Jackie, Janet & Lee

by J. Randy Taraborrelli

  By August, Lee found herself making periodic trips to the West Coast to work on the Huntington. In the meantime, she and Newton began to feel a certain chemistry. He was smart and funny, older than Peter Tufo by about twenty years, and wealthier. He was also relentless. He now had it in his head that he wanted Lee, and he was going to get her. To that end, Newton romanced her, swept her off her feet, and, to hear her tell it, “made me feel young and giddy.”

  At the end of ’77, Lee and Peter broke up. With the unfolding of 1978, Newton Cope was at Lee’s side as her new love interest. Lee was now spending more time with him on the West Coast, particularly at his home in Napa. One night, Newton asked her point-blank if she’d long felt in Jackie’s shadow. It was a question that hit so close to home, Lee didn’t feel entirely comfortable answering it. She said she was beginning to do some work for Giorgio Armani in New York as a director of special events and, of course, still had her own business. She was doing all she could, then, to once and for all distinguish herself. “But, to be honest, I don’t know who I am if I’m not Jackie’s sister,” she said, really opening up.

  “I do,” Newton told her. He could see the pain and frustration in her eyes. According to his later memory, he stopped, took both her hands in his own, and, looking at her earnestly, said, “It’s my turn to be honest now, Lee. I believe you’ll be remembered for a lot more than just your relationship to Jackie. You have a destiny all your own.” Lee had to have wondered what she’d ever done to deserve a guy like this one. Maybe the question of Jackie really was eating away at her after so many years because it was also at this time that friends noticed that she seemed to be drinking more than she had in the past. While it had actually started with the Rolling Stones tour, some felt her drinking was mostly a consequence of all of the cocktail parties and other functions she regularly attended. Others thought it had to do with the Jackie competition, constantly an issue. With her father an alcoholic, Lee had a genetic leaning toward the disease. Certainly Jackie did her own share of drinking, too, after JFK was killed. However, she seemed better able to control it. By the beginning of the new year, Lee wasn’t yet ready to acknowledge that she had any sort of problem. However, it was becoming abundantly clear to others.

  By the spring of ’79, Lee had her mind made up: she wanted her future to be with Newton Cope. She had quickly become close enough to his daughters Marguerite and Isabelle to arrange private schooling for them, at Foxcroft in Virginia and Miss Porter’s in Connecticut. She also made it possible for them to take an exciting chaperoned summer trip with her daughter, Tina, to Russia and Spain. “Lee was much more sophisticated than my father,” recalled Isabelle Fritz-Cope. “For instance, she made my dad get rid of his eyeglasses to make him look more chic. My dad was more rugged. Think John Wayne—that was my dad.

  “Lee did all of the decorating at our hotel—all of her rooms were always referred to as ‘The Radziwill Rooms’—and completely redid my father’s place in a much more extravagant way than he probably would have liked. She was always nice, though. None of us had any kind of conflict with her. We were actually quite fascinated by her, and a lot of that had to do with her connection to the Kennedys.

  “She was super skinny—I don’t think I ever saw her eat!—and always wore black, which was strange in sunny California in the 1970s. My brothers and sisters would joke and call her ‘The Black Widow,’ which probably wasn’t nice but we were kids. My dad was completely smitten with her. She could say, ‘Jump, Newt!’ and he’d ask, ‘How high, Lee?’ He was crazy about her.”

  When Newton asked Lee to marry him, she said yes. This engagement seemed to signify a real turnaround of men in her life, and observers couldn’t help but wonder about it. “As she was getting older, she was feeling a little desperate about the future,” said one friend of hers from that time. “She was anxious to get on with her life with someone.”

  Companionship was all fine and good, but Lee was still someone who’d been raised to at least consider wealth as a requirement of marriage, even if she pretty much never made decisions based on that criteria. It was no secret that the two men with whom she’d been most recently involved were not rich. Certainly Peter Beard didn’t have any money. Peter Tufo was better situated but he was an altruistic person known for his pro bono work, and Janet and Jackie both felt that he had his limitations in terms of the kind of financial stability he could offer Lee. They weren’t that disappointed when that relationship ended. However, when Lee made her plans relating to Newton Cope known to them, both mother and sister teamed up to make certain she knew what she was doing, and that she would be well taken care of in this new union.

  Somehow, Lee was surviving, but barely. Her design firm ate most of its profits. The business was worth it to her, though, and she felt that if she just persevered, eventually her company would be in good shape. Still, every month she found herself in way over her head, her expenses always far exceeding her capital. Jackie and Janet still hadn’t gotten over the fact that Stas left Lee with no money. They actually felt worse about it than Lee, who did what she always did, which was to look to the future, go on with her life, and hope for the best.

  Because Newton Cope had such vast real-estate holdings, Janet and Jackie agreed that if he was going to marry Lee he should offer her some financial guarantees. In other words, they wanted an arrangement for Lee that resembled at least in intention (if not in actual figures) the kind of deal Jackie had struck when she married Onassis. When Janet, Jackie, and Lee discussed these matters over a Mother-Daughter Tea one day in New York at the Plaza, Lee was not at all open to the idea. She loved Newton, she said, and that was all that really mattered to her. However, she was torn. After all, she could at least appreciate her family’s position that she should probably have some financial assurances, especially as she got older. However, Lee didn’t want to appear to be mercenary. Also, she didn’t want to be put into the position of having to discuss money with her fiancé directly. It was unseemly, distasteful, and she simply wouldn’t do it. Janet didn’t want to hear it. According to all accounts, her words to Lee were: “Now is not the time for soul-searching, Lee. Now is the time to take care of yourself.”

  A couple of days later, Newton Cope’s telephone rang in his suite at the Carlyle. It was Alexander Forger, a partner with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and also one of Jacqueline Onassis’s most trusted attorneys. Forger said he wanted to meet with Cope as soon as possible, that Jackie had asked him to talk to him about Lee. The meeting was arranged for that very afternoon at the Carlyle.

  “What I am about to ask you should never leave this room,” Forger told Newton Cope. “This conversation never happened, if you know what I mean.” It didn’t take him long to get to the point: would Cope be willing to sign a prenuptial agreement with Lee? Of course he would, Cope said. Whatever she brought into the marriage would be hers, and whatever he brought would be his. It was that simple. This, obviously, would not be the best deal for Lee, though, since Cope had a great deal more in assets than she did. However, it was fine with Forger and it was agreed that a document memorializing such an agreement would be drawn up. However, that would not be the end of it.

  Forger said what was also needed was a marital agreement that would specify how much Cope would be willing to give to Lee each month. Cope was immediately irate, snapping at Forger that it was none of his business. Forger wasn’t intentionally trying to start trouble, he clarified. He was just trying to see to Lee’s needs just as he had promised Jackie.

  “How about $15,000 a month?” That seemed like a fair amount to Forger.

  No, Cope said, he would not sign any agreement to that effect.

  “Come on! It’s not much,” Forger said, “for you to just sign a simple agreement stipulating that you will pay this woman $15,000 a month in maintenance.” (This would be the equivalent of about $50,000 a month today.) Cope was adamant that he wouldn’t do it. He didn’t want to be tied to an agreement he might later be forced to bre
ak if he had a reversal of fortune.

  “I’m not buying an oil tanker,” Cope finally said. “I’m not Onassis!” The suggestion that there’d been any sort of a deal made with Aristotle Onassis definitely rubbed Alexander Forger the wrong way. “You need to stop talking right now,” Forger told him, his tone threatening, “before you say something you’ll regret.” He then put on his coat and stormed from the room.

  Lee’s Wedding Misadventure

  The big day was set for May 3, 1979, Lee’s wedding day. It was to be a civil ceremony at four P.M., performed by Justice E. Leo Milonas in the extravagant setting of Whitney Warren’s Telegraph Hill estate, where Lee and Newton first met. Lee was so optimistic about her decision to marry, she said she now felt a real sense of destiny about it. “This is one of those rare moments,” she said, dreamily, “when you sense that your life is about to change forever.” No matter how tough Lee had it over the years, how much she had been kicked around by life and by love, she somehow never lost her romantic, idealistic attitude. She still believed that what was best for her, the thing she most deserved, was probably right around the corner.

  At about one-thirty, Jackie called Alexander Forger to find out the status of the prenup. “Signed, sealed, and delivered,” she was told. What about the marital contract with a monthly amount for Lee? No, she was told, that had not yet been signed. This wasn’t good, Jackie said. In fact, she made it clear that Lee would not be able to marry Newton until the deal was finalized. She said she was determined to protect her sister in this regard and that Forger should do whatever necessary to finish the deal. He agreed.

  At two, Newton Cope got a telephone call from Lee, who was at the Huntington Hotel getting her hair and makeup done for the ceremony. She said she had just gotten off the phone with Alexander Forger, who informed her that Newton was still balking at the monthly maintenance agreement. She seemed upset, her tone brisk and businesslike. Newton suggested that she tell Forger to call his [Newton’s] San Francisco attorney, Yuen T. Gin, and take it up with him. He said it made no sense for the two of them to discuss such a thing on their wedding day. Lee agreed. A storm of telephone calls then took place between attorneys Forger and Gin during which Cope’s position was reiterated: he would most definitely not sign any sort of maintenance contract with Lee Radziwill.

  An hour before the ceremony, Lee called Newton, warning him that time was running out and that if he wanted to keep the peace, he really “should sign something.” He said, “Okay. Well, what if I offer you ten thousand a month, would you take that?” Her response: “But why not just give me the fifteen thousand and just get it over with?” The fact that she was now pushing so hard began to trouble him.

  The fast and furious phone calls continued. Apparently, after Forger got off the phone with Lee, Jackie called her. According to all accounts, Jackie was adamant; if Newton refused to sign the agreement, Lee shouldn’t marry him. Jackie felt that Newton’s digging his heels into the ground suggested that there would be problems in the future with him, and she said she wanted Lee to avoid them. “In fact,” Jackie reportedly decided, “the price just went up to twenty thousand!” Lee took a more reasonable position. She said she would be much better off financially as Newton’s wife than she would be if she wasn’t married to him at all. Should the marriage fail, then they could work out a settlement. No, Jackie told her. It would be better to get this matter straightened out now.

  Forger then called Newton to tell him that the deal on the table was now for twenty grand a month. “What? It went up?” Newton asked, astonished. “Absolutely not!” he exclaimed. After Forger reported Newton’s refusal back to Jackie, she called Lee and told her that the marriage shouldn’t go forward. Crushed by this turn of events and feeling cowed by Jackie and her lawyer, Lee then called Newton and told him she was afraid the ceremony would have to be canceled.

  Newton protested. Frantic, he reminded Lee that they were to be married in just an hour, the preparations all in order with guests already at the estate—though there were only a handful of them. Of course, this wasn’t easy for Lee. She realized that canceling the wedding would make for scandalous newspaper headlines. She’d been raised to consider appearances, and these did not look good. More than that, though, she cared deeply for Newton. However, her mind was made up or, maybe more to the point, her sister’s mind was made up. The guests were told that the wedding was going to be rescheduled for autumn when members of Lee’s family would be able to attend.

  Newton Cope’s daughter Isabelle Fritz-Cope recalls her father telephoning her at boarding school to tell her that the wedding was canceled. “‘Jackie wanted me to sign a prenup,’ he told me,” she recalled. “I got the sense from talking to him that Lee had very little funds. He then said, ‘There was no way I was going to sign a prenup.’ I remember asking him, ‘Um … Dad, what’s a prenup?’”

  Right before the ceremony was to take place, Janet Auchincloss telephoned Whitney Warren to ask if she could speak to Lee and wish her luck. She was told that Lee wasn’t there. Dismayed, Janet managed to track Lee down at the Huntington Hotel. Lee then explained everything to her mother. Janet told Lee that it was a terrible shame that the wedding had to be canceled and that yes, it certainly did look bad and would no doubt generate no small amount of rumor and innuendo. However, she was proud of her for not buckling under pressure and marrying a man without a sound agreement in place. She also hastened to add that she was worried about Lee and recognized that none of what was going on could be easy for her. Lee said she was fine, though, that she’d done what she knew needed to be done.

  After Lee got back to Manhattan, Newton Cope called and suggested that they go through with their honeymoon, anyway. It was all paid for, he reasoned, so why not? They still cared about each other, he allowed. After thinking it over, Lee agreed. The couple then went to St. Martin for two weeks. It was an extremely romantic time and, far away from her mother, her sister, and her sister’s attorney and all of the pressures they’d brought to bear, Lee was light and easy and much more fun to be around, at least according to what Newton Cope would later recall.

  Newton, to show his sincerity and good intentions in wanting to marry her, then shared with Lee his carefully considered wedding vows. He had them typed up on a sheet of paper and folded in his wallet for safekeeping. When she read them, Lee began to cry. Newton was absolutely eloquent and heartfelt in his feelings for her and in the promises he’d intended to make to always love and care for her as his wife. After hearing these promises that would now not be kept, Lee felt she’d been a complete fool. More than ever, she wanted to marry Newton. “How can I let you go?” she asked through her tears.

  Lee then suggested she and Newton get married while on their vacation, telling him that she didn’t require the signing of a formal agreement after all, that it had been something foisted upon her. She was sorry there had ever been a dispute about it. She said that she’d let her mother and her sister get to her, that she was not the kind of woman who cared only about money. Her first husband was completely broke, she explained, and her second died without a penny to his name. Her most recent paramours didn’t have money, either—one lived in a tent in Africa and the other did pro bono work for the penal system! Janet and Jackie were the ones who married for money, “not me!” She felt misjudged and misunderstood. “I’ve never been this woman before,” she reportedly said. “This is not who I am!”

  Lee clearly felt that Janet and Jackie had mucked up her relationship with Newton, and she now wanted to fix it. After such an emotional plea, Newton believed that Lee probably wasn’t as mercenary as her relatives. Still, considering everything that had transpired, he was uneasy about marrying her … and he decided against doing so.

  Booch

  October 25, 1979.

  Janet Auchincloss smoothed down her beige silk dress as she stood before a full-length mirror in her bedroom. She was surrounded by a décor of cabbage-rose wallpaper and chintz, courtesy of her good frien
d, the late acclaimed interior designer Dorothy Draper. Draper’s antique French furniture and expensive, original oil paintings gave Janet’s bedroom a classic, austere feel. Lee didn’t approve, though, feeling it was all just too gaudy. “Oh my God, the chintz in here makes me dizzy,” Lee had said. Even Janet’s headboard was upholstered and covered with the flowery fabric. There was also a comfortable floral-printed lounge in a corner, behind which was a gold-framed original oil painting of Janet. “Why is it that everyone thinks they have good taste,” Lee had asked, looking around the room in dismay, “when, actually, very few people do.”

  “So how do I look?” Janet asked her son, Jamie.

  “Beautiful, Mummy,” he answered, “as always. Are you nervous?”

  “As always,” she said, turning around to face him. Janet was seventy-one now, seeming somehow smaller and more fragile than ever. Though still a spirited woman and as irascible as ever, a slightly confused expression often played on her face these days. She would try to disguise it, but Jamie could see it, as could her other children, Jackie, Lee, and Janet Jr., as well as her stepson Yusha. Janet often seemed to have trouble following conversations. She would forget the names of people she’d known for decades. She was also more sentimental. One day, Michael Dupree, Janet’s head chef (who’d trained at La Varenne in France and thus specialized in French foods), caught her looking out the window of the Castle’s library with tears in her eyes. When he asked why she was crying, she said, “I’m just looking at those poor cows out there and fearing for their future. I would hate harm to come to them.”