Jackie, Janet & Lee

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  Earlier in the year, Janet got desperate and took a job as a model at Macy’s department store. Jackie wanted to take horseback-riding lessons from an expensive trainer and Janet wanted nothing more than for her to have them. She took the job to earn enough money to pay for the training, and maybe have a little extra to do something for Lee, as well. It was demeaning work; she would don a dress in the morning and then stand in a corner all day long twirling the skirt for women who would appraise it critically. She found it undignified, saying she would never personally wear any of the clothes she was forced to model. It just lasted a few months, but she hated it; she did get the money she needed for Jackie’s lessons but, sadly, nothing for Lee. Then, after taking a nurse’s aide course at a local school, she started volunteering at Presbyterian Hospital. This, too, wasn’t satisfying. But, then again, she wasn’t really going to find any job fulfilling. She wasn’t meant to earn money, she was meant to spend it! Right now, on this day in the winter of ’41, she didn’t have a job. All she had were unpaid bills. And a maid. And a governess.

  At the end of her daily bill-paying session, a frustrated Janet would usually cry out for a cup of tea. Moments later, her maid would appear from the pantry with the hot beverage—imported from the famous gourmet tea company, Mariage Frères in Paris. The employee would place the pot and cup on a small, matching oak table next to the desk before scampering away. After drinking her tea, Janet would then take to her bed for an hour, exhausted from the morning ritual, though it was only ten o’clock. Sometimes she would take a couple of sleeping pills, wash them down with liquor, and not wake up until the girls came home from school—if then. At night, she would go out on dates with men, looking for a possible wealthy suitor, returning later, alone and disappointed.

  Making things all the more difficult for Janet was the fact that her daughters clung so tightly to their father. He never disciplined Jackie or Lee. Whereas Janet was extremely critical, Jack was always praising. He was also full of sentiments that they would carry with them for the rest of their lives, many of which would shape their little, entitled personas. For instance, he once told them, “You never have to worry about keeping up with the Joneses, because we are the Joneses. Everyone has to keep up with us!” John Davis, Jack’s nephew, said of him, “He told the girls, ‘Style is not a function of how rich you are, or even who you are. Style is a habit of mind that puts quality before quantity, noble struggle before mere achievement, honor before opulence. It’s what you are. It’s your essential self. It’s what makes you a Bouvier.’ They never forgot it.”

  The dynamic between father and daughters was made even more complicated by the fact that Jack so obviously preferred Jackie to Lee. “Of course he did,” Lee would say. “That was clear to me, but I didn’t resent it.” She said she understood that he had been with Jackie for more than three years before she was born, which had bonded him to her. Also, Janet had told them both that Jack had wanted a son, which is why they called their firstborn Jacqueline, as close to naming her after her father as possible. Also, the two looked very much alike, which made Jack all the more proud.

  Even if he did prefer Jackie, both sisters would rather have been with their father than their mother. “He was a wonderful man, you’d have loved him,” Lee told the writer Nicky Haslam in February of 2013. “He had such funny idiosyncrasies, like always wearing his black patent evening shoes with his swimming trunks. One thing which infuriates me is how he’s always labeled the drunken black prince. He was never drunk with me, though I’m sure he sometimes drank, due to my mother’s constant nagging. You would, and I would!”

  “Little girls need to believe that their father is a hero,” Janet said, according to Jack’s nephew John Davis. “But even the best heroes are far from perfect.” She said that, the way she saw it, Jack was just “seducing them the way he has seduced every other woman in his life.”

  In fact, the original reason behind Janet’s Mother-Daughter Tea occasions was that she felt that she needed to carve out special time with her daughters. It hurt her that they preferred their father, and so she went out of her way to also have time with them that they would cherish. This was one of the reasons she also made sure that they attended church together. Even though she had been excommunicated because of her divorce, she continued to go to the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue every Sunday, and made sure both Jackie and Lee accompanied her. When others in the congregation would receive the Holy Eucharist at the end of the Mass, she would sit with her girls in the back of the church and feel such a great sense of sorrow. In fact, she made the decision to not have the girls take the required catechism classes in order to also receive the church’s sacraments since she knew they would not be able to do so as a family. She reversed her position on that, however, when a priest told her she was being selfish, that just because she had sinned and was banned from those sacraments didn’t mean she should refuse to allow her daughters, both of whom had been baptized in the Catholic Church, the opportunity for grace. Filled with what she much later called “Catholic guilt,” she finally did allow Jackie and Lee to take the necessary classes. (Jackie and Lee would always consider themselves Catholic, not Episcopalian, and their children would all be baptized and receive the other sacraments.) When they were young, their Sundays in church together were important to Janet, yet another opportunity for her to be able to bond with her daughters.

  “But then Black Jack would swoop in and the girls would be all his again,” said John Davis. “There was this constant tug-of-war always being waged as to who was the favored parent. Janet worked hard to be the chosen one, but the girls did love their daddy an awful lot. Spending the allocated time required by their custody agreement was fine, but after that Janet really didn’t want to hear them talk about him anymore,” continued Davis. “Therefore, she would tell the children’s governess [Berthe Kimmerle] that if they started prattling on about Black Jack she should stop them. If they persisted, she should lock them in their bedroom.”

  During this time, Lavinia Jennings, the niece of Berthe Kimmerle, sometimes stayed with the Bouviers on weekends. She was eight, the same age as Lee. “I would be with my aunt on Saturdays, immersed in my schoolwork while she did the family’s laundry, and all would be fine while Jackie and Lee were with their father,” recalled Jennings. “Then, at the end of the day, he would drop them off, they would come upstairs, and all hell would break loose. Jack had spoiled them with a visit to the Central Park zoo, lunch at the Plaza, ice-skating at Rockefeller Center, tea at the Waldorf. Naturally, they didn’t want to come home to ‘mean ol’ Mummy.’ Once they did, it was ‘Daddy this’ and ‘Daddy that.’ Janet would tell my aunt, ‘I don’t want to hear another word about their no-good father. Put them in their room and lock the door!’ The girls’ bedroom door locked from the other side, which I thought was disturbing even at that age,” Lavinia Jennings recalled. “The three of us would end up getting locked in there together—me, Jackie, and Lee. I would be screaming for my aunt to let us out while Jackie and Lee would be screaming for their mother.”

  One afternoon in the spring of ’41, after visiting her father and then getting locked in the bedroom with Lee and Lavinia, Jackie screamed at the top of her lungs, “Let me out! I hate you, Mummy! I hate you!” According to Lavinia, Janet stormed into the bedroom. “What did you just say to me?” she asked, her eyes blazing. Jackie was quiet, shaking in her little shoes. Dismayed, Janet looked at Lee, then at Jackie, then at Lavinia. “You,” she said, pointing to Lavinia, “go into the closet over there and close the door.” The scared youngster did as she was told. From inside the closet, Lavinia could then hear the sound of two loud cracks. Janet had, apparently, slapped Jackie across the face with the palm of her hand, and then the back of it. Of course, Jackie cried out in anguish. “I slipped open the closet door just in time to see poor Lee scurry under the bed like a scared little rabbit,” Lavinia Jennings recalled.

  Jackie only allowed Janet to see her in pain f
or a brief moment before she suppressed it. She would not allow Mummy to see her cry. Instead, she just stared at her with big brown eyes, practically willing herself to remain composed. “If something unpleasant happens to me, I block it out,” Jackie would say many years later as an adult. “I have this mechanism.”

  “I have sacrificed everything for you girls,” Janet said as she steadied herself against a chair. Her voice cracking with emotion, she demanded to know, “Why don’t you two ever appreciate it?” With that, she whirled around and bolted from the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  “It’s okay, Lee,” Jackie said once Janet was out of the room. “You can come out from under the bed now.” When Lee emerged, Jackie hugged her tightly, reassuring her that everything would be all right. Then she tapped her on the shoulder and announced, “You’re it, Lee!” Without missing a beat, Lee countered with, “Oh, no, I’m not!” With that, the girls started chasing each other, happy to play their little game of tag as Lavinia watched, just content just to be with each other, as always.

  As for Janet, it certainly seemed as if she was losing her grip. She needed some sort of salvation, someone to rescue her and her children from a life that wasn’t making any of them happy. Luckily for her, that person was about to enter her life with the means necessary to give her and her daughters precisely the lifestyle she felt they well deserved.

  Hugh Auchincloss

  Back in 1939, when Janet Lee Bouvier went to Las Vegas to obtain freedom from her philandering husband, Jack Bouvier, she met a woman named Esther Auchincloss Nash. Esther happened to be in the same city to divorce her own husband. The two women struck up a lively friendship, and it was during dinner one night that Esther first brought up her brother, Hugh. She described him as a decent, honorable person, someone she felt Janet might want to get to know one day. “He could be a good husband for you,” Esther said, only half joking. It would be another couple of years, though, before Janet’s path would cross with Hugh’s. Soon after that, she would, indeed, find herself married to him—and she would remain at his side as his loyal wife for the next thirty-nine years.

  Born in 1897, Hugh Dudley Auchincloss—or “Hughdie,” which was short for Hugh D.—was descended from an old, noble Scottish family. Extremely conservative and old-fashioned even as a young man, he was the product of an entitled, privileged Newport, Rhode Island, background. His father, Hugh Sr., set into motion the family’s upward mobility in 1891 by taking Emma Brewster Jennings of Fairfield, Connecticut, as his wife. Emma was related to Aaron Burr, the third vice president of the United States under President Thomas Jefferson. She was also the daughter of Oliver B. Jennings, William Rockefeller’s brother-in-law and one of John D. Rockefeller’s partners. Jennings also happened to be a chief investor in Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, which generated many millions of dollars for his family. In fact, most family historians agree that it was because of the rich Standard Oil–infused dowry that Emma brought into her marriage to Hugh Sr. that he was then able to expand his dry-goods business into many lucrative banking, mining, and manufacturing enterprises, all of which would cement for generations to come the Auchincloss fortune.

  By the time Hugh met Janet in the summer of 1941, he was forty-three and had already been twice married. Back in 1925, he’d married the former Maya de Chrapovitsky. Two years later, they had a son, Hugh Dudley Auchincloss III, nicknamed “Yusha”—Russian for “Hugh.” When Yusha was about a year old, Hugh started his own investment firm with a million-dollar loan from his mother. Called Auchincloss, Parker & Redpath, it was headquartered in Washington, D.C., and, later, also in New York. In late spring of ’31, Hugh bought his own seat on the New York Stock Exchange in order to serve on his company’s board, paying roughly $300,000 (equivalent to almost $5 million today) for it.

  In 1932, Hugh divorced Maya. Three years later, he married Nina Gore Vidal, who came into the marriage with a young son, Gore. (Of course, Gore Vidal would go on to a successful career as a premier novelist and playwright.) The couple had two children, Nina—who was nicknamed “Nini”—in 1937 and Thomas, known as “Tommy,” in 1939. By 1941 the marriage was all but over after Hugh learned that Nina was cheating on him. It was then that Hugh decided to take a Caribbean cruise to clear his head, which would turn out to be fortuitous not only for himself but also for Janet Bouvier. By sheer coincidence, it was on that sea voyage that Janet would meet the man her friend Esther had raved about two years earlier.

  Though Hugh Auchincloss was profoundly conservative, a serious person with not much of a sense of humor, he was exceedingly charming, a very intelligent man with a natural curiosity about others that made those in his life feel valued. Janet immediately brought a sense of gaiety into his world that was much needed, especially at this time when he was smarting over his unfaithful spouse. Janet had her own battle scars in that regard, of course, and was eager to share her stories with him. The two became close quickly. Of course, Hugh’s wealth helped distinguish him in Janet’s eyes, especially when he told her about his two massive estates, Merrywood in McLean, Virginia, and Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island. Plus, there was the deluxe apartment he maintained at 950 Park Avenue in Manhattan.

  Considering her entitled background, her recent financial frustrations, and her craving for security for not only herself but also her daughters, one might have thought Janet would have jumped at the chance to wed a suitor as wealthy as Hugh when he asked for her hand in marriage. After all, the Auchinclosses could be found in that year’s Social Register—a listing of names of families who claim to be of the social elite—with forty-seven entries, compared with forty-two for the Rockefellers, eight for the Vanderbilts, and two for the Astors. Despite his family’s prestigious pedigree, Janet actually had reservations about Hugh. For her, it was a question of compatibility.

  Hugh was a gentle, amiable fellow who presented not much of a challenge to Janet—“a magnum of chloroform” is how Gore Vidal once famously and unkindly described him. Janet was used to the fiery personalities of her father, Jim, and ex-husband, Jack. Simply put, she feared she would become quickly bored with Hugh.

  Looking past his calm demeanor, Janet Bouvier was also deeply concerned about the physical attraction between herself and Hugh, or lack thereof. What she and Jack shared in their private moments had been the glue that kept them together long after they should have parted. They couldn’t get enough of each other. Hugh was actually about six years younger than Jack, but he was a completely different kind of man, at least in Janet’s eyes. He was stable and sensible whereas Jack was unpredictable and volatile. Hugh was a nice guy whereas Jack was a “bad boy,” and, unfortunately enough for her, Janet wanted the “bad boy.” Still, she was open to the possibility of a life with Hugh, if only she could sense some interest in her from him. He was a good-looking, large-framed man at over six feet tall, with dancing blue eyes, a silvery mane, and a ruddy complexion. She was certainly attracted to him. However, he wasn’t very affectionate; there was virtually no spark between them. It wasn’t as if she wanted to be intimate with him before marriage, but she wanted to at least know it was headed in that direction. After a few months of uncertainty about his intentions toward her, she decided to confront him about it when he asked for her hand. What kind of relationship was he proposing, anyway?

  Hugh was honest with her. He sadly confessed that he was chronically impotent, and that this had been the case for many years. He said it was why his second marriage to Nina ended. “Well, what about the first one?” Janet wanted to know. He explained that the marriage to Maya collapsed after a freak accident that involved her accidentally walking right into the whirling propeller of an airplane. (She would recover, but never be quite the same, always suffering psychological issues afterward.) Had the mishap not occurred, she probably would have left him anyway because of his persistent problem. Because he felt it only fair to her, he wanted to be quite clear with Janet: the two of them would not have a sexual relationship. He had accepte
d this painful, unfortunate limitation in himself long ago and said he was too old to try to hide it, or act as if it wasn’t the case.

  Janet was stunned not only by Hugh’s admission, but also by his acceptance of it. Why would he be willing to allow this kind of emasculation? She suggested he consult with doctors, maybe even psychiatrists, but to just accept it seemed unfathomable to her. She never accepted the status quo in any aspect of her life, always certain there was more and better for her if she just kept going for it. However, Hugh had tried everything, he told her, and there was simply nothing to be done about it. The decision was now hers: did she want to be with him, or not?

  Of course, Janet knew she had to find a man with the kind of wealth she required not only for her own stability but for that of her two daughters. But was she willing to sacrifice passion in the process? Could she live in a sexless marriage? She said she needed to think it over. “I’m too young to just give it up,” she confided in her friend Myrna Lloyd, this according to Myrna’s daughter, Trina. “I’m in my prime!”

  “Many people felt that the sexual revolution happened in the 1940s, not the 1960s, and Janet Bouvier was definitely of that era,” said Trina Lloyd. “Janet was so unusual in this respect. My mom thought she’d lost her mind, that there should have been no debate about it. Sexual compatibility? Are you kidding me? Women back then didn’t make choices based on sexual compatibility! They made choices based on love and romance, maybe … money and stability, definitely … but not sex. My mother said, ‘Marry that man! What is wrong with you, Janet? What happens in the bedroom is no one’s business. Who cares?’ So, after a great deal of thought about it, Janet just came to terms with it. She was that kind of woman, a person who would look at a situation, make up her mind about it, and then not look back. ‘I can do this and I will do it for my Jackie and Lee,’ she said. ‘If I just put my mind to it, I can close off that part of myself. I’ve had two wonderful children. Now, that’s that.’ It was very much like Janet to handle it that way. She was that pragmatic.”