(dramatic music) ♪ (narrator) Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is an icon of U.S. cultural and political history, defined by her impeccable style as well as the men she married.

But there was more to this New Yorker than the outfits and husbands.

(soft music) ♪ (Pamela Keogh) I think Jackie will be remembered as one of the great American First Ladies.

And it was not an accident, it didn't just happen.

(Tina Cassidy) She's almost like two people merged together.

You have the Jackie Kennedy and the Jackie O., and how she reconciled these different phases of her life to me has always been really interesting.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) I think history will remember her just like they remember Cleopatra.

Yes, Cleopatra was beautiful, but Cleopatra was one smart chick and so was Jackie.

(Jacqueline) Viva Mexico.

(narrator) Jackie's mantle as First Lady jettisoned her into an A List celebrity.

She regularly appeared on the front of leading magazines and images of her were sought after globally.

(Ron Galella) She was big with all the magazines and they were always hungry for pictures of Jackie.

And I supplied them.

I was obsessed with her.

(laughs) (narrator) With all the success, however, came suffering.

(security officer) Something has happened in the motorcade route, stand by please.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) That was a very difficult time, but Jackie had a laser-like focus and she knew that she had a mission to take care of the legacy of Jack Kennedy.

♪ (Sarah Bradford) In private, she couldn't sleep, she wept, but during the day she did a fantastic job of keeping the dignity of the presidency going.

(Tina Cassidy) She was personally devastated, and what is even more tragic is that just a few years later she had to go through it again with Bobby Kennedy.

♪ (narrator) But Jackie was seldom alone.

Her younger sister, Lee, was always there.

(dramatic music) (Tina Santi Flaherty) Lee was a supportive presence for Jackie as First Lady.

She was always there for her.

The people in the White House said they were always happy when Lee came because Jackie was always happy and they could relax and hang out and, you know, smoke and drink and whisper and gossip.

♪ (narrator) From the beginning, their lives were intertwined.

And it is impossible to understand one without the other.

It is a tale of rivalry and resentment, love and loss.

♪ (soft music) ♪ ♪ Jacqueline Bouvier was born on the 28th of July, 1929.

Her sister, Lee, arrived four years later.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) Lee and Jackie were born into what was upper class America and they grew up in New York City on the Upper East Side and summered in the Hamptons.

And it was full of a lot of horses and ballet and reading lots of books.

It was almost like an English, 18th century kind of an upbringing.

They grew up in an apartment on Park Avenue that their grandfather had built.

He was a real estate developer, so it was, you know, one of the finest buildings in the city, it was beautiful.

And they had lots of money and two parents who didn't really like each other very much.

So that was the source of much anxiety for the both of them.

♪ (narrator) Competition between the girls was fierce.

Each sister judged themselves against the other, and, more often than not, it was Lee who found herself overshadowed, whether it was their school grades or piano recitals, horse riding, or even the affection of their father.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) Black Jack Bouvier was Jack Bouvier.

He was one of the few people who managed, at the height of the rush in the 1920s, to lose money on Wall Street.

He was unlike Joseph P. Kennedy.

He was really a man about town.

Beautifully dressed, I think he had two different chauffeurs on call at all times.

Always impeccably tailored.

A member of a whole bunch of clubs in New York, he was a club man.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) His relationship with his daughters was very, very close.

In fact, he spoiled them rotten and he was always singing their praises to the other members of the family, so much so they got a little irritated about it.

He would take them shopping.

And it was from Jack Bouvier that they got their sense of style.

He gave them this sense of what fashion could be all about.

And he told them, "Clothes may make the man, but they also make the woman."

And they both learned those lessons well.

(Tina Cassidy) He was very much an indulgent father, and I think that, at least for Jackie, he was very much of the role model for the type of husband she would want to have.

♪ (narrator) The marriage of their parents was a troubled one.

Jack's business deals veered from the lucrative to the disastrous.

After years of relentless arguments, Janet, their mother, sued for divorce in the summer of 1940.

She would go on to marry Hugh Auchincloss, a wealthy American stock broker.

The young Jackie and Lee were now members of one of the richest families in the United States.

But life at the Auchincloss estate in Virginia was far from straightforward.

Their mother's second husband already had three children from previous marriages.

The Bouvier sisters were newcomers and outsiders.

(Pamela Keogh) I think they were very bonded by the fact that their mother got divorced, which in those days was simply unacceptable, and it was all over the newspapers.

And I think they were almost like these two little orphan girls and they had to stick together.

During that time, not a lot of people were getting a divorce.

And they were teased in school.

And then accounts of it appeared in the newspaper.

It was a very hard time for both of 'em.

(bright music) (narrator) As Jackie and Lee approached their 20s, the question of marriage came to dominate their lives.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) In the milieu that they grew up in, they had to get educated, certainly, but it was really to make a good marriage, to marry a man who was in a certain position in society, who was well-off.

♪ (Sarah Bradford) They weren't, in American terms of those days, socially grand.

America was incredibly snobbish and clannish in those days.

And if you had Irish or Jewish blood, you were looked down on.

And, of course, they had Irish blood on both sides.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) They were expected to marry well.

Janet drove that into them to marry a man with real money because her husband, who supposedly did have money at one time, lost it all.

(Sarah Bradford) Janet had terrific social ambitions for these girls and she was determined to get them into the highest level of society.

♪ (narrator) First Jackie and then Lee made their debuts at society balls, the glittering affairs where the eligible children of the wealthy and well-connected could meet.

At this time, it was younger sister Lee who shone the brightest.

She matched Jackie's achievement in being crowned Queen Deb of the season, but she was widely thought the prettier, more stylish, and more approachable of the sisters.

In April 1953, aged 20, Lee wed Michael Canfield, rumored to be the illegitimate son of the Duke of Kent.

Canfield was tall and handsome, privileged and popular.

He seemed the ideal match.

There was speculation, however, that Lee was taken less with her new husband than with the idea of beating her older sister to the altar.

Indeed, Lee's wedding only heightened the family's concerns about Jackie.

The older Bouvier sister was taking her time finding a husband.

An engagement had been made to a young stock broker in 1952, but Jackie had broken off that relationship after just a few months.

She had realized she was in love neither with her fiancé nor the life he promised.

(soft music) ♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) What was expected of them was not just what Jackie expected of herself though.

Jackie didn't want to be another society matron in New York City, so she had different views for herself than her mother had for her.

(Tina Cassidy) I don't think there were great expectations for either of them, in terms of being professionals in any way.

But what's interesting about what Jackie did is she did go into a profession, she was a photojournalist in Washington.

She was a very curious person, so journalism would have been a fantastic career for her.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) Jackie had this newspaper column, and she would interview politicians and celebrities and people on the street.

And so she always had very interesting questions, so she took it very seriously.

♪ (narrator) To her family, however, Jackie was at a dangerous age.

Every new debutante season was bringing younger girls onto the marriage market.

Even Jackie's warring father and mother found rare agreement in their concerns.

Jackie was being left behind.

But then along came John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

(mellow music) ♪ (Pamela Keogh) Senator Kennedy was like the George Clooney of 1953.

I mean, he was it, he was the bomb.

♪ (Tina Cassidy) I think that he had a way around women that was magnetic.

And, you know, here was Jackie, who was interested in politics.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) She saw a man that she'd never be bored with.

And I also think he saw a woman he'd never be bored with.

She was not only a woman of beauty but she was also a woman of brains.

And so it was kind of mutual.

♪ (Sarah Bradford) Jack really was attracted by her.

She was very pretty.

She'd been to the right schools, which was important in the Kennedy world.

And I think that he was also nudged along by the fact that his father really liked her.

(intense music) ♪ (narrator) Kennedy had just announced his run for the Senate, but his growing reputation as a womanizing playboy was becoming problematic.

Politics dictated that he have a wife.

His father, Joe, a former ambassador to Britain and the director of his son's every career move, saw Jackie as the perfect society wife needed.

Kennedy proposed in June 1953, just two months after Lee's triumphant marriage to Michael Canfield.

Jackie was now engaged to one of the most eligible men in the country.

Once again, she had left her younger sister in the shade.

♪ (lively music) (announcer) The wedding of Senator John F. Kennedy recalls Newport's one time social grandeur.

Former ambassador and Mrs. Joseph Kennedy, parents of the groom, are among the personalities on hand to make this the top society wedding of the year.

For the spectators outside the church, it's a real story book wedding.

A radiant bride, the former Jacqueline Bouvier, and a handsome groom.

With a pretty wife and a politically rising star, the future seems bright for the junior senator from Massachusetts.

(soft music) ♪ (narrator) On September the 12th, 1953, Jackie Bouvier married John F. Kennedy at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Newport, Rhode Island.

Among the hundreds of revelers that day was Jackie's younger sister, Lee.

♪ She was just five months married herself, having wed publisher Michael Canfield that April.

But Lee was increasingly disappointed with her own choice.

Lee and her husband moved to London, where they enjoyed a packed social calendar, but the marriage was an unhappy one.

Lee began an affair with Polish aristocrat Stash Radziwill.

He had come to London in 1946.

She was 19 years his junior, but Radziwill's Old World manners, his wealth, and his aristocratic connections seduced the beautiful young American.

(Sarah Bradford) He was a Polish prince.

He wasn't as rich as perhaps she would have liked, because he was, after all, a Pole who'd had to leave his homeland.

But he did know everybody at the top level.

And he really loved her.

(Pamela Keogh) He was an older man, he was dapper and charming, European.

The funny thing is when Lee's mother met him, she said, "Oh, my God, you're marrying an older version of your father."

(mellow music) ♪ (narrator) Back home, Jackie's marriage to her dashing senator husband was also troubled.

In 1955, she suffered a miscarriage, and the following August, the heartache of a stillbirth.

Her husband, however, was not allowing these setbacks or his chronic health problems to get in the way of his favorite pastime.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) I think JFK was perhaps a man of his time and of his social circumstances.

Clearly, he liked women.

You know, they were a diversion, they took his mind off things.

I mean, JFK actually had no other vices.

He drank very sparely.

He would nurse a scotch like all day.

He didn't really smoke.

And I think, you know, like his father and his brother, I think it was kind of a male Kennedy thing.

(Sarah Bradford) I don't think that Jack Kennedy's sex life was that normal.

I mean, it was straightforward.

But I think, even for that time, there was an awful lot of it.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) I think she thought a little like most women think, "I'll change him after marriage."

But she was well-aware of it.

She sort of took a European view that if he strays, okay, but as long as he comes back to me and my children, you know, like every night, that's what matters.

She knew everything that was going on everywhere.

And, you know, part of it was that she was raised in a certain way where a woman was supposed to, you know, a wife was supposed to behave in a certain way, and she knew what that was and she also wasn't going to bring embarrassment upon his administration by exposing any of that.

I think she was devastated by it, I really do, and she was constantly trying to figure out a way to keep things together and just appreciate the special circumstances that she was living in.

(intense music) ♪ (narrator) In London, Lee left her husband, Michael Canfield, to begin a new life with Polish aristocrat Stash Radziwill.

She was already pregnant when the couple married on the 19th of March, 1959.

They moved into a house near Buckingham Palace and Lee immediately began renovating.

But even as she embarked on this happy new phase in life, Jackie and her husband were at the start of something far greater.

(soft music) In July 1960, Kennedy won the Democratic nomination for president with Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate.

Kennedy began his campaign against his Republican opponent, the sitting Vice President, Richard Nixon.

It would become the closest presidential race since 1916.

By this stage, Jackie was pregnant again.

But that was not the only reason behind her limited role in her husband's campaign.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) They were the Irish gang around JFK, and they were not that convinced, they were concerned that Jackie was too exotic, too European, too French, too upper class, and that the average American woman just wouldn't be able to connect with her.

So they actually kind of kept her off the stage -for a long time.

-But they soon learned that she was his greatest asset, because, for example, when he was speaking in Boston, she spoke Italian to the Italians.

When she went down to Louisiana, she got up and started out, "Mes amies," and finished the whole speech, you know, in French.

And then she also told of her own background, you know, like, "I am French, my family has French heritage," and so on.

But she knew how to unite with people.

Her role really was to be the princess in waiting and to give a touch of class to what sometimes was pretty kind of sordid, boring stuff.

(cheering) (soft music) On the 8th of November, 1960, Kennedy won the narrowest of victories.

Jackie would be the new First Lady of the United States.

She was just 31 years old.

(tense music) ♪ (Pamela Keogh) Jackie was actually frightened of the White House, the whole idea of it.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) She didn't like the title, first of all, First Lady, everybody knows that she thought that that sounded like a horse, -she didn't like that.

-So the morning that he won, at 8:00 or 9:00 in the morning, they go, "Oh, my God, he won, he got it, California."

She actually put on like an old raincoat and just went for a walk by herself on the beach 'cause she knew she was-- she knew her history, she knew politics, and she knew her life would change.

♪ (narrator) 17 days after the election, the new First Lady went into early labor and gave birth to John F. Kennedy, Jr., a younger brother for sister Caroline, who had been born almost three years earlier.

The new baby had underdeveloped lungs, and an incubator was his home for the first weeks of his life.

Lee, too, was facing the difficulties brought on by a premature birth.

Her second child had been born three months early, which meant Lee was unable to travel to Washington for Kennedy's inauguration.

As Lee struggled with depression, Jackie adapted to her new life as an international celebrity.

The press adored her photogenic youth and style.

When she accompanied her husband on his first trip overseas, there was as much attention on Jackie as there was on the President.

Newspapers christened her, "The First Lady of Fashion."

(dramatic music) ♪ (Tina Cassidy) I think Jackie was recognized and loved around the world for the same reasons why America really appreciated having her as First Lady.

She was articulate, she was young and energetic, she saw a future vision for how America and how the world could be.

This was a woman who had spent lots of time in Europe and traveling around the world.

She loved exploring new cultures and so forth.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) Jackie made it her business to connect with people when she represented the U.S. abroad.

She would not just study the culture of a country, she would study how they dress and she would study the colors that they liked.

So when she went to India, she wore pink because one of the big fashion editors, Diana Vreeland, explained to her, "Jackie, pink is the navy blue of India, so wear a lot of pink."

(Sarah Bradford) She wore wonderful clothes.

She spoke languages.

She had tremendous grace and brilliance in presenting herself.

I think she was really what Sinatra called her, "America's queen."

(intense music) ♪ (narrator) The spectacular success of the overseas tour must have been difficult for Lee, whose superior sense of style had always distinguished her from Jackie.

It was now Jackie who was the international style icon.

Lee's marriage to Stash Radziwill was souring too.

They argued constantly.

Amid this unhappiness and insecurity, Lee began an affair with Aristotle Socrates Onassis, a notorious Greek shipping tycoon.

Unbeknownst to all, Onassis would have huge importance in Jackie's life.

Meanwhile, Jackie was asked to accompany her husband on a visit to Texas.

How Jackie performed was to be closely scrutinized.

Despite his success abroad, doubts remained about her rapport with a domestic audience.

It would be this trip to Texas, though, that would have a devastating impact on Jackie's life.

(dark music) Lee Bouvier Radziwill was at home in London on the 22nd of November, 1963.

She knew her sister, the First Lady Jackie Kennedy, was in Texas alongside her husband on an important political visit to the southern state.

It was the early evening when the news from Dallas broke.

Jackie's husband, President John F. Kennedy, had been assassinated.

♪ (newscaster) From a high window rings out the shot that changes American history.

Confusion is indescribable.

Both the President and Governor Connally are hit.

While they are rushed to hospital, swarms of police and FBI men search for the assassin.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) Jackie was next to her husband in an open convertible and his head was blown off.

I mean, I'm here and he was there.

(security officer) Something has happened in the motorcade route, stand by please.

(Tina Cassidy) The assassination itself was just a horrific tragedy for everyone.

It's just unfathomable how anyone could live through that.

I don't think she ever really got over it.

(dramatic music) (Lyndon B. Johnson) I know that the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear.

♪ (Sarah Bradford) The assassination was indeed a world event.

I think most people of my age can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when this happened.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) I think it was horrifying, I think it was terrifying.

To talk about post-traumatic stress syndrome, whatever, it doesn't even begin to discuss it.

And you also have to think about, I think she and her husband made so many plans for the future and for bettering the country and moving forward.

And then...it was over.

It was over like that.

♪ So it was not only the loss of her husband, the White House was over and all the dreams that went with it.

♪ (somber music) ♪ (narrator) Lee flew to Washington at once and was at her sister's side throughout the days to come.

The funeral took place on the 25th of November, 1963.

The day before, Kennedy's flag-draped coffin had lain in state at the U.S. Capitol Building.

Thousands had queued to pay their respects.

A Requiem Mass was held at St. Matthew's Cathedral.

Then President Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Jackie's calm and dignified demeanor throughout won her widespread respect.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) With the whole way she conducted herself during the funeral, I mean, she held the country together.

I mean, everyone was falling apart.

It was a terrible time for our country and there was a British reporter that said that Jackie Kennedy gave the American people something they never had before, majesty.

(Sarah Bradford) She brought great dignity and sadness to the affair.

And standing at the grave site, you know, like a marble statue with a dark veil and the two children holding her hands.

Images like that, which went 'round the world, she did a fantastic job of keeping the dignity of the presidency going.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) Jackie became a saint.

She could do no wrong.

There was such an innocence to America then.

And who would have thought that some madman, some crazy little guy who weighs like 120 pounds could kill the most powerful, charming, charismatic, witty...our leader.

(newscaster) To 190 million Americans, he was President.

To these three, he was a loving husband and devoted father.

(soft music) (narrator) Jackie was scarred by what she had witnessed.

She retold her account of the assassination again and again in grim and vivid detail.

Barely sleeping, she became depressed and suicidal.

Even those closest to Jackie found her behavior increasingly difficult.

Her sister, Lee, was a great support.

However, there was one person who understood better than the rest, JFK's younger brother Bobby, who became a surrogate father figure to Jackie's children.

(Tina Cassidy) He really assumed the mantle of the leader of the Kennedy brothers.

He was very close to Jackie and the kids and they really looked at him as a father figure and so forth.

(Pamela Keogh) They could speak to one another about their loss and they didn't have to explain, you know, "He's dead and we'll never see him again."

They loved him so much and I think that bound them together.

(dramatic music) (narrator) While Jackie struggled as the months passed, the American people yearned to leave the trauma of Kennedy's death behind.

Lee, too, wished to move on with her life.

She had often felt hemmed in by her unofficial role in the presidential family.

Now she could carve out a life that was her own.

The writer Truman Capote was a friend of Lee.

She was one of the group of beautiful and glamorous women he referred to as his swans.

He pushed Lee into a career in acting for which she had no formal training.

This would ultimately end in embarrassment.

(soft music) (Pamela Keogh) Capote was a great admirer of Lee.

I think he admired Lee even more than Jackie.

There was a time she kind of fashioned herself a photographer and she was taking photographs.

And then she was on the road with the Rolling Stones, hanging out with those guys for a while.

I think she was trying to make a way for herself because I think the old days where a woman could be a great beauty and marry well and hang out, I think those days were ending and you wanted to be a woman who did something.

Truman Capote would build her up and say, "If you want to be an actress, I'll get a play from Tennessee Williams, we'll open it in Chicago, Kenneth will do your hair, Yves Saint Laurent will do the costumes," and it became a whole production, whereas Lee couldn't say, "I'm gonna take acting classes.

I'm gonna study with so-and-so and then maybe I'll try a little role."

You know, Lee's first role, she's on television.

(dramatic music) (narrator) On the first night of her run as the lead in The Philadelphia Story in 1967, Lee was paralyzed with fear.

She looked the part certainly, but couldn't act it.

The reviews were terrible.

After one further attempt appearing in a panned TV movie for ABC in early 1968, she left acting for good.

♪ Jackie, meanwhile, tried to rebuild her life.

She had moved away from Washington and bought an apartment in Manhattan at 1040 Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park.

With her two children, she attempted to settle into a life away from politics.

However, still being very much in the public consciousness, she became target for photographer Ron Galella.

He was one of the few paparazzi based in New York.

(soft music) (Ron Galella) I lived in the north Bronx, which was about 12 miles from mid-Manhattan.

And I would spend the whole day.

My routine was I developed the film the night before and I sell 'em.

And the morning was marketing.

I would go to these fan magazines, they would pick pictures.

All the celebrities, not just Jackie or Liz Taylor, Doris Day, Liza Minnelli, Calvin Klein, all these stars were hot.

We would get $1,000 for a cover, so it was a big marketing in the morning.

Then I would go to-- near Jackie's, on Madison Avenue, and I would get Jackie shopping, she would buy shoes, she didn't even know I was there.

Great shots.

I was obsessed with her.

(laughs) Obsessed because I had no girlfriend, I was not married.

New York was a great place.

I spent the whole day from morning to night.

(soft music) (narrator) Ron's pictures would keep Jackie in the spotlight, but he would soon become an unwanted nuisance in Jackie's life.

At this time, however, he was just another photographer.

Jackie was still trying to come to terms with the death of JFK, but her suffering was to deepen in the summer of 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel.

♪ It would be a year of complete social upheaval in the U.S. ♪ (explosions) ♪ (Pamela Keogh) It's hard for us now to imagine.

America was on fire, it was in flames.

The inner cities were blowing up, there were riots in the streets.

I mean, Detroit, New York, Washington, D.C., were in flames.

All this crazy stuff was happening.

Bobby's assassinated, Martin Luther King is assassinated.

Jackie, very understandably, was terrified.

She said, "If they're killing Kennedys, my children are next."

(dramatic music) ♪ (narrator) If Jackie was seeking an escape from the traumas of 1968, she could hardly have picked a more shocking way out.

Just four months after the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, Jackie remarried.

Her new husband was only too familiar to her sister, Lee.

It was the 62-year-old Greek shipping tycoon, Aristotle Onassis, Lee's former lover.

(announcer) The impending marriage of the former president's wife to the colorful Greek ship owner must have been one of the best kept secrets in years.

It certainly took most by surprise.

As the newlyweds headed for their luxury yacht, The Christina, reports indicated that there was dismay amongst the Kennedy family.

The Vatican, too, frowned on them.

Mrs. Kennedy, said a Vatican official, was old enough and intelligent enough to know perfectly well she was breaking Roman Catholic church law.

(lively music) (soft music) (Tina Cassidy) Onassis had been to the White House.

He was also one of the first visitors to the White House after the assassination.

And so I think people also believed that Onassis was always looking for an angle with Jackie.

And, you know, it wasn't until after Robert Kennedy's assassination that he felt like he had a window and can put the moves on her.

♪ (Pamela Keogh) She definitely loved him, but he also opened her life up to much broader vistas.

She was no longer beholden to the Kennedys.

He also had his own private security force.

So, I mean, Onassis could take care of her.

(Tina Cassidy) I think the idea that he owned an island and a yacht where he could just literally sail her away from all of her troubles and take her to this private island, a place where she could just be reclusive, was incredibly appealing.

♪ (narrator) Onassis offered her the security and privacy she craved.

However, her relationship with Ari would cause a rift in the close bond between Jackie and her sister.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) I think that Lee hoped to marry him.

Her marriage to Prince Radziwill was winding down.

I don't think she could have reacted well.

(Pamela Keogh) She was just beside herself with indignation and fury.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) The American people loved Jackie, I have to say that.

She was on a pedestal.

But when she wanted to marry Onassis, she was warned, "Do not marry Onassis, you'll be taken off that pedestal by the America people."

And she said, "It's cold and lonely up there.

I don't care."

(narrator) Her new marriage with Onassis would initially change the public's perception of Jackie.

However, as their relationship went on, she would seamlessly go from being Jackie Kennedy, grieving widow of the former president, to Jackie O., global fashion icon.

Wherever she traveled though, sorrow would always seem to find her.

(dramatic music) (mellow music) Jackie had made New York home for herself and her children despite her husband never taking permanent residence there.

Although life in the Upper East Side of Manhattan offered some privacy, she was still prime target for paparazzi.

Knowing full well that pictures with her face covered were less desirable, Jackie would often wear oversized dark sunglasses to thwart truculent photographers.

Ron Galella's growing obsession with Jackie would start to become uncomfortably invasive, but his dogged persistence would give the world one of the most iconic images of Jackie.

♪ (Ron Galella) How I got this picture is, there was a model, Joy Smith, who needed portfolio pictures.

So I said, "Let's go to the park, maybe I'll meet Jackie and make some money."

I photographed her across Fifth Avenue and there comes Jackie.

She didn't see us.

And then I made a brilliant decision.

I hop a cab, because if I ran after her she would see me, put on the glasses, I would never get a great picture.

I rolled down the back window, I got two shots of Jackie, but she didn't hear the clicking of the camera or anything because it was close to 5:00, a lot of traffic.

And then the driver was interested of Jackie and he blew the horn, I didn't even ask him, that was luck.

And she turned and I had my camera in front of my face and she gave me the Mona Lisa smile, which I love, the Mona Lisa smile is the beginning of the smile, not teeth showing, and that's the best kind of smile there is.

♪ I got out of the taxi, immediately she recognized me, put on her glasses, and started walking.

And I got her one more block walking.

And Jackie was pissed.

She turned toward me, "Are you pleased with yourself?"

Yes, thank you, goodbye.

♪ (narrator) For Jackie, Ron's constant presence would cause increasing distress.

She understood that images of her were all part of her celebrity, but she craved anonymity for her children.

Always eager for a great picture, Ron would photograph Jackie in all areas of her life, which meant Caroline and John, Jr., were often targeted.

On a number of occasions, Jackie had asked her security to chase Ron away.

Ron, feeling like his livelihood was at risk, or maybe just following his instinct for grand publicity, decided he would kick back.

The result would be an ongoing dispute which would last for nearly a decade.

♪ (Ron Galella) I got pictures of John, Jr., on a bike and her on a bike on the pedestrian path.

The reason she said, "Smash his camera," to Mr. Connely, the agent, because she's with John, Jr., and she don't want it published.

And she sent two agents to get the film.

And they took me to the police station and they booked me on harassment of Jackie.

The judge dismissed the cases.

"I don't know who was harassed.

Both--case dismissed," it was nothing.

And I paid my lawyer $450 and I billed her.

My lawyer says, "Bill her."

And, well, she never paid or answered.

And that started the whole business of, uh, the court business.

And there was a big trial.

I was the plaintiff, sued her for interfering in my livelihood as a photojournalist.

And there was a big court battle in 1972.

Lasted 26 days.

And it was like a circus, it was crazy.

And I couldn't win this case anyway because the judge, Irving Ben Cooper, was appointed by President Kennedy.

So I lost.

♪ (narrator) Ron was issued a restraining order which forbade him from photographing Jackie within 25 feet.

It is not known what kind of pressures the trial had on Jackie, but her marriage to Onassis at this time was becoming difficult.

Among other things, he had returned to his womanizing ways.

Tragedy, too, seemed to follow in Jackie's footsteps.

In 1973, Aristotle's son, Alexander, was killed in a plane crash.

(Pamela Keogh) That was a real pivotal moment.

After that, I think, you know, it never kind of got back on track, it never recovered.

Of course, he was absolutely devastated at that.

And used to sit on board the Christina drinking and drinking and drinking.

And, really, not being particularly good to Jackie, as you can imagine.

(Pamela Keogh) Then, somehow, he got it into his head, which may have come from his sisters or from his daughter, Christina, that Jackie was bad luck, that she was the black widow, that it was her fault that his son died.

(dark music) (narrator) Onassis entered a terrible decline.

By the time of his death just two years later, the relationship with Jackie was effectively over.

♪ The sisters were nearing middle age.

By now, Lee's marriage to Polish aristocrat Stash Radziwill had also ended in divorce.

Still, she struggled to escape her sister's shadow.

(Pamela Keogh) Lee was not flighty but she just went from thing to thing, like, okay, first she's gonna follow the Rolling Stones and be a photojournalist, but then she's gonna make a documentary, but then she's gonna be a decorator, but then she's gonna be an actress.

I think it was hard for Lee.

(Tina Cassidy) Lee was really perceived as a socialite in New York, somewhat aimless.

She always had projects that she was interested in doing, like a book project or some sort of cause, but nothing that ever really caught fire.

And I think Jackie was just much more in a steady place.

♪ (narrator) Following the death of her second husband, Aristotle Onassis, Jackie again faced the task of rebuilding her life.

This time, however, would be different.

Now 45, she decided she would no longer rely on others to rescue or protect her.

She would help herself.

She would go back to work.

♪ (Tina Cassidy) March of 1975 is an incredible turning point in the life of Jacqueline Onassis because it's the first time in a really long time where she does not need to be defined by being a wife anymore.

She worked for two different publishing houses, Viking and Doubleday, and both of them said she was a brilliant editor.

(Tina Cassidy) She was done being in the public eye.

She had been through it with JFK's assassination and then with Robert Kennedy's death as well.

And then, you know, the whole drama of being married to Aristotle Onassis.

She really wanted a quiet life, and that was what book publishing was offering her.

(dramatic music) (Pamela Keogh) She was always known as Jack Bouvier's daughter, also JFK's wife.

This was her own thing.

(Tina Cassidy) This was a woman who did not need the money.

This was a woman who was searching for meaning in her life and appreciated how having a career made you feel, made you feel appreciated, made you feel needed, made you feel productive.

And also she just loved the work.

(narrator) Gradually, Jackie found a measure of long sought-after peace.

In the 1980s, she began a new relationship with her financial advisor, Maurice Tempelsman.

He was steady and reliable, but most importantly put Jackie first.

Quite the opposite of Kennedy and Onassis.

♪ It was Tempelsman as well who was instrumental in securing Jackie's privacy.

Even though Ron Galella had been issued a restraining order in 1972, by 1980 he was clearly flouting it.

Maurice reported him and a second trial ensued.

This would effectively end Ron's obsession.

(Ron Galella) I admitted I was guilty.

I faced a $125,000 fine or seven years in jail.

So I said, "I'm gonna surrender all of them, Jackie, John, Jr., and Caroline Kennedy for the rest of their lives."

♪ (soft music) ♪ (narrator) Jackie lived and worked in New York for the last 25 years of her life.

She died of lymphatic cancer on May the 19th, 1994, in her home in Manhattan with her family around her.

♪ She took an active role in the city she called home, saving Grand Central Station from demolition and bringing the Temple of Dendur to the Metropolitan Museum.

Every street and every building seems to have a story of Jackie to tell.

And even long after her death, she lives on in the city, never to be forgotten.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) At her funeral, Senator Ted Kennedy, her brother-in-law, said, "No one we knew had a better sense of self than Jackie."

♪ (Sarah Bradford) I think people really admired her and revered her as a historical figure and obviously a hard worker, not just a rich leech.

And I think she was immensely popular.

♪ (Tina Santi Flaherty) This was a woman of real depth, real intelligence, but a lot of people couldn't get past her beauty and her jet-setting ways and her dark sunglasses.

I don't ever think she's been given enough credit for really who she is.

♪ (narrator) The story of Lee Radziwill, however, is still being written.

A constant in the New York social scene, she has also carved out a niche for herself as a true fashion icon and still can be seen on the front rows of catwalks around the globe.

If Jackie was America's queen, then Lee is the closest thing to royalty the U.S. has, and no matter what she does and where she travels, Jackie will always be with her.

(Tina Santi Flaherty) I think there's always that thing with sisters, you compare lives and so on.

But they both admired each other.

(Tina Cassidy) It's interesting to think about them as a sisterhood legacy.

They were very much foils of each other, I think they're very different individuals, they led very different lives.

Jackie will always be the sister who was out front.

Lee will always be the one standing behind in the shadows.

And I think they were both ultimately comfortable with those positions.

(Pamela Keogh) I think after Jackie's death, unfortunately, Lee became and still is, you know, the thing she dreaded most, she's Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's sister.

She is the sister of Jackie O.

(dramatic music) ♪