America's Reluctant Prince

by Steven M. Gillon

  CHAPTER 10

  “SHE’S REALLY SPOOKED NOW”

  In June 1997 John found himself in a familiar place: standing by the bedside of Anthony Radziwill at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Washington, DC. With Anthony nearing the end of his life, John became a steady presence, reflecting a special bond that had existed ever since they’d been young. They resembled best friends as well as cousins: Anthony was the son of John’s aunt, Lee Bouvier Radziwill, and Polish prince Stanislas Radziwill. Anthony grew up in London and moved to New York when he was sixteen years old. He finished high school at the exclusive Choate and then attended Boston University. After graduating in 1982, he relocated to New York and eventually became an award-winning television producer.

  No matter the physical distance between them, John and Anthony had always managed to stay close. They were first cousins, but they grew up together because their mothers were close. As children, they frolicked on Scorpios, the private island owned by John’s stepfather, Aristotle Onassis. Over the years, they took trips together, often to exotic locations, and rarely went more than a few weeks without speaking. Caroline Kennedy said they loved each other as “the brother they each did not have.”

  They were, however, a study in contrasts. While John was playful and outgoing, Anthony was serious and reserved. Anthony’s wife, Carole, would later compare them to the characters in the popular 1970s television show The Odd Couple. “John is Oscar to Anthony’s Felix,” she wrote. Anthony embodied the “English schoolboy”: neat and well mannered, his bed always made, his clothes tucked away. John was a different story. Some old habits were hard to break. He marked “his territory like a teenager, leaving trails of movement behind him: a dirty dish, an empty bottle, books and newspapers wrinkled from spilled drinks. If he has been in the kitchen, every cabinet is opened. In the bathroom there are towels on the floor and a toothpaste cap in the sink.”

  Their close relationship was defined by constant teasing and poking. Like mirrors of each other, John did a perfect imitation of Anthony, and Anthony did a perfect imitation of John. Often John would mock Anthony’s royal heritage by calling him “petit prince.” Once, when Anthony complained that an elderly woman was taking too much time at the grocery checkout counter, John told friends, “Do you know that Anthony hates children and old people?”

  In the 1980s, Anthony suffered a bout of testicular cancer, but doctors assured him that the cancer was in remission. After that ordeal, John came up with a new nickname for Anthony: “Old One Ball.” Then in January 1994 they discovered that the cancer had returned. The same night that Anthony was diagnosed, he received a call from John’s mom. “I have something I need to tell you,” Jackie said to her nephew. “So do I,” he responded. Both had been diagnosed with cancer on the same day.

  Despite the unfortunate news, Anthony carried on with his life. Later that year, he married Carole DiFalco, who grew up in the blue-collar suburb of Suffern, New York, in a family that loved “cheap wine, cigarettes, barbecues, and loud laughter.” John served as best man at their wedding. Carole and Anthony had met while covering the murder trial of Erik and Lyle Menendez, two brothers who had gained notoriety for brutally murdering their wealthy parents in their Beverly Hills mansion in 1989. They appeared to be an odd couple: one from a working-class background, the other a descendant of Polish royalty and nephew of an American president. “It doesn’t matter where you start from,” Anthony told her. “What counts is where you end up.” They dated for two years before he introduced her to his formidable mother, Lee.

  On the last day of their honeymoon in Australia, Carole ran her hands over Anthony’s scar from the previous surgery and discovered another bump. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he reassured her. But it turned out to be something. Carole remembered the next few months as “a blur of hospital visits, men in white coats, more ‘bumps,’ talk of positive margins, radiation, and ‘pulmonary nodules.’” The news could not have been grimmer: the cancer had colonized his body and traveled to his lungs. In November 1994 John called his uncle Teddy, who sat on the powerful Senate Health and Human Services Committee, and asked if he could get Anthony into the National Cancer Institute for some experimental, cutting-edge therapy.

  John did his best to lift Anthony’s spirits. After Anthony’s first surgery at NIH, John walked into the recovery room with a grin that belied his heavy heart and said cheerily, “Hey, Tony Pro!” As usual, they proceeded to make jokes about the pleasure of getting sponge baths from nurses. “When they were kids, John was always the one who joked with Anthony and could make him laugh,” Carole said in 2005. “He thought it would cheer him up, and it did. But he also told me that he was afraid that if he stopped joking, Anthony would know things were really bad and would just give up and die.”

  But Anthony’s ordeal had barely begun, and John felt weighed down by a sense of helplessness. He’d helped Anthony get into the best hospitals, but there was nothing that his charm or connections could do to slow down the tumor’s progression. John rarely talked about death or tragedy. It was not a part of his emotional makeup. He was never one to wallow in self-pity. He had lost so many people in his life, beginning with his father when he was just three, and, more recently, his mother. The same disease that had taken his mother at such a young age was now gradually bleeding life out of his best friend. It was as if John were now saying, “Enough. This can’t happen to Anthony, too.” He refused to acknowledge the seriousness of his illness or contemplate the possibility that his cousin was going to die. He blocked it out.

  Worse still, Anthony’s illness coincided with the creation of George and John’s efforts to steer it through its first few years. John had grown up juggling many different roles, so he had developed the ability to compartmentalize his numerous responsibilities. But dealing with the demands of starting a new magazine while also caring for his best friend would challenge him both physically and mentally. He sorely wanted to spend more time with Anthony but found himself constantly called away to work long hours at the magazine.

  Meanwhile, Carolyn had plenty of free time on her hands, so she soon became a devoted friend to both Carole and Anthony. In May 1996, when Anthony returned to DC for more surgery to remove malignant tumors from his lungs, Carolyn offered to accompany Carole. “I’m the only one without a life,” she joked. “It’s easy for me to go.”

  As they started to unpack in their shared hotel room, Carolyn noticed that Carole had brought along flannel-lined jeans.

  “You’re insane,” she said. “And where did you get those jeans?”

  “L. L. Bean.”

  “Oh my God, you can’t wear those. I can’t even believe we’re friends.”

  “Laugh, but you’ll see,” Carole responded. “It’s cold in the hospital; you’ll wish you had flannel.”

  Carolyn grabbed lipstick from her small travel case. “Here,” she said. “Ruby stain. It will look perfect on you. Keep it.”

  When they arrived at the hospital, Carolyn embraced Anthony and gave him a gift. “Look what I brought for you!” she said as she handed him an eight-by-ten photo of her dog Friday.

  “Just what I’ve always wanted,” he muttered.

  “Everyone needs a dog!” Carolyn responded as she hung the photo on the wall. Still unsatisfied, she surveyed the room and noticed how dreary it looked. While Anthony had his preoperative lab tests, she told Carole, “We need to get flowers before he comes back.” So they jumped into a car, turned up the radio, and drove to a flower shop to buy yellow tulips. As their last stop, they went to a 7-Eleven and grabbed SpaghettiOs, which they ate cold from the can.

  Before departing, Carolyn asked the front desk to leave a note for Carole. “Lamb,” it read, “please know that I am always thinking about you and worrying about you. It is so lonely and scary to go through that, and I can’t bear the thought that you ever had to do it alone. I can’t ever let you go again without me. It broke
my heart.”

  The prognosis for Anthony looked bleak. With the cancer continuing to spread, he found himself back at NIH in April 1997. Once again Carolyn accompanied Carole. They checked into the same hotel and traveled back and forth to the hospital. During Anthony’s surgery, they decided to take a shopping break at a local mall to buy Hush Puppies shoes. “It’s all about a Hush Puppy,” Carolyn said. “You aren’t leaving this town without them.” They first went to Bloomingdale’s, where they gave each other makeovers at the counter, followed by sticky rolls at Cinnabon. But while they were at the shoe store, Carole noticed an older black woman staring at them from a few feet away. Carolyn walked over to her.

  “Hi,” she said as she reached for the woman’s hand.

  “Oh my goodness. Are you Mrs. Kennedy?” She put her hand to her mouth as if to keep a secret, then rummaged through her purse looking for something. “I don’t have anything to write on—an envelope, here. Would you, please? Can I have your autograph?” Trying to deflect attention away from herself, Carolyn introduced Carole as her cousin, Princess Radziwill, adding, “She has three Emmys.” But the woman remained focused on Carolyn. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’re just out here. All by yourself! Don’t you have security?” Carolyn held the woman’s hand before quietly walking away.

  While their wives were out shopping, John flew down from New York to spend a few hours with Anthony. He was shocked when he saw Anthony’s condition. His friend had lost a great deal of weight and was clearly frail and weak. Anthony noticed his reaction and tried to lighten the mood. “Try not to embarrass yourself tonight,” he said, ridiculing John’s eating habits, which still typically involved shoving large quantities of food into his mouth. “Try to keep your tie clean.” As much as John wished to stay longer, he again had other commitments pulling him away.

  That evening, John needed to be at the White House for a screening of a new twelve-part HBO miniseries, coproduced by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks, that examined the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1960s. John had promoted the movie by putting Hanks on the cover of George. John had called me a few months earlier to tell me about the event and asked if I could develop some ideas for him. In February I sent a fax highlighting the controversy that surrounded the decision to put a man on the moon.

  “It was surprising to see that almost everyone thought it was a crazy idea,” I wrote. “Liberals worried that the program would drain resources from thirsty domestic programs. Conservatives, on the other hand, complained that the moon landing was distracting the nation’s attention from the need to build up the defense program. Money could be better spent developing the military potential of space.”

  John, wearing a tailored double-breasted blue suit, gray tie, and white shirt, seemed nervous as he walked to the podium in the East Room of the White House. He launched into his speech before realizing that he had forgotten to thank the president and the first lady for inviting him. Reading from a white notepad, John began his talk using much of the material that I had provided before moving into a few touching personal stories about his connection to the Apollo missions. He finished with a soaring tribute to man’s successful mission to reach the moon. “But today there is an American flag on a windless plain on the moon,” he declared, “because the challenge to explore space revealed something deep and indelible in the American character.”

  After the event, President Clinton took John and Carolyn on a tour of the White House. It was John’s first time back since 1971, when Richard Nixon had invited him to the private residence. “We showed him the room where he slept, and we walked around the grounds where he and his sister played,” reflected former first lady Hillary Clinton. “In the Oval Office, he saw the president’s desk—the same desk under which he was caught by a photographer playing hide-and-seek as a toddler—and the garden named in honor of his mother.” At one point, a photographer snapped a photo of the two couples gazing at the large portrait of John’s father. While John enjoyed the evening, his mind likely still lingered on Anthony.

  Like everyone else, John hoped for a miracle. Whenever he mentioned Anthony to me, he did not talk about the possibility of Anthony losing his battle with cancer, but, rather, about Anthony’s courage in the face of death and his refusal to indulge negative thoughts. John admired toughness. “You should see this guy,” he once told me. “He’s been in and out of the hospital, his body is scarred from so many surgeries, and he is fighting an incurable disease. But the fucking guy refuses to give up. He just wants to get on with his life. He never whines or complains, even though he has every right to.”

  In November 1998 Anthony landed back in the intensive care unit with a massive septic infection. It had been two weeks since he finished the fifth cycle of chemotherapy, and he was not regaining his strength. With his temperature hovering around 103 degrees, Carole took him to the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center emergency room. Though it was not unusual for her husband to get rushed to the ER, this time was different. Even before he was checked in, a physician approached Carole and instructed her to call Anthony’s mother. She could tell by the look on the doctor’s face that Anthony could die at that very instant. The ER staff warned her that Anthony was fighting a massive infection. “It’s not good,” the doctor said. “His immune system is so compromised from the chemo, he’s having difficulty fighting back. There is very little we can do except wait. The first twenty-four hours are the most important.”

  Carolyn arrived in the morning, and friends started showing up in the afternoon. John came later that night, still in the tuxedo he had worn to a George event. “He is the one who can save us somehow,” Carole believed. “The one we count on. The one who brings magic dust and sparkle.” When John entered the room, he kissed Carolyn and gave a quick hug to Carole before walking over to Anthony’s bed. “Tony Pro,” he said quietly as he grabbed Anthony’s hand. He started humming and then quietly talking. Anthony responded by smiling and singing the words along with John. It was a musical rhyme, “Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” that John’s mom used to sing to them when they were healthy, energetic kids, but now they were reciting it under very different circumstances:

  If you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise.

  If you go down to the woods today, you’d better go in disguise.

  For every bear that ever there was

  Will gather there for certain because

  Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

  They sang it over and over with John gripping Anthony’s hand tightly. Tears streamed down the faces of Carolyn and Carole as they watched in amazement at these two old souls holding hands and singing a familiar childhood tune. “The boys who laughed and played and sang silly songs are all grown up now—John in a tuxedo, Anthony in a hospital gown,” Carole reflected. “The doctors think Anthony will die tonight, and John takes him to the safest place he knows.” Anthony made it through that night, and after seven days in the ICU, he recovered enough to be transferred to a private room. But it was becoming increasingly clear to John that his cousin’s grit and courage would be no match for the disease ravaging his body, and that the battle would not last much longer.

  * * *

  —

  I was seeing more of John during this time because of my involvement with George. Whenever I came to New York, I would call RoseMarie to let her know that I was around. I had stopped calling John at home because I could not keep track of his ever-changing phone number. Reporters would somehow get the number and fill up his answering machine with messages. I swear he changed his number every two weeks, and I always seemed to be a week behind. If he was in town and free, he would usually call right back, and we would arrange to play racquetball or just meet for lunch near the George office.

  By this point, I had told John that I was gay, and I think that deepened our friendship. I wish I could say that I
sat him down and told him directly, but that was not the case. One summer weekend I had been on Fire Island, a popular gay destination off the coast of Long Island, when I noticed a bunch of guys sprinting toward the beach. “What is going on?” I shouted to one guy as he ran past. “John Kennedy Jr. is playing Frisbee on the beach!” he said excitedly. While many gay men wished that John was gay, I knew otherwise. But I enjoyed the spectacle of about three dozen guys searching the beach for the Frisbee-throwing JFK Jr. Apparently, all they found was a John look-alike. A few weeks later, I was sitting in John’s office at George and told him the story. He listened politely before asking, “So, Stevie, what were you doing on Fire Island?”

  “Damn,” I thought. I’d just outed myself, and not in the thoughtful way I had hoped. He deserved better.

  The news was probably not a shock to John, and I never really worried about how he would react. That was not the reason I had hesitated to tell him in the past. I tend to be a private person, and we had established the habit of not talking about our personal lives, so there never seemed to be the right opportunity. Telling John you were gay was like admitting that you preferred chocolate ice cream over vanilla. It did, however, provide him with more fodder for teasing me.

  In May 1997 I traveled to New York for a week and ended up having dinner three nights in a row with John. The first two were at Cafe Luxembourg on the Upper West Side, and the third time was at the Odeon, near his apartment on North Moore Street. At Cafe Luxembourg, we both ate the same meals two straight nights: a juicy hamburger with tons of French fries. He drank a beer, while I had a Coke. At these dinners, like many others, I was shocked by John’s ability to inhale vast quantities of food without ever adding an ounce of fat to his lean, muscular frame. He also had a unique way of eating. He surrounded the plate with his arm as if to protect his meal from potential poachers, and then used his fork as a shovel to lift hefty portions into his mouth.