Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wanted to date Hollywood star Alec Baldwin later in life – despite being 28 years his senior.
That is according to a new memoir, which reveals that Jackie Kennedy had a playful side and had many crushes on famous men.
The memoir – Lucky Jim – was written by Mrs Kennedy’s friend Jim Hart, who along with his then-wife Carly Simon, had a long-standing friendship with the Former First Lady.
Mrs Kennedy was devastated when her husband was assassinated in 1963 – so much so that she didn’t know how to cope with her loss.
Hart revealed that one day Mrs Kennedy said to him: “Not long ago, someone told me about an African tribe that beat their drums and scream in anger for a whole day and night when somebody dies. I was so angry about Jack, but I didn’t know what to do about it.”
A previous biography on the Kennedys revealed that Jackie had even contemplated suicide and had discussed the idea with her priest.
In ‘The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings’, released in 2003, Father Richard McSorley recalls the conversation he had with Mrs Kennedy.
He said that she asked him ‘if God would separate her from her husband if she killed herself’.
Carly Simon was said to be a ‘kindred spirit’ of Mrs Kennedy in a 1995 Vanity Fair article and Hart believes that his wife was a great source of comfort during some of her dark moments.
Vanity Fair said that Jackie: “loved [her friends] because they were free spirits, unguarded and spontaneous—what she couldn’t be.”
In Lucky Jim, Hart says that his wife asked Jackie who was the sexiest man she had ever been with.
He said: “Jackie answered without hesitation. She answered as though she had been eager to tell someone for a long time just so she could share the thrill of the surprising nature of her answer.
“Her face broke into a large smile, and her breathy voice filled with delight as she answered.”
She later asked Hart to give her an opinion on his friend Alec Baldwin. She then asked: “Well, do you think Alec could be my date for the theatre on my birthday?”
At the time, Bladwin was 33 while Jackie was about to turn 62. Hart writes: “I was surprised by the openness of the request, but I acted as though there was nothing unusual about it. Alec was most shocked of all, but there wasn’t a moment’s hesitation, even though he had just met Kim Basinger.”
Baldwin told Hart: “Are you kidding? Jackie Kennedy wants to go on a date? Of course.”
Hart also revealed that he helped Jackie to dance one night at a vineyard.
He said: “The beat had taken her, and she had let go,” he writes. “As I caught her eyes, she smiled and then shook her head, and in her deep, breathy whisper, she said, ‘I’ve never done this before.’”
Written by Michael Kehoe @michaelcalling
