Jackie Kennedy, history rather than legend
John F. Kennedy's wife sought to inscribe her husband in the line of great American presidents.
Jackie Kennedy was not a heroine for young girls, nor a magazine icon.
"She had an enormous personality," says Frédéric Lecomte-Dieu, biographer *, lecturer, curator of exhibitions on the Kennedy family. He appreciated Pablo Larrain's film, and Natalie Portman's exceptional performance.
"Jackie had an innate sense of history," he says. She was less interested in building a legend, in the Hollywood sense of the word, than in inscribing her husband in the line of great American presidents. "My husband adored Abraham Lincoln. I want him to be buried like him," she said the day after JFK's assassination. It was she who chose the Arlington military cemetery," notes Lecomte-Dieu. It was also she who decided to follow the coffin on foot, against the advice of her entourage: "We did it for George Washington, we'll do it for him," she said.
