The New Yorker: Going to the movies with Jackie

[Douglas Caddy]

"...“So,” I said. “Have you seen ‘JFK’? I mean, the movie. I mean, the Oliver Stone movie. I mean the one that’s just out now?”

“Oh, no, Carly, no. No, no.” Jackie reacted as if she had been attacked. “It’s so awful. No.”

I continued my crash into the reef of self-destruction. “I didn’t even mean to say that,” I said. “I just . . .”

“No, Carly, NO.” She slumped backward into her seat.

That was the end of the conversation about anything and everything “JFK.” I was dead. I couldn’t... live past this moment. Rewind! Oh, please, rewind!

I started to cry, and I was fortunate to be able to hide it behind the opening music of “Bugsy,” which had just started up. I sat there motionless, shocked silly. “I’m so sorry, Jackie,” I whispered.

From my diary on that day: “What sort of brain derangement sent such a signal to my wayward tongue?”

I could hardly concentrate on “Bugsy.” All the while I was thinking, I have to be so careful—she is so much more fragile than we all think. Every time a shot sounded on the screen—and the film was plenty violent—she reacted physically, dramatically, her body mimicking the victim’s. All I wanted to do was protect her, put my arms around her.

I was reminded that day of the story of Mr. Nose, which is really a story about where a person’s best intentions can land. Mr. Nose, as he came to be forever known by my family after one fateful evening, was the unsuspecting man with a prominent nose, to which we—my sisters and I—were told, by our parents, not to call attention, one night, when Lucy was five or six and I was even younger. He was one of my father’s erudite authors, and, when he showed up, it was true: his nose was not charming, and it was also way too long not to notice. That night, I watched it happen. When our father introduced the man to us, Lucy held out her hand and said in her most beguiling voice, “How do you do, Mr. Nose?”..."

'Going to the Movies with Jackie Kennedy'

By Carly Simon | October 15, 2019

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/going-to-the-movies-with-jackie-kennedy

[David Andrews]

"This essay is adapted from “Touched by the Sun: My Friendship with Jackie,” to be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, in October."

Touched by the Sun.

Touched by the Sun.

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by David Andrews

[Joseph McBride]

Jacqueline Kennedy has an understandalbe excuse for skipping the movie, but Carly Simon should be ashamed of herself.

[James DiEugenio]

Why would Jackie Kennedy want to relive the worst moments of her life for three hours?