John Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette, their lives and their love in a definitive book that certifies their essence: they were and will remain eternally two icons
“Since we were little girls in the ’90s we have been fascinated by John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette who we saw photographed in magazines. When they disappeared it was a real shock and the desire to get to know them better has always been great.” This is what Ursula Beretta and Maria Vittoria Melchioni responded to me when I asked them to explain the greatest motivation that led them to write John Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette – Two immortal iconsor the definitive book (published in June by Minerva) on the symbolic couple of the 90s.
John Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette
The two authors have read everything that has been written about them, mainly in the United States, following the numerous accounts created in their memory. They soon realized that their charm and theirs is intact, as if they had never left. “In addition to wanting to honor their memory in the year in which the 25th anniversary of their tragic death falls, we decided to bring order to the sea of rumors that surrounded them for restore the complexity of two people in love, who lived their time, who, despite the cumbersome aegis of the Kennedy surname they bore, were essentially a man and a woman who loved each other”.
John Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette. Two immortal icons
And the book, which is receiving very positive feedback, proved them right. We are faced with a complete, definitive work on John and Carolyn, who are told here, one after the other, through their biographies. A structure that seems to be the same effective as a biopic screenplay: “It would be fantastic if we had made some production company want to make a film about them that doesn’t involve gossip, but delves into the complex psychology of these two human beings.” And (I ask) who could play them?: “Matt Bomer, perhaps Austin Butler could be a credible John while Carolyn could be played by Jennifer Lawrence and the super top Anja Rubik” they answer me.
Then, following the same pattern as the book, I began my interview, starting with Maria Vittoria Melchioni, who handled the part of John Kennedy Jr, and then moving on to Ursula Beretta who instead handled the life of Carolyn Bessette.
John Kennedy Jr – Interview with Maria Vittoria Melchioni
John John, the President’s son. If you’re a Kennedy, forget about privacy. From law to publishing, trying to prove himself, to the secret marriage with Carolyn, away from everyone. How can we describe the relationship between John Kennedy Jr. and his being “public”, and therefore “everyone’s”? How this condition – inherited from the greatness of his surname – determined his life, his emotions, his dreams.
All his life he had to deal with the idealized image that America had of him, but of him as a child. For everyone, even though he was now a man, he still remained the three-year-old who saluted his tragically murdered father, bringing with him an unwanted sense of protection: it was as if he were a national treasure to be preserved. But he was also the son of Jackie, a skilled manipulator of the press; therefore, he knew how to interact perfectly with the paparazzi although sometimes their intrusiveness made him lose his patience. Throughout his short existence he wanted to demonstrate that he was capable of doing something “alone”, like John and not like Kennedy. He succeeded with his magazine George and with the charitable foundations that are still active today. The premature death left in the imagination of the Americans that sense of incompleteness that they had already felt with the death of their father JFK, depriving them of a joy that they were about to savor again: seeing Kennedy again in the White House to revive the glories of that which, in the 1960s, they had identified as Camelot.
