Janet Lee Bouvier Auchincloss Morris, the mother of Jackie Kennedy Onassis

Good question, OP. From everything I've read about her, she was an ice-cold bitch and widely disliked.

She gave a killer blowjob.

Sometimes those ultrapowerful and connected women get to that level of exclusivity and they get married to more men in the circle once they divorce or outlive their first ones not because they're so wonderful or so sexy, but because they know everyone and are seen as having the keys to power somehow.

I always thought that was true of Pamela Harriman, who was pretty when young, but hard and scary when older, but still attractive enough somehow to lure Leland Hayward and then Averell Harriman into marriage (to the misery of those men's children and wards, whom she cut out of their fathers' lives).

She lied about herself her entire life. Although her family was actually entirely from Ireland originally (they take their name from the Lee River through the city of Cork), when Janet went to Sweet Briar she purposefully passed herself off as one of the famous Lees of Virginia. When people were unable to find any relation between her and that famous family, she switched her tactics and claimed she was from a "Maryland offshoot" of the Virginia Lees. Even to the end of her life she kept this lie going and used it to get on the Board of Regents of Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee.

The absence of any traceable background about her family due to her efforts led to the rumors that her family the Lees were really jews named Levi (which even her relatives by marriage Big and Little Edie Bouvier believed, though it wasn't true).

Pussy like a bear trap.

She apparently used to hit Jackie as a child--she had a fearful and explosive temper. Jackie and Lee hated their mother as children but feared her and even respected her--they learned from her their obsession with trying to please wealthy men.

[quote]The absence of any traceable background about her family due to her efforts led to the rumors that her family the Lees were really jews named Levi (which even her relatives by marriage Big and Little Edie Bouvier believed, though it wasn't true).

Just another day of life in bigoted America.

Wow what a face Jackie. She makes those other two women look like plain janes.

I remember reading in a Jackie biography that Hugh Auchincloss had a huge collection of pornography, some even dating back to the classical era. I remember the author suggesting it included kiddo stuff too, which creeped me out considering how Jackie's mother forced her and Lee into being very affectionate and close with their stepdad at a young age.

One of Hugh's sons was busted for kiddie porn a few years back.

That was Jamie Auchincloss, whom I knew slightly. Pretentious twit, who was banished from the family after being observed trying to get too chummy with little John-John.

Curiously, on the day of Teddy Kennedy’s death, I read on a back page in the. New York Times that Jamie had been arrested in Oregon for kiddie porn. He may still be in prison.

Just finished the new biography of these three from J. Randy Taraborelli: JACKIE, JANET and LEE. (Jackie gets top billing, of course!) Five hundred pages and I ate it up in two days. Lots of good dish and things I didn't know.

Of course, the subtitle should have been "Who's the Biggest Ubercunt?" (spoiler alert: Jackie, hands down!)

R12, I read that book, too, and came off with pretty much the same impression.

I think that monogamy and fidelity in public AND private are much more recent phenomenon.

Marriages as economic, political and social alliances were alive well into the 20th century. Men of that social bracket had women on the side for sex, but married for much more calculated reasons.

Unless it became an embarrassment, infidelities were much more tolerated when other benefits of a convenient marriage were factored in.

R3, I thought of Pamela Harriman, too. I think these women focus all their attention on pampering and flattering these men, and making themselves indispensable to their egos. They are probably savvy enough to figure out whether the men are secretly submissive or some particular fetish. Sometimes powerful men crave someone who will completely dominate them and take the weight of decision-making off them in the private domain. It’s not about their looks at all, but some psychological key they hold. Fascinating stuff.

Yikes jackie o so fug look at the distance between her eyes

Janet never comes across well in any of the books I've read about the family.

John Vernou Bouvier (Black Jack) wasn't much of a catch. The Bouviers were quite fake. But, well, so were many others. But Black Jack didn't do much with the family money and the money was NOT Robber Barron sized fortune to begin with. Then Black Jack was wiped out by the Crash. Black Jack was a shitty banker, and banking wasn't the family business anyway. He drank and the family was cash poor, and that's why Janet bolted.

Knowing the secrets. It becomes like a social war trunk everyone knows you're carrying with you.

To add to R4's contribution: Jackie too great pains to conceal her Irish ancestryvfrom the Kennedy's, at least until she'd sealed the deal. She even kept her own maternal grandmother away from her wedding, lest the ok'd woman's Irish accent be years!

Because the Kennedys may have been Irish Catholics, but they wanted to show the world that they were nothing like the other Irish Catholics. Joe thought a French Catholic wife would be the ideal match for his politically ambitious son, a way to take another step up the social ladder without actually disavowing the family religion.

R25, that's why these top-level society wives are usually terrible mothers, they're all about pleasing and flattering the wealthy husband.

I talked about this on the stabbing-nanny thread. When a man who's wealthy enough to get any woman he wants gets married, and promises to support a wife in luxury, he expects her to repay him by putting him first in all things. He expects his wife to put his ego and his needs ahead of his in, AND ahead if the children's. If he wants something he expects his wife to provide it instantly, and leave all the fussing with the children to the help.

Of course any woman who's able to attract several such husband's is going to be pretty damn ruthless about keeping the children from interfering with her marriage.

She may have been a bad mother, but I'll bet she was never On Assistance.

This fascinates me--in society, in politics, in the arts--people who keep failing upwards. I think once you arrive in certain circles, you don't really fail anymore, no matter how disastrous your career or your choices may be--you just "move on," and that means moving UP. And they all know each other, recognize each other--members of a tight-knit group with its own rules, its secret handshake. How you get into that society I'll never know, because I'm a peasant.

The Kardashians of the day. Nothing but golddiggers.

The kardashians are richer than all of their men. The name Kardashian prints money. For now at least.

She was thin and discreet.

Honestly, I'd much rather be a Kardashian. Their money is their own and they don't have to deal with all the stuffy social etiquette.

R27, I agree.

Maybe it’s to a sick degree, but that klan is entirely matriarchal. No strong-minded men allowed. I kinda dig it.

The two Edies were probably the most dignified of the bunch. Little Edie in particular never compromised her sense of self for a man - even if it meant living in gilded squalor.

I believe Little Edie failed on the debutante circuit and not by her own choices. I think she was rejected by some suitors and her family rejected others. I seem to remember she was not happy about being a spinster.

R29, I've always thought that the story of little Edie must be a cautionary tale for debutantes and gold-diggers, that they must whisper to each other about the poverty and isolation that comes down on women who aren't willing to compromise their sense of self to get a husband.

Because like I said at R21, a wealthy man damn well expects his wife to compromise her sense if self! To get a matrimonial big fish, a gal has to be willing to put her husband's needs above her own, and the children's, and to never ever let him think she's unhappy about that.

I read in a Jackie bio that rich, socially prominent men need a wife who knows how to run a wealthy household and oversee the various residences and staff and that was Janet's specialty.

Black Jack showed up so drunk at Jackie's wedding that he couldn't walk more than 3 or 4 feet without falling down. They couldn't get him sobered up so at literally the last minute Hugh Auchincloss had to step in to walk her down the aisle. Black Jack was a chronic lifelong drunk and in his later years drank alone in his Manhattan apartment. He died of liver cancer at age 66.

God lord, Jackie was just stunning!

I believe Janet was cool, not cold. And when you run in such small, tight little East Coast moneyed circles, of course Janet was able to marry other rich(er) men as she went along. It was a different time - Janet's type was considered the trophy wife, not Melania's type.

R27 and R28 The kardashians are basically what I would say are celebrity socialites. Their wealthy and lead lives of leisure and put a lot of emphasis on material things. Just as society ladies back east does. But expect their not actually apart of the society circuit. Their entertainment figures and their money comes from the world of entertainment and business. While real society figures wealth comes from either their families or their wealthy husband's. It's the same thing with Paris Hilton. She comes from a real society family. But she dosent really mix with the NYC society crowd the way her sister Nicky and her husband does. Since they now live in NYC. Paris may be a real socialite. But her money too comes from entertainment and business just as the kardashians money does. None of them have to deal with or play by the rules of etiquette of stuffy high society. So yeah, being a celebrity socialite is a whole lot better than the real thing.

She gave birth to this!

Little Edie was an individualist and highly self aware. She valued her personhood, as eccentric as it was, above all else. She was a great lady, IMO - highly self actualized. Jackie had a bit of this independent spirit as well. It came through in her self possession, poise and cool intelligence. Unfortunately. this element of her personality was overpowered by grief and anxiety. She succumbed to the “climbing” expectations of her mindless peers. Lee has always appeared adrift and vacant.

r34 = Helen Keller

Her vagina was loose as a goose. Could fit a watermelon in that hole.

The Auchinclosses were hung huge.

That's "Janet NORTON Lee Bouvier Auchincloss Morris" to you!

Lee was actually the prettier one, in my opinion. The thing with Lee is that she didn’t always photograph well, there’s definite problems with her face but once a photographer understood that she cut a very elegant figure up into her middle age.

I think that for a woman like Janet, getting married us more like landing a dream job than falling in love.

And that's why the Victorian's referred to a woman's marriage as her "career", it was expected to be her life's work and her only means of rising in the world.

I agree with you r43. I think Lee had more facial beauty than Jackie did. A lot of their contemporaries at the time thought the same.

I could serve face with the best of them.

Like many wealthy white women...lots of gaps and embellishment. All of these women claimed their only alternative to supposed poverty was marrying a wealthy man and pimping their daughters to wealthy men. The men knew this and resented it that's why these marriages were pretty unhappy.

Her kitchen appliances and countertops at Hammersmith Farm in Newport were in mid-century aqua.

The pic at op shows Lee and mom to have pinched, plain faces. Jackie has a luminosity, and a naturally curious and intelligent look, a certain je ne sais quoi....

Yes that pic on top isn’t a good one of Lee. But if you look at the one I posted at R43, Lee is clearly more beautiful where Jackie looks a little elfin.

Jackie had “it.” Like R49 said, there was a lively, intelligent quality to her eyes. Lee was more conventionally pretty but lacked Jackie’s uniqueness.

Back in my corporate days, I worked for a person whose family was very well connected, socially (East Coast), who was recently divorced. He said something about this situation, similar to that of JLBAM's good fortune, and women like her who continued to remarry well: it's not about where they came from, it's all about to whom they were married to in the past. Good looking, a plus.

All I have to say is THANK GOD the women in my family were independent and educated.

The Kartrashians and Paris Hilton are famous and wealthy for being straight up whores who made porn videos. Hardly women to look up to there.

R54 What you said is true. But they both still come from privileged backgrounds. They just grew up to be whores.

R 12 here...a couple of fun facts from the book I just finished:

- Janet wore an EVENING GOWN for dinner every day of her life until her Alzheimers began to take hold and it became impossible.

- The Polish prince that was Lee's second husband, "Stas" Radziwill, died BROKE and left her without a nickel.

- Lee was quite the fag hag: her first husband, Michael Canfield, was gay, which she knew; her third husband, Herbert Ross, was at best bisexual, although he had been married to dancer Nora Kaye for a long time. Kaye had just died when he met Lee. She also had at least a one night stand with Nureyev. AND she fucked JFK at least once!

Lee was livid when Ari chose Jackie over her. Seems Lee had an affair with him, which she'd mistakenly thought sealed the deal.

Like a number of women of her generation and milieu, she knew how to manipulate men and was of great support to men who needed a strong woman. (Raging alcoholics like Jack Bouvier don't apply.)

The Hilton's aren't very high society...they're hotel people.

And, the Kardashians are VERY nouveau riche trash.

Her secret to marrying the rich and powerful?

She had a snapper.

R59 But the Hilton's are still apart of that orbit. Kinda the same way trump and ivana and marla we're back in the 80s and 90s. As long as you have $$$$$.

Marrying these women was not about sex or even being catered to by a woman. It was about marrying the "right" wife for social reasons.

Pamela Harriman was more of a courtesan who actually was someone men wanted to marry for how she treated them and made them feel. I think Averil was quite in love with her. So I wouldn't put her in the Lee category at all.

^^^ Sorry I didn't mean Lee. I meant Janet.

Neither girl is "a beauty" in R43, don't kid yourselves. The Cushing sisters weren't gorgeous but they were fun gals. Was Lee ever much fun. Lee looks better there.

Did Janet visit the two Edies like Jackie did?

Janet didn’t. I suppose she didn’t feel any connection to the relatives of her ex husband, after all what was in it for her?

Lee was pretty involved in the clean up as she was living in Montauk at the time. Jackie continued to support BE and LE after the clean up, sending boxes of clothing and food and also sending money. One of my former Grey Gardens friends on Facebook says Jackie sent them $400 a month. If true, that’s a respectable amount of money for the mid 70s.

Little Edie wasn’t fond of Jackie or Lee.

I don't believe Jackie had any contact with Big Edie or Little Edie for quite a few years, and then they were in the news because of their horrid living conditions. Jackie was pretty much embarrassed into helping them.

[quote]The Kartrashians and Paris Hilton are famous and wealthy for being straight up whores who made porn videos. Hardly women to look up to there.

True, but they make and control their own money. And, let's face it. These women marrying rich men is a type of whoredom too. Just dressed up nicer.

I don’t think Jackie or Lee would have lifted a finger, except that Ari was embarrassed that his name was associated with such a mess. It was becoming an international scandal.

R69 It became international news? Really? I wasn't born until the late eighties so I don't have a clue as to how big of a deal grey gardens was. But I could definitely believe it since Jackie was a former American first lady.

R68 Jackie, Lee, and Janet all wanted to kind of wealth Paris and Kim possesse. But they could only attain it through their husbands.

Did she do anal?

Cold, non-maternal, calculating, used their children for their own ambitions - all qualities of both Rose Kennedy and Janet Auchincloss. It was one of the few things that Jack and Jackie had in common.

$400 a month was a lot? Jackie was a fabulously wealthy woman. That was peanuts.

Janet could do this thing with ping pong balls. Learnt it in Asia. She taught Jackie and the rest is history. Apparently every First Lady must learn this skill. That’s why Melania took so long to move in, her pussy needed to be tightened up.

R74 they mean back in the 70s. I don't know I wasn't born yet.

Jackie was an odd duck, always terrified of being left poor and forgotten.

She was an excellent mother and kept John and Caroline as far away from the Kennedy crowd as was possible. Eunice Shriver did the same. I grew up summers in Hyannisport and will be returning there shortly.

Jackie never visited the Beals, that was Lee. Jackie sent money, that is true, but it was Lee who set the original Grey Gardens into motion. She, Lee, was looking to make a film about herself but once the filmmakers met Big and little E, things took a very different direction.

Thank God.

The mother looks cuntish.

RE: Jackie and Lee & the Edies

If I recall correctly, both Edies were more or less left to their own devices by the Bouviers (including their sons/brothers). Phelan Beale did provide support after they separated but I’m nearly sure that ended once he got his “fake Mexican divorce”. Big Edie did have a trust fund from her father, but it was very small (he reduced it after he felt Big Edie embarrassed herself, the family, and her son at the latter’s wedding), realizing only a couple of hundred a month.

Oddly, the Edies did manage to keep up the place -more or less- and were still social in EH until a robbery in the late 60’s after which they became recluses. This was when the house feel apart, they fell behind in taxes, and retreated to living in 3 of the house’s 28 rooms.

When the place was raided and it made the news because of who they were, where they lived, and who they were related to, the whole family was mortified. The Beale brothers paid the fines and back taxes, while Jackie and Lee paid to repair the roof, plumbing, electrical, as well as paying to cart off tons of refuse. While a shell of its former glory, it was up to code and habitable.

Lee was trying to make a documentary about her and Jackie’s childhood in East Hampton (ie; monetizing their relationship) with the Maysles brothers, and the Edies were the only Bouviers left in town from those days, so she brought them over to interview them. The Maysles saw the potential, dropped Lee and her idea, and we were all gifted with “Grey Gardens”. IIRC, Lee did confiscate all the footage already filmed once they dropped her. I seem to remember, though I may be wrong, that the Edies agreed to do the documentary because the Beale boys were really pressuring mother and sister to sell the house, and they thought the money from the documentary would set them straight and save the place.

When Little Edie eventually sold the place, (to Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee), in ‘79 she did write into the contract they could not tear down the house. Little Edie got something like $250K for the place then; when Sally sold in 2017, she got $16M.

Lee is a plain Jane. It's not like she has good bones that could be tweaked. Like a minor nose job on some people. It's Lee's skull. Even a Korean plastic surgeon couldn't help. Her eye orbits are so far apart. There's nothing remarkable about any of her features. Her eye color is drab as well.

She was both a cunt and smart to get that Princess title for awhile. It gave her some cachet. I believe she would have been forgotten had she not solidified her jet set credentials.

The original Beales footage that Lee halted is being released. See link below.

As for Jackie visiting GG in horror, that was made up for the movie.

The trust that Big Edie depended on to survive had run out by the 60s, which is how things accelerated into decline. They couldn’t afford trash collection so they just filled rooms up with garbage. I guess they weren’t really hoarders though, they just didn’t have a way of getting rid of the junk. After Big Edie died things changed for Little Edie. As far as I have ever read, she didn’t live in filth in any of her other residences post Grey Gardens. In fact, after BE died LE enjoyed a happy life in NYC for a few years (her dream) and then Florida where she swam in the ocean daily. She didn’t want to be buried next to her mother, so I think she’s buried next to her aunts or her brothers.

There is no excuse for being filthy, I don't care how poor you are, you can still clean and find a way to get rid of trash. Even if you can't get rid of it immediately, ffs, get rid of it at some point.

Edie Beale was quite a beauty in her youth.

R81 The fact that Lee was a jet setting socialite is what makes her so interesting to me. Especially during those years. It kinda makes me think of Slim Aarons.

R82 That's cool I've never seen anything with Lee and the Beales. Should be interesting.

I agree R83. But I think most of the blame is on Big Edie. Little Edie made it very clear to anyone who would listen that she felt like a prisoner there. And it was LE who looked presentable, even if her outfits were bizarre. Big Edie looked filthy, the Maysles even caught some of the details on film like the bugs in her hair and the cat shit on her slippers, and the filthy mattress she slept on. Little Edie’s side of the room was tidy.

I'll never forget Jackie's hideous "Phantom of the Opera" grin all through Ma Mère Janet's obsequies.

By then she had lost all remnants of natural human emotion. She was just fine when it came to business - too fine - but anything personal elicited an absolute freak show.

Lee lost the ability to use ‘princess’ as any part of her name when she remarried. After she divorced Prince Radziwill, even though she lost her HSH she could still be called Lee, Princess Radziwill. This is the accepted style for divorced titled women. Like Sarah, Duchess of York or Diana, Princess of Wales. But once they remarry they lose that forever.

From what I understand though, if someone calls her princess, Lee doesn’t correct them. And it gets her a table at her favorite restaurant in Paris.

I'd like to see Lee and Carole Radziwill on WWHL together.

Interesting, inexplicable coincidence... Janet had been the lover of George de Mohrenschildt who became a patron of Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, helping him and his wife out.

[quote] [R74] they mean back in the 70s. I don't know I wasn't born yet

I know they meant back in the 70s and I was alive then and that was a paltry sum coming from someone with Jackie O level money.

Grey Gardens had already been cleaned up when the documentary was made, though you'd never know it. I've read about what the house was like before the cleanup and it was absolutely disgusting. Literal garbage strewn everywhere, and literal shit on the floors.

Little Edie and Lee

R87 come the fuck on.

Can you imagine what this thread would read like if these women were never rich, or if they were minorities?

What is your point? I don't follow.

There’s some crazy Grey Gardens fan groups on Facebook. Most of them have members who stalwartly swear that the media descriptions of the house prior to the clean-up was all blown out of proportion. The board of health in Suffolk county described human feces inside the house, no water, no gas, no electricity, no phone. The Grey Gardner’s say OF COURSE they had working toilets and of course they had heat! Jackie helped them! Lies. Jackie helped them only when the situation embrassed her and Ari. They’re also currently kissing the ass of this guy Jerry Torre who is seen in the Maysles documentary as a teenager hanging around the house with no purpose. He spent a few weeks there and never returned, but now has a book out describing it in floral terms about how much he loved Big Edie.

If Gore Vidal can be believed, Lee was under the impression that she would have a sexless marriage with Auchicloss, but he wanted something different, although apparently was not a great lover. She probably made it clear to Lee and Jackie that sex should be the last thing should want or expect in marriage--mercenary, but also quite pragmatic and it made it easy to ignore indescretions.

R95, can you please correct your preoccupation with race?

R92 Jackie only received a $26 million dollar settlement from the Onasiss estate. How much more was she supposed to give. $400 bucks in the 70s from what I've always heard was pretty generous. It's not like she had $1 billion dollars in the bank. But I do see you're point.

I pick my nose.

I don't think Jackie owed the Eddies anything really. It's pretty common to lose track of cousins after you move away and get married and get your own life going. BE and LEs siblings, kids, exes should have been paying more attention. It was nice of Jackie to send them $400 a month. Once the house was repaired and the taxes paid, that was plenty to pay the utilities and food. She didn't owe them a lifestyle equal to her own. BE was mentally ill and she dragged LE into it with her. That's not Jackie's or Lee's fault.

Agree that Jackie didn't owe her cousins anything, she had no legal obligation to support them, but giving them enough to live on and to get Big Edie proper care in her last days was decent of her.

She later gave Little Edie enough to live comfortably on the Florida waterfront, but only after Edie made a spectacle of herself in NYC - putting on freak show night club acts. It's not clear if Edie was trying to embarrass her cousin into giving her more money or just doing what she wanted to do, but either way I think it ended well. Jackie gave away money she didn't miss, and Edie lived quietly and apparently happily.

[quote]Can you imagine what this thread would read like if these women were never rich, or if they were minorities?

No, not really. Beautiful minds and all of that.

The Beales were Jackie's extended family, and not everyone is close with their extended relatives. I have a few cousins I haven't seen in YEARS, as I'm sure everybody else on DL has. I have no idea what their houses look like. If a cousin of mine I haven't seen in a long time were living in a hoarded house, I would be just as shocked as everybody else.

R97, you meant "florid," not "floral."

Yes, florid. Hehe sorry

No r99 I can't.

My man is latino, and until the day he and other minorities don't have to get shit on for their color and held accountable for the actions of everyone on the planet who looks like them, I will remain preoccupied.

A lady in the streets and a whore between the sheets.

R95 = bean chaser