Jackie, Janet & Lee

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  “Even though Yusha was on the same page as Jackie, I think maybe he was now beginning to wonder if he and Jackie were overreacting,” said Jamie. “I mean, you had to wonder, especially about Jackie, given everything she had been through.”

  One of Janet’s doctors went so far as to theorize that Jackie’s fears about Bingham Morris were somehow informed by her PTSD. Was it possible that she was still so traumatized by what had happened to Jack and Bobby, and her powerlessness in both incidents, that she was now trying to exert control over the possibility of something terrible happening to her mother? “This was my guess,” said one of Janet’s doctors at that time. “I had to agree with Dr. Selkoe that there was no clear-cut evidence of physical or sexual abuse. However, emotional abuse? Maybe. You’d have to be in the house to know for sure, and no doctor was in the house. Emotional abuse is bad enough, though, and reason for Mrs. Onassis’s concern, obviously. However, there was a growing concern that she was overreacting, and that her state of mind was perhaps somewhat influenced by her own tragic personal history. She couldn’t protect Jack. She couldn’t protect Bobby. She couldn’t protect her children who died. She was going to protect her mother, though. She was definitely going to protect her mother.”

  For her part, Lee had begun to agree with Dr. Selkoe. “I spoke to Lee personally,” he recalled. “We had conferences and I told her my opinion, yes.”

  Lee had been around Jackie’s PTSD for years and well knew the havoc it had played on her life and that of the entire family’s. If Dr. Selkoe didn’t believe Janet was being physically abused, Lee would also not believe it. She didn’t spend much time at Hammersmith, though—and everyone agrees on that point. “I don’t think I ever saw her,” says Michael Dupree, who worked at Hammersmith from 1986 through 1989, “though she did call from time to time. She could have slipped in and out. I wasn’t standing guard over her mother. But did I see her? No.”

  It didn’t matter what other people thought, though; Jackie said she had to listen to her own reason and it continued to tell her that Bingham Morris was a real threat. “She finally laid down the law,” recalled Jamie, “and banished Booch to the Palace—and it was anything but a Palace. It was a real shoddy apartment up a steep stairs over the garage next to the Castle. We couldn’t get rid of him, but at least we got him out of the Castle. He would visit Mummy in the Castle, she would get upset, he would then leave. Then he would telephone Mummy from the Palace. She would say she missed him and wanted to see him, and the vicious cycle would repeat.”

  In a letter to Yusha, Jackie made an equivalency between her mother and the needs of a child who fears desertion. In her opinion, Janet longed for Booch every time she talked to him on the telephone, forgetting how angry and upset she’d been with him the last time she saw him. Then she’d want to see him again. When that occurred, she would only end up being tormented by him once again. Jackie wrote that she was certain Booch was “a sadist,” that “tyrannizing” the entire household staff was what he most enjoyed, and that “doing worse” to Janet is what made him truly happy. She concluded by saying that the Hammersmith employees firmly believed that Booch was “sick” and that he played “sick games” with Janet.

  Janet’s Eightieth

  December 3, 1987.

  “Are you happy, Mummy?” Jackie asked as she watched Janet thumb through a leather-bound scrapbook called “Janet’s Birthday Letters,” full of handwritten memories and personal family photos. The book had been compiled by Jackie and Yusha for the occasion of Janet’s eightieth birthday. Janet smiled and nodded as she turned each page.

  In the last few months, Janet’s physical and emotional condition had worsened. “It was just the natural course of the disease that it got worse,” explained Dr. Dennis Selkoe, “and sometimes that happens all of a sudden.”

  “There was a period of time when she began to suffer from Sundowner’s Syndrome,” said Michael Dupree. “It is common with Alzheimer’s patients. Janet would become irritable, confused, and nervous when the sun went down. I would always go around and close all of the curtains and turn on all of the lights just so that she wouldn’t notice the coming of nightfall.”

  These days, Janet spent most of her time in a hospital bed in a guest room in the Castle. However, on this day, she was seated on a couch in the Deck Room, back at the Big House at Hammersmith, which she had loved for so many years. Her head-of-staff nurse, Elisa Sullivan, had made it possible for Janet to celebrate her eightieth birthday here, with a surprise party. Dressed in a black sweater with a long gold necklace and pendant, Janet looked as if she couldn’t really move, her rail-thin body purposefully and carefully arranged among pillows and comforters. Though propped up on the long wood-edged sofa, she was in great spirits.

  Along with Jackie, Yusha, and Yusha’s daughter, Maya, surrounding Janet on this special day were, of course, Lee and Jamie and a gaggle of close friends, such as Oatsie Charles and Eileen Slocum, as well as longtime employees, like Janet’s majordomo, Jonathan Tapper; her former assistant, Adora Rule, and Adora’s daughter, Janine; current chef, Michael Dupree; and, of course, Elisa Sullivan. Bingham Morris was present, too. Jackie had her eye on him the whole time, not letting him have even a second alone with her mother. Others caring for Janet were also there, including her nurse Sally Ewalt. “My father [Mannie Faria] was at her side the entire time,” recalled Joyce Faria Brennan, who also was present, as were her mother and sister. “Janet was especially surprised that they’d flown in her grandchildren Lewis and Andrew [Janet Jr.’s sons] from Hong Kong. So it was a wonderful day for all of us.”

  “The memories this must bring back to you,” Oatsie Charles said as she watched Janet turn the pages. A few weeks earlier, Yusha had sent a form to each family member and friend on which they were to explain what they were up to these days, and share a special thought about Janet. “I have too many lovely memories to fill this small space,” wrote Lee, “but enough to fill books. I love you very much.” She also mentioned some of their wonderful times together, including driving all over Italy one summer. Jackie remembered how much she used to love to hear Janet sing to her and Lee the old Harry Lauder song “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave” and “Comin’ Through the Rye.” She noted of Janet’s eightieth that it was “the greatest day in the history of Hammersmith.” She also wrote the words to the “Happy Birthday” song on a decorative sheet of paper, along with the comment: “I think it is better to read this than to hear me sing it. I love you, Jackie.”

  Making the keepsake all the more memorable were handwritten reminiscences by Yusha and Jamie, as well as Caroline, John, Anthony, and Tina, friends such as Oatsie Charles and Nancy Tuckerman, and employees such as the Farias and their daughters.

  “Are you staying for supper?” Janet suddenly asked Michael Dupree, her chef. He said yes, he was. In fact, he would be preparing it. Janet said, “That’s nice.” She then leaned into Jackie and said, “I don’t know who that nice man is, but he’s making us supper.” Jackie patted Janet’s knee to assure her that everything was all right. By this time, Oatsie had placed a scrapbook she’d made on Janet’s lap, pictures she had taken of good times in the past. Turning a page, Janet came upon a newspaper clipping about the President and First Lady’s tenth wedding anniversary spent at Hammersmith in 1963. “Oh, look, Mummy,” Jackie exclaimed. “That’s me and Jack.”

  Janet stared at the newspaper clipping, running her index finger over it. She stopped at each word in the headline and paused as if her memories were flooding her fully, taking her back. She smiled to herself and nodded. A moment passed, and then another. Finally, Jackie took her mother’s hand into her own. “You do remember, don’t you, Mummy?” she asked, hopefully.

  Janet nodded. “Yes, I do,” she said, softly. Then, fixing Jackie with an earnest expression, she paused for a second. A frown crossed her still-smooth brow as she asked, “So, tell me, dear. Who is this President Kennedy?”

  Herbert Ross

  In January o
f 1988, Lee Radziwill met a man who would change the course of her life in many ways. He was someone with whom she felt she had a great deal in common, for he, too, had experimented with many different career aspirations. The difference was that he was enormously successful in everything he touched, whether in dance, choreography, theater, television, or film. Lee felt a connection to his wanderlust and admired not only his versatility but also his spirit. Though he’d been largely criticized in his life and career, he still pushed forward despite what people said or thought about him, much like Lee.

  Herbert David Ross—known professionally as “Herb,” though his friends and family called him “Herbert”—was born in New York in 1923 and started his career as a chorus boy in no less than fifteen Broadway shows in the 1940s. After breaking his ankle at the age of twenty-three, he changed course and became a successful choreographer. Soon, he was choreographing for the Broadway stage, twenty-six shows in all, including A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and House of Flowers. He then began to work at staging ballet for Broadway shows, including On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and Barbra Streisand’s debut, I Can Get It for You Wholesale. After that, he found his way into directing musical numbers for movies, including Funny Girl. He then went on to a successful career as a director with a string of memorable films such as Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Owl and the Pussycat, Funny Lady, The Sunshine Boys, The Turning Point, Footloose, The Goodbye Girl, and, just as he and Lee began to know each other, Steel Magnolias.

  Ross was a man who lived life on his own terms, refusing to be pigeonholed or stereotyped, again something Lee felt she had in common with him. He spent most of the 1940s into the 1950s living as a gay man in a committed relationship with a dancer named John Ward. He then married another dancer, ballerina Nora Kaye, in 1959, choosing to then live his life as a straight man. This choice fascinated Lee; he truly did not care what people thought of it, and there was something about his audacity that intrigued Lee. She had always been a fan of his movies—The Turning Point and Pennies from Heaven being personal favorites—and so when she had the opportunity to get to know him, she was excited to pick his brain. Within three months, she began to fall for him. Soon she found herself in Louisiana with him, scouting locations for Steel Magnolias.

  At sixty-five, Herbert Ross was distinguished-looking, intelligent, engaging, and, happily enough, quite wealthy. He’d accumulated a decent-size nest egg from his many decades in show business and was also now commanding more than $2 million per picture with a healthy percentage of profits. When Lee met him, he had just buried his wife of twenty-eight years, Nora Kaye.

  “Herbert missed Nora terribly,” said his goddaughter, Leslie Browne. “He’d been so devastated by her death, some feared he’d never recover! I actually think he would have died if he had to be on his own, without a wife. Therefore, when Lee came into his life, a woman with whom he had such a great rapport, it was as if he’d found salvation. She was classy, educated, and came from a prestigious family. There was a hint of the Kennedys about her, too, so that was fun for him, as well. He immediately fell into a rhythm with her that felt comfortable and made him happy again.”

  For her part, Lee admired the fact that Herbert had been married so long and had demonstrated a capacity to be so committed to a relationship. He shared her love of art, design, fine dining, and travel. He was also a great raconteur with so many fascinating stories about his life in show business. She really couldn’t get enough of him. “I love our life together,” she said, happily, “and I never want it to change.” Did she have questions about his sexuality? Not really. She’d had complex relationships in the past with men with ambiguous sexual identities—she was even said to have had a one-night stand with Rudolf Nureyev—and, in her mind, sexuality was fluid. She made no judgments about any of it. She fell for him hard, as was Lee’s fashion.

  By this time, Lee had sold her Southampton beach home, another necessity in order to make ends meet. The fact that she’d now met someone wealthy, a man to whom she was attracted and who seemed to feel the same about her, gave her some hope that maybe her long romantic drought might be over—and along with it, her financial problems as well.

  Still, going on in the background of Lee’s life, of course, was her mother’s ongoing illness. “Have you seen my sister?” Jackie asked Garrett Johnston, Hugh’s former business colleague, when he came to visit Janet at the Castle. When Garrett said he hadn’t, Jackie nodded and said it was “hard” and that it was “everything I can do to come here, myself.” She noted that it was in dealing with situations such as the one in which they now found themselves “that you really find out what you’re made of.” When Garrett told Jackie that he’d heard Lee was dating a film director, and that the two of them were out of town on the set of a movie together, Jackie was surprised. It seemed clear that the sisters hadn’t spoken. “Okay, well, look, I hope this works out for her,” Jackie said. “I don’t want Lee to be alone. It’s no good being alone.” When Garrett told Jackie that he would pass a message on to her if he saw Lee, Jackie shook her head no. “I think we need our space,” she said, without explanation.

  Distancing Herself

  On an early September morning in 1988 two vehicles made their way to Hammersmith Farm, one a shiny black limousine, the other a dirty old station wagon. The vehicles came upon two driveways, one that wrapped around the property in the direction of the Big House and another that veered off to the right eventually ending in the vicinity of the Castle. The latter driveway was mostly used by household employees. “That’s her,” a paparazzo shouted out as the limousine turned onto the main driveway. “That’s gotta be her. Jackie O!” At that warning, a fleet of motorcycles pulled out of the brush, each with a photographer mounted on it. This coterie of photographers slowly followed the limousine as far down the path as possible before the car got to a small gatehouse. As it slowly pulled past the guard shack, the photographers jumped off their bikes and began setting up their long lens equipment. They wanted to be ready to take pictures of the limousine’s passenger exiting the vehicle and then walking up to the front door of the Big House. Meanwhile, the station wagon made its clunky way down the other road, followed by no one.

  Once the station wagon was in front of the Castle, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, huddled in the back seat of the vehicle, threw off the blanket covering her. Mannie Faria then jumped out of the front seat, ran around the car, and opened the passenger door. Jackie stood up and faced him with a smile. They had once again been able to evade the paparazzi, as they did at least two or three times a week.

  Today there was a certain amount of urgency to Jackie and Mannie’s gamesmanship. The National Enquirer had reported that Janet was ill, possibly with Alzheimer’s. As a result, the press had been at Hammersmith’s front entrance all week waiting for some sort of confirmation. Jackie’s presence at the farm would be all they would require to run with a story about Janet’s illness. They didn’t realize that Jackie’s being at Hammersmith wasn’t really that unusual. She was there almost every weekend, staying at the Castle with her mother and seeing to her care. However, the fewer pictures of her entering or leaving the premises at this time, the better. Mannie was a trusty accomplice in Jackie’s comings and goings, always one to dream up a clever way of camouflaging her activities.

  “Mrs. O. called my father all the time to check on Mrs. A.,” said Joyce Faria Brennan. “No matter how many years we knew her, my mom was in complete awe of her. Mrs. O. would call and Mom would whisper, ‘It’s Mrs. Onassis on the phone,’ and everyone in the room would be still and silent as my dad gave her the update on Mrs. A.”

  As Janet’s disease progressed, the desperate situation regarding Bingham Morris seemed to subside. The sad truth was that Janet just became too sick for him to be viewed as much of a threat. Jackie still had her eyes on him, though. It had been about a year and a half of true worry and anxiety relating to him. If it had gone on maybe even a few months longer, Jackie likely would have been better able to
get to the bottom of it, whatever it was. She was in the process of establishing a conservatorship for her mother. She remained uncertain, though, overwhelmed even, especially as Janet became more ill. There was no time to continue her war against Booch. Her focus now had to shift from dealing with him to coordinating the caregiving of her mother. Still, as far as Jackie was concerned, Bingham Morris would always be the enemy on the premises she’d not been able to banish. “I know something bad was going on,” she told one household employee. “I know it. Even if I can’t prove it. I know it.”

  As Janet became less aware of her surroundings, there were days she didn’t even remember the important people in her life. “Do you remember Janet Jr.?” Jamie once asked his mother. She shook her head no. “She was a good friend of yours,” Jamie said, not wanting to upset Janet by saying she was her daughter. “She died about three years ago.” Janet looked sad. “Was she very young?” she asked. “Yes,” Jamie answered. “Just thirty-nine.” Janet thought it over. “What a shame,” she said. “I’m sure she was a wonderful girl. Was she?” Jamie took his mother’s hand. “Yes,” he said sadly. “Janet was wonderful. We all loved her very much.”

  Janet’s entire life was being swept away by the disease—all of her memories, her history, her very identity. However, she was sweet, mellow, and pleasant. “From her expression and the way she was with people,” recalled Jamie, “it was actually as if she had opened her heart to more love.”