Lee: She tried
She was the pretty sister. Could’ve been a model if her mother didn’t look down on them. She was the stylish sister who wore bell-bottoms at Montauk and knew a real lady never wore white shoes after Labor Day, but it’s a must after Memorial Day. She grew up in an era where you had children, nannies raised your children, you were referred by your husband’s surname (in newspapers she was referred to as “Mrs. Canfield” or “Princess Lee Radziwill”) you were one of the ladies who lunched, and always always makes the man in your life look like a star. But she also had an older sister that was raised in the same era, played by the rules. Then Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis broke the rules, one by one. Lee followed suit.
Caroline Lee Bouvier was born on March 3, 1933. She never went by her given first name (her niece Caroline was named after her in 1957) but went by her and her mother’s middle name, Lee. Lee grew up with Jackie in Virginia, then they both went to Miss Porter’s, a fancy boarding school in Connecticut. She wasn’t into academics. No, she loved fashion. She loved clothes. So she worked as an assistant for Diana Vreeland on Harper’s Bazaar. Then she and Jackie went to Europe (which was documented in a book they wrote together called One Special Summer) She married Michael Canfield, later divorced him. She then married Prince StanisławRadziwiłł (known by his nickname Stash), and they had two children: Anthony and Christina. Jackie’s children were close in age, so often the children were pictured playing while the women smoked, laughed and talked.
When Lee’s brother in law John F. Kennedy was elected President, Lee found herself a constant visitor to the White House. She joined her sister on several trips, including one to India where they took a ride on an elephant. When JFK died, she flew from London to be by her sister’s side. However, the close relationship started to show fissures.
It could’ve started when they were young, and Jackie was known as the “smart sister.” Or the fact their father adored his “Jacks” but not much is known about his relationship with Lee.
Lee became exasperated with her grieving sister, once complaining to her friend Cecil Benton (according to the April 2016 Vanity Fair) “She’s more than half round the bend! She can’t sleep at night, she can’t stop thinking about herself and never feeling anything but sorry for herself!” Yeah, when your husband has been shot in front of you, and you could’ve been killed as well, you might feel sorry for yourself too. Lee probably didn’t endear herself to Jackie when in 1975 she told Gloria Steinem: “It (the White House era) was so limited, so … jet-set, empty, cold, and not true.” Lee decided it was time to take risks in her life.
She made friends with Truman Capote, who told her she should try acting. She made her debut in the play The Philadelphia Story, then did a TV movie remake of the classic film Laura. She also started an interior design firm. Mostly though, she was known for being friends with the rich and famous, be it Capote, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mick Jagger.
When Lee Radziwill died today at age eighty-five, many took note of her fraught relationship with his sister. But they also concentrated on her failures: how she received terrible reviews for both Philadelphia Story and Laura, how she tried to start a talk show but that too didn’t work out, the interior design firm that didn’t last long, the books not written, how her three marriages failed, how Jackie didn’t leave her anything in her will. All I could think was when I die, I hope not all my failures will be documented in my obituary.
I’m not sure if I’d be friends with Lee when she was alive. I don’t know how her relationship was with her sister when Jackie died, or with her son with Anthony was when he died in 1999, just days after John Kennedy Junior was killed in a plane crash. What do I know is this: why can’t we give Lee credit for at least trying? In self-help books, they always tell us to fail. They often use the Samuel Beckett quote: “Fail fail again fail better.” Why can’t we give Lee credit for trying instead of failing? Okay, she didn’t become a great actress. Big deal. Or an interior designer. But she tried.
So instead of being remembered as Lee Radziwill former princess and sister to Jackie Onassis, sister in law to JFK, and mother in law to Carole Radziwill, maybe we should just remember her like this:
Lee Radzwill. She tried. And she lived.
