Money and power…
Power and money.
The drill from Janet Auchincloss to her daughters, Jacqueline Bouvier and younger sister Lee Bouvier, who were warned about marrying.
Only when there’s money and power do you consent, was Janet’s mantra to her beautiful girls, destined to be catapulted into global fame after their weddings.
We discover this in J. Randy Taraborrelli’s new book: Jackie, Janet and Lee: The Secret Lives of Janet Auchincloss and Her Daughters Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Lee Radziwill.
Taraborrelli is a maestro of “dish” in his biographies. Not only about the Kennedy dynasty, but of Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Ross, etc.
The books are riveting, alive with fresh anecdotal insights into the worlds of the famous and infamous. Reliably spellbinding with surprises about the people he writes about.
Who knew that Janet Auchincloss, whose second husband, Hugh Auchincloss, the Standard Oil heir, was disappointed that he was impotent?
She wanted more children, and decided there were ways around Mother Nature.
Consulting with doctors and knowledgeable insiders, she decided to use a kitchen utensil, probably a turkey baster, to become pregnant. Which happened.
While she wanted a boy, she delivered a girl, Janet Jennings Auchincloss, on June 13, 1943.
Not one to be deterred, Janet tried her trick again, only this time, according to Hugh’s second wife, Nina Gore, she used a spoon.
While Hugh regrettably was incapable of intimacy, he somehow managed, on several occasions, to provide the sperm that birthed the two children.
Finally delivering a son, James Lee Auchincloss, born on March 4, 1947. A half-brother to Jackie and Lee.
All this “dish” and more from Randy’s easy-to-read, tell-all that’s worthy of staying up late for more captivating details.
Marrying into the Kennedy clan was power unlimited for Jackie, and Lee married, a titled Polish royal, albeit broke, and known thereafter as Princess Lee Radziwill.
After husband John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, Jackie opted, five years later, for the security of the acclaimed mogul, the Greek shipowner Aristotle Socrates Onassis, much older, but no matter. Please remember mother Janet’s mantra: money and power.
For those living with wayward imaginations and the availability of the internet, we find 170 clauses in Jackie’s marriage contract.
According to Christian Kafa Rakis, chief steward on the Onassis yacht, Christina, (named after his daughter, Tina Livanos), we are informed about these clauses:
• Separate bedrooms;
• The times of the year they spend together;
• $600,000 for Jackie’s travel, pleasure, safety and children. In addition to his gifts to her and the provision of a sumptuous manner of living;
• Should Onassis ever part from Jackie, he will be legally bound to give her a sum of $9.6 million for every year of their marriage;
• Should she leave him, her payoff will be a lump sum of $18 million;
• Should she stick it out for longer, she will receive, in addition to the $18 million, an alimony of $183,000 for 10 years;
• If Onassis dies while they are still married, she will inherit the staggering sum of $100 million.
After Onassis’s death, a friend, banker and financial advisor, Maurice Tempelsman, moved in with Jackie at her Fifth Avenue penthouse apartment until her death in 1994. They were seen walking in Central Park and dining locally.
She died from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and friends believe that her heavy smoking contributed to her loss.
Tempelsman quadrupled the $26 million secured from the Onassis’ estate, and he tearfully recited the epic Constantine Cavafy poem, Ithaca, during her funeral mass at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue, not far from her apartment.
One assumes the bulk of her estate is now with her daughter, Caroline Kennedy.
And thus the world turns with Janet Auchincloss’s mantra. Money and power … power and money.
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