The myth of the “Kennedy curse” was born more than 60 years ago when president John F Kennedy was assassinated, but the public’s obsession with the family would be fuelled by quieter, more personal tragedies.
US President Donald Trump appears to count among those fascinated by the dynasty, ordering the release of tens of thousands of FBI documents related to the assassination and selecting anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr to be health secretary.
One critic of RFK Jr is JFK’s grandson, Jack Schlossberg, who told MSNBC Mr Trump is “so obsessed with the Kennedys” that “he caged one and put it in his cabinet”.
Mr Schlossberg, who is running for a US House seat in New York, has gained a reputation for being a fierce protector of his family’s legacy by calling out those who he says seek to exploit their tragedies.
The latest offender is Hollywood producer Ryan Murphy, who has spun the crimes and trials of OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Dahmer and Erik and Lyle Menendez into prestige television.
The first-look images of the Love Story series sparked backlash among fans of the famous family. (Ryan Murphy Productions)
Now he has set his sights on the Kennedys with his new series Love Story: John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette.
The famous couple died in 1999 when their plane, piloted by JFK Jr, crashed off Martha’s Vineyard, instantly killing the Kennedy heir, his wife Carolyn and her sister Lauren.
When the series was announced mid-last year, Mr Schlossberg said the Kennedys had not been consulted.
“For the record, I think admiration for my uncle John is great,” he said on Instagram at the time.
“What I don’t think is great is profiting off of it in a grotesque way.”
In a namesake’s shadow
Jackie Kennedy was heavily pregnant when her husband won the US presidential election in 1960.
Weeks later, on November 25, she gave birth to the couple’s second child, John F Kennedy Jr.
John and his older sister Caroline would spend the early days of their childhoods running amuck in the White House.
Archival images show the siblings dancing in the Oval Office while their dad watched on from the most powerful desk in the world.
John F Kennedy with his two children in the Oval Office. (JFK Presidential Library and Museum)
But John would only get three years with his father.
On November 22, 1963, JFK was assassinated, with Jackie beside him, while they rode in a presidential motorcade through Dallas.
Three days later, a funeral would be held — the same day as John’s third birthday.
As the coffin passed, John saluted his father.
Three-year-old John F Kennedy Jr salutes as the casket of his father passes by. (Getty Images)
Secret Service Agent Clint Hill recalled the day to Liz McNeil and RoseMarie Terenzio for their book JFK: An Intimate Oral Biography.
“They had just laid his father to rest, saddest day in the world, and now they’re supposed to have a birthday celebration,” he said.
John F Kennedy Jr would grow up in the shadow of his namesake.
“It wasn’t easy being John,” wrote historian and friend, Steven M Gillon, in his biography America’s Reluctant Prince.
“Yes, he was fabulously wealthy, strikingly handsome, and the beneficiary of his family’s extensive connections.”
But, as Gillon wrote, “he spent his life trying to develop an authentic self, separate from that of his famous father and well-known family”.
In a bid to create his own success, JFK Jr launched a political magazine called George, despite having little journalistic experience and being cautioned against it.
John F Kennedy Jr launched political magazine George in 1995. (Reuters)
In his editor’s letter in the magazine’s inaugural issue in 1995, John wrote:
“We stuck with the idea even after the instructor in our two-day seminar called ‘Starting Your Own Magazine’ told us, ‘you can successfully launch a magazine in just about anything except for religion and politics.'”
When John told his dying mother about the idea, Jackie reportedly responded: “John, is it going to be the Mad magazine of politics?”
As Gillon writes, George was “a natural combination of his father’s fascination with politics, power and the press, and his mother’s interest in gossip and style”.
And life only became more stylish with the arrival of Carolyn Bessette.
American royalty
John F Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette first crossed paths at Calvin Klein in the early 1990s.
John was there for a fitting and Carolyn was tasked with assisting VIP clients.
She immediately caught his eye.
Carolyn Bessette with nightclub and restaurant owner Will Regan at Bloomingdale’s in 1993. (Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
“No one said no to John F Kennedy Jr, heir to Camelot, the only living son of the beloved slain president, with movie star looks and charm to match,” journalist Maureen Callahan wrote in her book, Ask Not.
But, according to Callahan, Carolyn did say no.
“Carolyn had something very few women her age had: self-possession. It was how she bagged the job with Calvin,” Callahan wrote.
“Really, there was no one more famous than John F Kennedy Jr, and when he walked into the Calvin Klein showroom for the first time, Caroyln knew exactly what to do.
“She ignored him”.
What came next was a seemingly glamorous, heavily scrutinised romance between the Kennedy heir and a woman whose “effortless style” had the tabloids labelling her a fashion icon.
The pair arriving for a gala awards dinner in New York in 1999. (Reuters)
“Insofar as America has ‘royalty’, certainly Carolyn Bessette Kennedy and John F Kennedy Jr fit this bill,” Lauren Rosewarne, an associate professor at the University of Melbourne, told ABC News.
“Americans have a keen interest in celebrity and thus the fascination with CBK and JFK Jr is, of course, part of this story.
“That they were connected to a family that experienced two high-profile assassinations, and then that CBK and JFK Jr met their own untimely demise, mean that there are added elements of intrigue and tragedy and conspiracy, making them enduringly interesting.”
Under scrutiny
John and Carolyn’s relationship was far from perfect and the media scrutiny only intensified any challenges.
In 1996, the pair were photographed fighting animatedly in Central Park after Sunday brunch.
As J Randy Taraborrelli wrote in his biography The Kennedy Heirs, Carolyn felt she was being “hunted” by the press, with photos of her fetching thousands of dollars — even more if she was caught looking “miserable”.
“A sour face suggested she was unhappy, and what better story is there than the one about the woman who has it all but doesn’t appreciate it?” Taraborrelli wrote.
Biographer J Randy Taraborrelli wrote that Carolyn Bessette felt “hunted” by paparazzi. (Reuters)
Richard Bradley, a senior editor at George, told Taraborrelli: “We all knew John had a temper, but the public didn’t.
“It looked like Carolyn had brought out the worst in America’s Prince, that she was changing him, and a lot of people held that against her.”
Carolyn became a Kennedy later that year, with the pair getting married in a small, candlelit ceremony, with John’s sister Caroline as the matron of honour.
But the newlyweds would only have three years together before their lives would be cut short.
A dark, hazy night
It was July 16, 1999.
John’s cousin Rory was getting married at the Kennedy Compound in Massachusetts.
John, Carolyn and her sister Lauren made plans to depart from New Jersey and fly along the Connecticut coastline to Martha’s Vineyard, with John piloting the light plane.
But they would never make it to the wedding.
Tributes quickly sprung up outside the couple’s New York apartment building after their deaths. (Reuters)
At the time, John was certified to fly under visual flight rules.
He was enrolled in an instrument training course, allowing him to fly without a clear line of sight and had completed half of the 25 lessons.
Jeff Guzzetti, a National Transport Safety Bureau investigator, told McNeil and Terenzio that John “was not ready for that flight that evening”.
“It was a dark night, the moon wasn’t well lit, there was haze,” he said.
As they flew over the ocean, tragedy struck.
The plane spiralled, and John, Carolyn and Lauren died on impact.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded that John fell victim to spatial disorientation and lost control of the plane. The haze and darkness were factors in the crash.
The front page of New York’s Daily News on July 18, 1999. (NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
It would take five days for the wreckage to be found and their bodies to be retrieved.
The disaster made international headlines immediately.
Lisa Dallos, George magazine’s director of communications, recalled the phones ringing off the hook from every publication and television network.
“There was the Katie Couric call, the Barbara Walters call and the Diane Sawyer call,” she once said.
Steve Gillon, a historian and friend of John, would later describe his actions as “reckless”.
“There’s no such thing as a Kennedy curse,” he wrote in his biography.
“They take risks that most other people would not take.
“He was reckless. He had been reckless his whole life.”
John’s ashes, along with Carolyn’s and Lauren’s, were scattered into the ocean off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, where they had shared their final moments.
The television series has the potential to introduce new audiences to one of America’s most storied dynasties. (Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
John was arguably the closest thing Americans had to their slain president, a sentiment that Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy explored when eulogising his nephew.
“From the first day of his life, John seemed to belong not only to our family, but to the American family,” he said.
“The whole world knew his name before he did.”
Now, a new generation may be introduced to the Kennedy family with the release of the new series.
Critics blasted the production before filming even finished, picking apart everything from Carolyn’s hair colour to the style of her Birkin.
For surviving members of the Kennedy family, it is a reminder that the price of being one of America’s most storied families is that their pain is never truly laid to rest.