Just Jackie: Her Private Years [Hardcover]

Edward Klein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 7, 1998

She was perhaps the most famous, most scrutinized, most talked about woman of our century. From the moment Jacqueline Kennedy stepped into the White House, she inspired a generation of Americans and changed the face of a nation. But underneath the glitter and the hype, just who was Jackie?

Now, in this carefully detailed chronicle, Edward Klein, the former editor in chief of The New York Times Magazine, bestselling author of All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy, and friend of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis for many years, tells the story of Jackie's best years as it has never been told before, shedding an entire new light on her enduring legacy.

Edward Klein has amassed a wealth of exclusive information from private documents and correspondence, FBI files, and hundreds of interviews with Jackie's friends, the associates of her second husband, Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, and her longtime lover, the mysterious diamond merchant Maurice Templesman. In this extraordinary, myth-shattering book, many people break their silence for the first time, answering dozens of provocative questions:

¸  Why did Jackie marry Onassis? Was it only for the money?
¸  How did she react when Onassis resumed his affair with Maria Callas?
¸  What was the real reason their marriage fell apart?

¸  When Jackie returned to New York, how did she rebuild her future on a tarnished and clouded past?
¸  When did Maurice Templesman enter her life, and what role did he play in helping Jackie build her fortune?
¸  How did Jackie spend her time during those very private New York years?

Much more than a portrait of a famous celebrity, Edward Klein's work captures the essence of a captivating woman whose passion for wealth was matched only by her deep need for privacy. In Just Jackie, Klein reveals for the first time how Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis finally found the love and contentment she was searching for all her life.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

According to Klein, the author of All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy, Aristotle Onassis began courting the widow less than 48 hours after her husband's assassination, but she made him wait, which drove him crazy. Soon she got drunk with Marlon Brando and later with Clint Hill (the agent had thrown his body on top of hers during Oswald's fusillade) at D.C.'s fanciest restaurant. Brando she took home to seduce by dancing to Wayne Newton's "Danke Schoen," pressing her thighs against him, but he fled into the night. Cowboy-handsome Clint Hill and Jackie were seen necking and petting, occasionally disappearing beneath their banquette. Klein (the spoilsport) says Jackie didn't sleep with Ros Gilpatrick, Lord Harlech, Frank Sinatra, or Bobby Kennedy, even though Ethel was told, "He's spending an awful lot of time with the widder."

The book is arranged in bite-sized mini-chapters, and there's a naughty treat in almost every bite. Though Ari didn't kiss Jackie at their wedding, an alleged accidental eyewitness calls their lovemaking "energetic and creative"--maybe because, unlike with his previous girlfriends, Ari didn't burn Jackie with cigars or wear her clothes. Jackie may have spent over $2 million (in 1998 dollars) on clothes, but hey, her pal Bunny Mellon spent $6 million.

Klein offers lots of intimate alleged facts, like her three face-lifts in the '80s, but the best thing about the book are the quotes, some of them Jackie's. Her friend Brendan Gill poses the central question of her life: "How does one live publicly in a world where one has to lie?" Some of the truths are probably in this book. --Tim Appelo

Review

"Fascinating."
--LIZ SMITH
   New York Post

"REVEAL[S] FASCINATING TIDBITS THAT MAY HELP SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT ABOUT ONE OF THE 20TH CENTURY'S MOST FASCINATING WOMEN."
--Houston Chronicle

"STARTLING AND TERRIFIC . . . [KLEIN] CLEARLY WAS ABLE TO TAP SOME OF THOSE WHO WERE IN HER CLOSEST CIRCLE."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune


From the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 399 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (October 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345421027
• ISBN-13: 978-0345421029
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,225,470 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #84 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( O ) > Onassis, Jacqueline Kennedy

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars this author should be ashamed of himself., April 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Just Jackie: Her Private Years (Hardcover)

I started reading "Just Jackie" with some trepidation. I was afraid it would be a typically trashy tabloid reliving of the later life of Jackie Kennedy. But I was somewhat impressed with Klein's credentials - and actually, I was so taken with the beautiful photo of Jackie on the cover, i wanted to give it a try. But I was so offended by this book, I never finished it. Without grossly offending innocent readers of this review, i will say only that Klein includes a mind-bogglingly detailed description of the disinterment of the bodies of Jackie's two stillborn children. Yes, you read that right. I never thought I'd feel sorry for jackie Kennedy, who always seemed strong enough to deal with her life. But I am now desperately sorry for her, and for her two surviving children. This is outrageous, and Klein and his publishers should be ashamed of themselves. (Too bad there is no provision for "no stars.")

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Oh, how low can Ed Klein descend?, September 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Just Jackie: Her Private Years (Hardcover)

If you're interested in reading about Mrs. Onassis' menstrual cycle, which parts of President Kennedy's body she massaged after his death, the disinterrment of her dead children's bodies, well...get your kicks from reading the Starr report instead...

This book is based on gossip, attributing stories and quotes to people who are dead and can neither refute nor verify them and is an insidious attempt to cash in on Mrs. Onassis' life.

Shame on you Ed Klein.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fleshing Out Jackie, February 17, 2000

By 

D. Fraissinet (Nutley, NJ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Just Jackie: Her Private Years (Hardcover)

I have been a lifelong follower of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and thought I knew a great deal about the facts of her life. But like everyone else I was on a quest to understand what was under the facade. This book didn't bring more insight about the ever elusive "Jackie", but it did provide a fleshed out version of many of the extraordinary circumstances of her incredible life. With so much of the history of her life presented like "visual" soundbites, it was engrossing to read this book's details which to a great extent humanized Jackie to me as never before. The image may have seemed effortless, but the cost of her public persona was more than anyone should have to pay. It is strangely comforting that she was so very human, and such a woman of her time -- at first looking for her purpose through a man, and finally finding her identity and happiness from within. I thought when I was a child at the time of JFK's assassination that I would never have been able to do what Jackie did during the time of his death and funeral. It is reassuring to know that no one, not even Jackie, could possibly behave the way she did without a tidal wave of emotional pain that nearly spanned the remainder of her time on earth.