Forever jackie

By Dominick Dunne

Vanity Fair July 1994

Of course, she always seemed remote, aloof, private in the extreme, and unattainable, yet people, even people who had never met her, called her Jackie when they talked about her, because she was a part of the personal history of every American...

She was simply who she was, part of the fabric of American culture. In grand circles, the word «class» is considered a bad-taste word, but class is really the key word to describe her. Style, chic, and other such attributes are acquirable; class is not. Either you have it or you don't. Jackie had it in spades...

Although Jackie conformed to the principles of her husband's extraordinary family, she was never assimilated into it as one of them. She held herself separate, refusing to lose her identity...

She was far too young for the life of perpetual widowhood and sainthood that the public demanded of her. She went through a period of disfavor when she married Aristotle Onassis, an unattractive but engaging and immensely rich man, more notorious than famous, whose penchant for gross extravagance and unfortunate public behavior sullied and stained her goddesslike statue for the few years they were together. She was portrayed as money-mad, jewelry-mad, a world-class shopper. Even her most devoted friends were aghast at her choice and acknowledge that the marriage was a mistake...

Following her second widowhood, she did not retreat into the social life of New York. On the rare occasions — several times a year — when she appeared at social functions, she always caused a hush when she entered a room. Even the most sophisticated people turned and stared at her. No one was ever so used to her that her arrival or departure went unnoticed...

She became a respected editor, first at Viking and later at Doubleday. She was meticulous and thorough in her editorial notes on manuscripts.

Stephen Rubin, the president and publisher of Doubleday, said, «She had an uncanny knack for picking great projects and a delight in bringing them to fruition. But that only scratched the surface of her here. She was caring and loving and perceptive with her co-workers. She had an extraordinary relationship with the staff, who are devastated by her death»...

She considered Caroline and John to be the great accomplishments of her life, and they have responded by becoming ideals for the young of their generation at a time when so many young people have slipped into drugs and decadence. Each has grown to represent a different side of their mother: Caroline has her mother's strength, intelligence, and sense of privacy; John has inherited her star quality and her ability to dazzle in public life...

Bully boy

The pleasure of working with

Hollywood's icon of excess, The late Don Simpson

By John Gregory Dunne

The New Yorker, Feb. 5, 1996

...Before our next meeting, we did some checking on Simpson and Bruckheimer, as we always do when dealing with people we don't know. They were bully boys, especially Simpson, and made no bones about it. In general, we prefer to do business with bully boys rather than with the smoothies If you let them know you will yell back when they yell at you, they tend either to listen or to fire you quickly; the smoothies just smile as they measure your rib cage for the ribs between which they will slip the stiletto... Whatever his weaknesses, and perhaps because of those weaknesses, Don Simpson was invigorating to work with. He was smart. He was funny. He was outrageous. He was straight. If he did not like something, there was no shilly-shally; he hit you right between the eyes with it. O.K., he would say, let's fix it. Here's how I think we should do it. Let's get it on. What the great producers do is make you enthusiastic, by the sheer force of their personalities, about the most ludicrous ideas — in our case, the possibility of U.F.O.s.