," so to speak): among them collector Jayne Wrightsman, Bunny Mellon, longtime confidante and secretary Nancy Tuckerman, writer Jane Stanton Hitchcock, and editor Lisa Drew, a publishing friend. [36] She left him a "Greek alabaster head of a woman" and named Tempelsman to be a cochair of a charitable organization, the C&J Foundation. He waited to tell the truth, he says, to avoid calling Jackie "a liar.". | Source: Getty Images. Ad Choices. When Jackie emotionally battered by the difficult final years. It was very warm; the room had no airconditioning. That observation may startle those who remember the famous televised tour of the White House (CBS, 1962), in which Jackie assumed the role of the nation's most exalted housekeeper, connoisseur, and scavenger of fine and historic furnishings. LESSONS FROM THE WILL OF JACQUELINE KENNEDY ONASSIS By SUSAN E. KUHN July 11, 1994 (FORTUNE Magazine) - To Maurice Tempelsman, her friend and companion of some 15 years and an executor of her. She would watch the adding up of the touches, one at a time." Jackie sat at a dressing table before the window, facing straight into the strong lateafternoon sun, a pitiless light that showed the sun spots she professed being concerned about. . she would say to a houseguest. When her father was too drunk to attend her wedding to J.F.K., she wrote him a poignant, understanding letter on her honeymoon. According to Maurice Tempelsman, Jackie's partner for the last 14 years of her life, . And I said, Well, I got $25,000,' Simon said. Once settled in New York, then 16-year-old Maurice followed his father's footsteps in the jewelry business. Says Joan Ganz Cooney, a founder of the Children's Television Workshop, "Jackie belongs to history. But friends remember that she loved to laugh in private, and was a gifted mimic. It is also unusual, says Zabel, "to leave so few bequests of personal property.". She returned to New York in September where she struggled to find herself after a decade of tumult and tragedy. Many find it curious that the family should have chosen this route, with all its voyeuristic ramifications. Jackie herself developed extremely effective tactics to keep strangers at bay. Maurice Tempelsman is a Belgian-American businessman and diamond merchant. The friendship between the Belgian businessman and the Kennedy couple continued for a long time, but only on the sidelines. She said she developed a pill addiction and spent time at a rehab facility where she was allowed one call a day. Because she knew he loved her much, much more than any of his dalliances.. [9], He is chairman of the International Advisory Council of the Harvard School of Public Health's AIDS Initiative,[28] and is an honorary trustee and an honorary member of the corporation of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Each thud of the auctioneer's gavel will open a Pandora's box of memories: the Van Cleef & Arpels gold rubyanddiamond necklace with matching ring given to her by Aristotle Onassis as wedding presents in the fall of 1968; a wedding dress that many speculate is the gown she wore to marry J.F.K. Inquiries to Diana Brooks, the head of the firm, are met with a tense "No comment," as are those to the publicity department; other experts at Sotheby's seem too terrified to speak. Rich Schapiro is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit. Senator from Massachusetts, to meet a South African diamond magnate. But Jackie was forthright.. John and Caroline are left $250,000 apiece outright and the revenue from the sale of her real estate (the Fifth Avenue apartment, which has already been sold to billionaire David Koch for $9.5 million, and the Martha's Vineyard estate, estimated to be worth $5 million) and of her personal effectsenough money to ensure they live well but not so much as to stifle motivation. Recamier. They were married in 1949. . She adored the job, and eventually spent over 19 years at various publishing houses in the city. She never discussed it with Guinzburg facetoface, but rather through an "exchange of letters." [16][17] From March 3, 1977, Tempelsman briefly held the title of honorary consul general for Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), at the DRC's consular offices in New York City. "I doubt Jackie really exposed herself to anyone," said one who knew her. . "I'd like to watch everything, if I may," she said, and she proved observant to the point that he sometimes had to position himself quite gingerly in order to work. Carly Simon with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at a Labor Day party on the beach. Melania Trump Apparently RSVPd F--k Off to Her Husbands Post-Arraignment Speech. Though Tempelsman had been separated from his wife, the mother of his three children, for many years, her devout Jewish faith prevented them from divorcing. She emerged from the Greek underworld richer and wiser. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. I stopped and I called her and said, Would you mind if I wrote children's books instead?. Who, me? Only then did Simon realize that Onassis had played a practical joke on her. The former first lady "looked so beautiful and so regal and so finally at home," Simon told NBC News in a remarkably candid interview. And I could smoke a joint if I wanted to., She didnt have the license to be free, Simon added. Compared to the Irish-Catholic Prince Charming image of her first husband, President John F. Kennedy, or the flamboyant grandiosity of her second, Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, Tempelsman seemed a mild and unassuming choice for the last great love story of an American icon. The two met in the 1950s when Maurice arranged a meeting between JFK and representatives of the South African diamond business. Was Tiffany involved? Onassis agreed, and Simon went on to write two childrens books for Doubleday. But the woman Simon knew had a playfulness and a practical joker mentality that played out in multiple ways. She gave no interviews and made only a few, carefully orchestrated public appearances. . In New York, she reassumed the immaculate public mask of the White House era. In a cheerful but resigned way, she told me that of course she knew about them, Simon says in her book. Jackie Onassis and Maurice Tempelsman during Jackie Onassis and Maurice Tempelsman At La Cote Basque Restaurant at La Cote Basque Restaurant in New. 's inaugural address to Forger, and an alabaster Greek head of a woman to Tempelsman. It's wrong, all this protection of her now." People who knew her ought to write memoirsotherwise biographers grappling with her life will have to rely on gossip. With the death of Onassis, she abandoned jetset freneticism and returned to New York to lead the quiet, controlled life we came to associate with her. . The couple had complimentary personalities and shared interests in art and literature. Onassis was different. One close friend tells how she would never speak of things she found disagreeable; months after Onassis died she reminisced warmly about her marriage to him, describing "a marriage that did not exist and an affection that was not there," says the friend. Library, are locked up until 2067. New details of Jackie Kennedy's life after JFK's assassination have been revealed, focusing on her surprising-at-the-time marriage to Aristotle "Ari" Onassis. The press were in no doubt about Jackie's motives when news broke in October 1968 that she was to marry Greek shipping millionaire Aristotle Onassis, 23 years her senior: "Jackie Marries Blank . David Ormsby Gore, Lord Harlech, was a former British ambassador to Washington and friend of JFK's. To her children, Caroline and John, she left $250,000 apiece in cash, the Fifth Avenueapartment and other property and personal effects, and money in a trust that she . "She had this little cocked eye on the world," says Cooney. Sometimes, however, it amused Jackie to observe the effect of her fame. The next morning, Simon received a letter in the mail from Domingo. She wanted to look regal extremely elegant but detached.". Says Langham, "It's almost as if she knew what was going to happen."). And the nucleus of the story was the story about my mother and her lover and my father, Simon said. Even if Jackie had a limited amount of money to spend when she moved to New York in 1964, New Yorkers more accustomed to lavish displays of freshly milled chintz and newly quarried marble didn't understand her classic American style, which values comfort and continuity over the whims of fashion.