With just a single photo released from their wedding day, much of the relationship between John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette remains shrouded in romanticized legend: the courtship between the fashion publicist and the scion of an already much-mythologized family, the private nuptials and, just three years later, their deaths in a tragic plane crash.
The new FX and Hulu series premiering Thursday, “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette,” attempts to fill in the gaps and chronicle their life together. It details a meet cute at a party and culminates in the deaths of the couple and Bessette’s sister Lauren Bessette on July 16, 1999, when a small plane piloted by Kennedy crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy’s nephew, spoke out against the series last year, saying it was profiting off his family “in a grotesque way” accusing executive producer Ryan Murphy of “making millions” off Kennedy’s legacy. Murphy retaliated on California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s podcast, saying it was an “odd choice to be mad about your relative that you really don’t remember.” Schlossberg, now running for Congress in New York, took to social media to share memories of his uncle.
Murphy was absent from the recent press circuit for “Love Story,” but executive producer Brad Simpson — a veteran of Murphy’s based-on-a-true-story “American Crime Story” projects — told The Associated Press that the creative team is “fully aware that there are real people and real tragedies often at the heart of these stories.”
“I’m not going to pretend like on some level we’re not making an entertainment product out of it, but we’ve tried to be ethical and we’ve tried to be incredibly sincere,” Simpson said.
Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon, who portray Kennedy and Bessette in the series, say they took care in playing the couple, but do respect Schlossberg’s opinion.
“I don’t know what it’s like to have a TV show or a movie or a book written about my family, and I understand his sensitivities, and I fully support him speaking his mind,” Pidgeon said.
Added Kelly: “We tried to have as much integrity and love going into this and retelling that I hope that people see that.”
The series is based on the book “Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy” by Elizabeth Beller. Episodes detail Bessette’s ambition, rising through the ranks of Calvin Klein, to Kennedy’s struggles keeping George magazine afloat.
We see Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy and Naomi Watts as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, nearing the end of her life and disapproving of both the magazine and Kennedy’s on-again, off-again relationship with Daryl Hannah (Dree Hemingway). As the series tells it, Kennedy and Bessette had a magical first date that went nowhere for years because, shortly after, the tabloids reported he was back together with Hannah.
Pidgeon admits she worried the project would be more salacious than sincere, but quickly realized that wasn’t the case.
“I felt a fear that we were going to sensationalize this. And then as I got on board the project that could not be, in my experience, further from the truth.”
The show’s creator, Connor Hines, is adamant that it’s “extensively researched.”
“We obviously had Elizabeth’s book, but I read every single newspaper article that was written about them, every tell-all,” said Hines. “Obviously, all of that material has to be taken with a grain of salt, and you have to be very judicious in terms of how you extract some of this information, because people have their own memories, people have their own slights, but we were exhaustive and diligent in how we approached this and I think that will ring true when people watch it.”
“Love Story” isn’t the first show about the Kennedy family that has faced criticism. In 2011, The History Channel dropped a miniseries starring Greg Kinnear as President John F. Kennedy and Katie Holmes as Jacqueline Kennedy, saying the finished project didn’t fit the network’s brand after Kennedy associates complained about script inaccuracies. “The Kennedys” ended up airing on Reelz Channel.
And it’s not the only show about the Kennedy family coming soon: Netflix has announced its making “Kennedy,” a series focused on the political dynasty’s origins and based on Fredrik Logevall’s “JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956.” Michael Fassbender will play Joe Kennedy Sr., the family patriarch.
