Taraborrelli - After Camelot

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Jacket Photo: John Kennedy Jr. wanders away during a family photo session featuring all of the Kennedy children and President Kennedy on August 3, 1963. The children, left to right: Kathleen Kennedy (holding Christopher Kennedy), Edward Kennedy Jr., Joseph P. Kennedy II, Kara Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, President Kennedy, Michael Kennedy, Courtney Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Bobby Shriver (holding Timothy Shriver), Maria Shriver, Steve Smith Jr., Willie Smith, Christopher Lawford, Victoria Lawford, Sidney Lawford, and Robin Lawford. (Cecil Stoughton, White House/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

Copyright 2012 by Rose Books, Inc.

Afterword copyright 2013 by Rose Books, Inc.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the authors intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the authors rights.

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First e-book edition: April 2012

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ISBN 978-0-446-58443-2

An ambitious chronicle full of delicious inside stories If you cant get enough of the Kennedys, this book is for you.

Minneapolis Star Tribune

Thoroughly engrossing a fascinating tell-all.

Birmingham Times

Meticulous multilayered details breathe life into remarkable recreations of family gatherings throughout this superb fly on the wall survey of the Camelot clan.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

He keeps readers deeply engaged with a comfortable, almost novelistic style will appeal both to those long fascinated with the Kennedys and those new to following them.

Library Journal

A revealing glimpse at the ongoing saga of this extraordinary family.

Booklist

A page-turning, emotionally riveting saga.

BookPage

Taraborrelli celebrates the enduring appeal of Americas royal family [He] gathers every luscious detail of the scandals, arrests, affairs, overdoses and bad-boy antics that have marked the post-Camelot years. Its all here The author reveals the familys most intimate details A big, juicy read for Kennedy fans.

Kirkus Reviews

JACKIE, ETHEL, JOAN:
Women of Camelot

ONCE UPON A TIME:
Behind the Fairy Tale of Princess Grace and
Prince Rainier

Elizabeth

The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

MICHAEL JACKSON:
The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story (19582009)

For Rocco and Rose Marie Taraborrelli

When I sit at a family gathering, with literally dozens of children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews surrounding me, tears come to my eyes. I marvel at their talents, their articulateness, their devotion to justice and their grace. I am reminded once again that family shapes us all, and that to be held in the arms of a loving family redeems even the most numbing pain.

Ted Kennedy, Senate prayer, October 6, 1999

To whom much has been given, much is required.

Luke 12:48

If it could ever be said that America had a royal family, it would be the Kennedys of Massachusetts. For more than half a century, we as a nation have been captivated by their compelling story, a saga that encompasses as much tragedy as triumph, as much heartbreak as joy. In a sense, we are their loyal subjects, consumed with their mystique, mesmerized by their charisma. That the Kennedys always seemed to have an almost pathological aversion to the media only made the reports of their comings and goings all the more interesting. With the passing of the years, weve wanted to know all there was to know about this powerful family, and monitoring their behavior as reported on television or in newspapers and magazines was almost like being there. Of course, there are any number of reasons for our enduring fascination with their livesnot the least of which has been the curse of tragedy that has seemingly haunted them for decades. Still, the singular, most compelling aspect of their story has been its sheer and utter humanity.

I am reminded of the first time I met Jackie Kennedy Onassis. It was in 1985 in New York City, when she was an editor at Doubleday and I was about to write my first book, a biography of Diana Ross, for that publishing company. A chance meeting in an elevator later led to a spirited conversation in her office about pop culture, which of course I will never forget. As she spoke, I looked into her dark, inquisitive eyes and couldnt help but wonder: Who is she, really? And what does she make of her place in history as a woman whose private tragedies became the public spectacle of an entire generation? After everything she enduredwith a life at once so opulent and blessed, and at the same time shattered and cursedwhat was the source from which she drew her fortitude, her confidence and self-determination? As we talked, I couldnt help but think about her place in American lore and how trauma and loss had come to define it.I thought about President Kennedy. Dallas, 1963. Bobby Kennedy. Los Angeles, 1968. Ted Kennedy. Chappaquiddick, 1969. All of these events were entwined with my childhood, all of it my story just as it is every Americans. And there she was, standing in front of me, a woman who had actually been there, who knew it all. Who had lived it. Go ahead, I thought, my ever-curious mind kicking in for an instant. Ask her something about it. Ask her anything. But there was something about her, and about that time with her, that made the idea of asking even a single probing question about her life seem inappropriate. She was so charming, so warm and friendly. So accessible. She was so everyday in her humanity that only the most callous person would ever dream of asking her a personal question that might revive any trauma, any pain.

I think it was on that day as I spoke to Jackie that I began to understand a true secret to the Kennedys enduring celebrity: There is no wall. True, on the national stage, these people are and would always be ferociously private. But out in the real world, many of them are just as approachable as anyone else you might meet in an elevator. For her part, Jackiean editor whose office didnt even have windowscertainly wasnt living as though she were larger than life, like most celebrities do: in an ivory tower, detached from the everyday. She was, to put it simply, a very nice lady, and in many ways just like the rest of us. Shed had her ups and downs in life. Shed made the best of the cards shed been dealt, and now, widowed twice, she was in New York City, starting over at a job that paid her just $200 a week, writing a new chapter of her own story. Not for the sake of the public, or for the history books, or for a young writer she might happen to meet in an elevator on the way to work. She was doing it for herself, living her life