Remembering two of the greats

Monsoon time, West 85th Street. 6:50 PM. Photo: JH.

July 28, 2009. Yesterday was hot and muggy. In the late afternoon after much clouding up, there came a monsoon-like rain that lasted for about a half hour. It brought with it some cooler air. Then the clouds rolled away, the sun came out and the street was fresh and clean. I happen to love this weather; it perfectly describes the state of things in this world of ours right now.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was born on this day eighty years ago. I never knew or met Mrs. Onassis, and saw her in the flesh only twice. She was always my idea of a goodlooking woman from the earliest times she was on the national scene.

My most memorable sighting of her was on Madison Avenue in the low 80s one weekday late afternoon in the last 1970s. It was chilly mid- autumn. I happened to notice this woman wearing a belted trenchcoat, black stockings and flats, moving quickly through the crowd across the avenue. A long stride, she had; and well-shaped muscular calves. The sidewalk was busy, so she was dashing in and out to move ahead of the crowd.

At 83rd Street, she dashed and jumped like a thoroughbred, just ahead of traffic, across the avenue from west to east, and then disappeared down toward Park Avenue. It was the energy that was so alluring; the gait, which was wide and brisk. So when I realized whom I was watching, it was an even greater pleasure.


	Jackie dealing with the lensman outside her apartment door at 1040 Fifth Avenue in 1975.

I’ve known several people in my life who knew her well. Or, I should say, spent a lot of time in her company over the years. One friend knew her from her earliest days with Jack Kennedy right up through the days with Aristotle Onassis and the Christina.

This friend, who was more than her social peer, did not like her. She said she was mean (stingy) with money and always looking for someone else to pick up the check. This friend also imitated her “little” voice in a way that was not flattering. I don’t doubt the veracity of my friend’s take on her. And I don’t doubt that maybe my friend was a tad jealous of Jackie for reasons unknown to me. It was also true that Jackie was famous among others for not picking up the bill, as well as being famous for liking rich people who did, including her last husband. She was also shrewd.

I have another friend who knew her from the time she entered publishing. Also a woman. Their friendship began on mutual professional grounds and over time blossomed into a friendship in which Jackie would share some of her thoughts and memories with this friend. My friend would go up to 1040 Fifth for dinner, just the two of them, and Jackie would talk about her life for five hours. It should also be noted that this particular mutual friend is a very discreet and trustworthy individual. I would no more expect her to break Jackie’s confidence (even in memoriam) than I would expect her to break mine. I don’t doubt Jackie had the perception to know this.

As a historical figure, she was clever and even prescient. She claimed, in interviews anyway, to be interested in historical figures, especially those in the Court of Versailles in the 18th century. In many ways, it seemed to me, she resembled many aspects of court life, including creating a court of her own. It also could be that her historical notions were highly romantic and fit in well with the popular notions but had little basis in reality.

Fate handed her a role: the widow of a fallen martyr. She played that role with finesse, style, and humanity; an amazing feat. She got kudos for being a good mother to the aggrieved man’s children. True or not, no one questioned her intense interest in her children’s welfare. She demonstrated truly regal stature to her world.

She dreamed up the idea of “Camelot” after her husband’s death, and it created a beautiful dream to frame a tragedy. That was brilliance, and leadership, on her part. She also knew when to stop. No public interviews with Jackie. A big smile, even a lawsuit to chase away the nuisances of publicity maybe, but always standing tall. And moving quickly like the thoroughbred that she was.

She was a master at public relations, and what was remarkable about her accomplishments in that department was that she produced a Good Effect. We do not remember John F. Kennedy in a morbid way but instead as a dream that was dashed with hopes lost; a man of his people.

At the very end of her days, I was told by another friend who knew her well, she burned many of the letters that she’d received and saved over the years. She sat before a blazing fire, with this particular friend at her side, and threw bundles of envelopes tied up in ribbon into it, erasing history.


Jacqueline Kennedy at an 'April in Paris' ball. (c.1959). Photo by Slim Aarons.

I heard that story as a contradiction of the terms by which the lady identified herself. If she had such a reverence for history, then why would she obliterate evidence which involved her? It was speculated that among those souvenirs going up in flame were messages from men – some famous -- with whom she’d had an intimate relationship. Mere mortal was she, never realizing, as it is with the rest of us, that once it’s over, for us it’s over. She didn’t know it didn’t matter.

After the assassination of John Kennedy in Dallas, for the rest of her life, Jackie encountered or was stopped by people who would say to her, evidently in expression of sympathy, “I remember where I was when the President was shot.”

What these people never seemed to realize, Jackie told a friend of mine, was that she too remembered where she was when the President was shot.

My friend asked her how she dealt with those moments. She said that she trained herself so that a “steel door” came down and separated her from the thought and the voices expressing them.

Oftentimes public personalities are quite different in private moments, and it is all privately revealed in the gossip of the day. Usually the revelation is that the person is a “bitch,” or a “monster,” or a “phony” or has some other glaring (and unattractive) weakness. Something along those lines. Somehow Jackie eluded that kind of talk.

There were others who agreed with my friend that she was “cheap” when it came to spending a buck. Greed and venality is a decisive aspect of possessed wealth. There is and there was no doubt that she went for the money when making decisions about her future. Others still might have a laugh over her breathless little Marilyn Monroe voice (which at her dinner table was less breathless, ahem).

And it was true, that at the end of her life, she was living with a man who had a wife from whom he was not divorced who lived less than a mile away at the crow flies. They lived publicly in full view of the world and so great was the public respect for her, nothing was ever said either in print or in gossip about it.

After that moment in Dallas, the public allowed the woman to do as she wished. And she allowed the public to view it all publicly, and with dignity, and self-respect. To think of her is to miss her.

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The great Merce Cunningham died this past Sunday at age 90. I’d only become familiar with him in the years that I’ve been covering this beat. So I didn’t know him although I was in his company a number of times. He was such a remarkable looking character – he looked like a wizard, a wizard of the arts, a cultural hero. He looked like an artist, a choreographer, a philosopher. One of the great things about New York life is you see these people (like Jackie Onassis also) who are larger than life and yet right there before you on the ground, on the street, at the table.

My friend Patsy Tarr really introduced me to him by inviting me to watch his work. So modern that I had thought of it as even old, I was surprised that the audience was mainly twenty-something men and women. When I remarked on that to Patsy, she explained that this particular audience was Merce’s biggest following. “Because they just naturally get it,” she said. That was a glimpse for me into the nature of genius.

Curtain Call at BAM for the opening night of Merce Cunningham's “Nearly Ninety."

When I heard that Merce had died, we asked Patsy who knew him well and was often in his company, if she’d write a few words that came to mind for her about him. This is what she wrote:

Merce. We all called him that for decades whether we knew him well or not. Never Mr. Cunningham. Just Merce. Because we all felt we were part of his community. Knowing he was working down on Bethune Street made living in New York a much richer experience than it would have been without him. It was so reassuring knowing he was in the studio employing radical ideas and metaphysical concepts to create beautiful dances. It gave you something to believe in.

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company performs at Dia:Beacon Spring 2008 Benefit.

The Merce Cunningham Dance Company's Ashley Chen, Cheryl Therrien, Cedric Andrieux, Derry Swan, Jonah Bokaer, Jeannie Steele, Daniel Roberts, and Jennifer Goggans.

Merce was a Modern Dance Pioneer and though it seems like no big deal now, when he split the unity of dance and music, insisting they exist independently of each other, it was revolutionary. His thinking was that dance was equal in importance to music and thus he didn’t want his choreography to have to follow the beats or structure of a given score.

And then there was the role of Chance Procedures. Merce collaborated with painters, designers and musicians, most very famous. But everyone worked independently of each other and the result was seen, often for the first time, at the premiere of the work. Consulting the I Ching and rolling dice to establish the order of phrases in a dance as well as the order of the collaborative elements, music, costumes and décor, was a unique Cunningham signature.

Robert Rauschenberg, John Russell, Rosamund Bernier, and Merce Cunningham have a laugh.

For as long as I can remember the dancers in the Company have been extraordinary. They all seem very tall and they all have amazing feet. In many cases when pointed, their feet resemble claws. As the choreography dictates they are often required to stand on one leg with the other reaching skyward for an inordinately long period of time. And stand they do in that position as though their lives depend on it. All the choreography has that air about it: Purposeful, important. Ravishing.

Much will be written about Merce. There is so much to write. For now I will remember his unwavering integrity as an artist. His sincere interest in process as opposed to product. His exemplary manners and little witticisms. He was the choreographer’s choreographer. He remains a daily inspiration.

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