John Kennedy Jr.(1960-1999)
- Actor
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, in
Washington, DC, to John Fitzgerald Kennedy (President-to-be
John F. Kennedy) and Jacqueline Lee
Bouvier Kennedy
(Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). Three
weeks before his birth, his father was elected President of the United
States, and the nation loved little John. The press dubbed him
"John-John", but his family called him John. Even as a toddler, he
loved to fly. On his third birthday, his father was buried, and he was
photographed giving his father's casket a salute in a photo and video
seen around the world. About a month later, they moved out of the White
House and into a 15-room apartment overlooking Central Park in New York
City. He went to private schools. When he was six, his uncle
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated
while running for president. He had been a father figure to John and
his sister, Caroline Kennedy, a
fact that Ethel Kennedy -- who had
nine children with RFK -- did not like. That same year, Jackie
married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Socrates (Ari) Onasis
(Aristotle Onassis). He virtually
played no part in John's life because John hardly saw him. Ari died in
1975. John went on to high school and then decided to go to Brown
University in Rhode Island. He graduated and, after his mother said no
to his becoming an actor, went to law school and became an assistant
District Attorney. In 1994, Jackie died of non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma. In 1996, John married
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy on an
island off Georgia. She was very shy, and that did not bode well
because they were constantly being photographed. On July 16th, 1999,
Carolyn and her sister Lauren, with John as pilot, took off in his
plane for Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, to drop Lauren off, with
John and Carolyn continuing onward to the Kennedy Compound for the
wedding of his cousin Rory Kennedy
(Robert's youngest daughter, born after RFK's death). It was foggy, and
several miles off Martha's Vineyard, the plane crashed, killing all
three of them. The bodies of the women were found near the wreckage,
but John's body was found in the pilot's seat.
