Style Icons: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, Pam Courson (Love Her Madly)

 

Most people would jump at the chance to spend any time at all at the Kennedy compound with one of America’s most prominent families. But Carolyn Bessette was not like most people. According to The Kennedy Heirs by J. Randy Taraborrelli, John F. Kennedy Jr.’s wife resisted visiting his relatives in Hyannis Port often when the topic was broached. Taraborrelli described Bessette’s reluctance to visit the compound and Kennedy’s insistence that she do so as the “recurring argument” the couple “just couldn’t seem to settle no matter how many times they tried.” Part of the reason Bessette objected to these visits was because she didn’t feel that she fit in with the athletic Kennedy crew. But perhaps the more pressing reason she wanted to avoid the Cape compound was to avoid the paparazzi. Bessette and Kennedy were hounded by the photographers almost constantly, and Carolyn was deeply affected by the invasion of privacy. Though at first she thought the Kennedy compound was a hideaway from the media, she changed her mind after seeing a photographer shoot her from the pier one day. “Now she felt she had to put on an act for public consumption, which added a new level of angst to going to the compound,” Taraborrelli wrote. “She was taking antidepressant pills just to get through it, she confided in her friends.” 

And John wasn’t always understanding of Carolyn’s objections. According to Taraborrelli, Kennedy once brought up their recurring disagreement at dinner with friends, telling her, “Fine. Don’t come with me, hell if I care.” When she began to cry, he told her, “You’re crying because you don’t want to have fun on the beach with my family? I don’t understand you, Carolyn.” He thought she’d at least appeared to be having a good time during their family trips. Other friends think another reason was the resistance of Carolyn to accept the future role in politics his husband would have adopted at last. The most improbable source of their rows was romantic jealousy - although some not very credible acquaintances insisted Carolyn was very jealous of John's former girlfriend Julie Baker, whom she forbade of visiting their apartment. In fairness, Baker had been disrespectful when she was seen sitting one evening on John's lap in a quite inappropriate way. Longtime friends Sasha Chermayeff and Santina Goodman found Julie Baker's behaviour rude. On the other hand, the mere mention of Michael Bergin's name could unearth intense rage from John, according to these same anonymous friends. Source: www.instyle.com

John Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette were married at a Baptist church illuminated by candlelights, so dim inside that the Reverend Charles J. O’Byrne of Manhattan’s Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, where Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s funeral was held, had to read the service by flashlight. John’s cousin and closest friend, Anthony Radziwill, served as best man (as John had served as best man at Anthony’s wedding to Carole Ann Radziwill), and at the end of the ceremony John turned to Anthony to tell him that he had never been happier in his life. The man who could have had many women of high caliber had chosen as his bride one who was not rich or famous or ennobled by family background or particularly distinguished by any professional accomplishment. What Carolyn Bessette had were certain charismatic qualities—remarkable beauty, a unique sense of style, and a sharp intelligence. The media played the marriage as a Cinderella story, casting Carolyn as the commoner who had found true love with Prince Charming. —"The Newest Kennedy, the Stylish Carolyn Bessette" (September 29, 1996) by Elisabeth Bumiller 

In Love Her Madly, Jim Morrison, Mary, and Me, author Bill Cosgrave talks about the summer he spent hanging out with the future Lizard King a couple of years before The Doors achieved stardom. “He was so shy you would not believe it was the same guy who would romp and scream around the stage,” Cosgrave remembers. “He was a gentle, lovely human being.” The “Mary” the title of the book refers to is Mary Werbelow. “I left home when I was 15 [and] ended up in Clearwater, Florida. I was staying with some friends. Mary was three years older than me. Long story short, I couldn’t get my eyes off her,” explains Cosgrave. Fast forward a few years and Mary lures him away from college in Montreal and out to Los Angeles where she’s living with her then-fiancé. “An hour later, Jim walked in. And we became fast friends.” Soon Mary would throw Jim out of their shared Venice apartment and he ended up sleeping under the Santa Monica Pier. When he wasn’t doing that, he was hanging out with Cosgrave or another pal, Dennis C. Jakob. A couple of years go by, Bill is in Canada in the travel business, and Jim is world-famous. “Without Mary Werbelow, let’s face it, you wouldn’t have The Doors,” he says. “He wrote The End, one of his most famous songs, about his break-up with Mary. I was particularly in love with Mary. She was my dream girl,” he admits. “I spent many years trying to find her and I did find her 43 years later. In 1965, I was totally OK with our platonic relationship, because there was no other option. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t find her unbearably desirable. Jim Morrison was a welcoming, kind, and open person. He was courteous, respectful, and very polite with Mary. We clicked, we quickly bonded. I think that Jim was particularly open to me because Mary and I were good friends. After his break-up with Mary, he had met a wild child named Pam Courson. I know the official version of Jim's death is he died of a heart attack. But there are many theories for how he ended up in that bathtub. One theory is that he mistook Pamela’s heroin for cocaine, and that the heroin killed him." Source: www.forewordreviews.com 

Once Pam Courson and I left Jim Morrison and his ex-girlfriend Mary Werbelow alone for awhile, and Pam said something I will never forget: “I feel sorry for Mary.” I knew it meant she was not threatened by the emergence of Mary. I knew that something had long been settled between her and Jim. Their relationship was deeper than either one of them had ever had before. I’d begun to suspect that something had been settled between the two of them – something unbreakable except by death itself. —"Summer with Morrison: The Early Life and Times of James Douglas Morrison, A Memoir" (2011) by Dennis C. Jakob