Lee Radziwill

{{Infobox person

| image = Lee Bouvier Radziwill, 1974.jpg

| caption = Radziwill in 1974

| birth_name = Caroline Lee Bouvier

| birth_date = {{birth date|1933|3|3}}

| birth_place = New York City, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2019|2|15|1933|3|3}}

| death_place = New York City, U.S.

| burial_place = Most Holy Trinity Catholic Cemetery

| occupation = {{hlist|Public relations executive|Interior decorator}}

| education = Chapin School
Potomac School
Miss Porter's School

| alma_mater = Sarah Lawrence College (B.A.)

| family = Bouvier family

| party = Democratic

| spouse = {{ubl|

{{marriage|Michael Temple Canfield|1953|1958|reason=divorce}}
{{marriage|Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł|1959|1974|reason=divorce}}
{{marriage|Herbert Ross|1988|2001|reason=divorce}}

}}

| children = {{ubl|Prince Anthony Stanisław Albert Radziwiłł|Princess Anna Christina Radziwiłł}}

| parents = {{ubl|John Vernou Bouvier III|Janet Norton Lee}}

}}

Caroline Lee Radziwill ({{nee|Bouvier}}; March 3, 1933 – February 15, 2019), previously known as Lee Canfield and Lee Ross, was an American socialite, public relations executive, and interior designer. She was the younger sister of former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy.{{cite magazine|first=Kate|last=Storey|date=April 27, 2016|url=https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/news/a15332/lee-radziwill-jackie-kennedy-jfk/|title=Princess Lee Radziwill Opens Up About Her Sister Jackie Kennedy and JFK|magazine=Harper's Bazaar}}

Early life

Caroline Lee Bouvier was born at Doctors Hospital in Yorkville, Manhattan, to stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and socialite Janet Norton Lee.{{cite news|title=Janet Lee Auchincloss Morris, 81}}{{Cite web|url=https://apnews.com/653cc2d1a62a473e91eb9fecb76dceda|title=Lee Radziwill, stylish sister of Jackie Kennedy, dies at 85|date=2019-02-17|website=AP NEWS|access-date=2019-02-18}}{{efn|group=notes|name=birthplace|Though some sources say she was born in Southampton, the New York Times of 14 March 1933 reported that "A daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. John Vernou Bouvier 3d on March 3 at the Doctors Hospital".{{Citation | title = Daughter to Mrs. J.V. Bouvier 3d | newspaper = The New York Times | publication-place = New York City | volume = LXXXII| issue = 27,443 | date = 14 March 1933 | page = 21| url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1933/03/14/99298195.pdf}} New York City is likely correct, as she was born in late winter; Southampton is a summer retreat.}} She attended the Chapin School, in New York City, Potomac School in Washington, D.C., Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, and pursued undergraduate studies at Sarah Lawrence College.{{Cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/obituaries/lee-radziwill-dead.html | title=Lee Radziwill, Ex-Princess and Sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Dies at 85 | first=Robert D. | last=McFadden | work=The New York Times |date=2019-02-16 | access-date=2019-02-16}} In her birth announcement, and from her earliest years, she was known by her middle name "Lee" rather than "Caroline".

Career

Considered by "New York's society arbiters and editors" as the city's leading debutante, Radziwill had her "coming out" party in 1950. A full-page photograph of her in her gown was featured in the "debutante" section of Life magazine (page 71) in the December 25, 1950 issue.

During the 1960s, Radziwill attempted a career as an actress. Her acting attempt was unsuccessful, if highly publicized. She featured in the 1967 production of The Philadelphia Story as the spoiled Main Line heiress Tracy Lord. The play was staged at the Ivanhoe Theatre in Chicago, and Radziwill's performance was much criticized. A year later, she appeared in a television adaptation of the 1944 movie Laura, which was also criticized.Clarke, Gerald. Capote: A Biography (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), pages 388–89.

A London townhouse and a manor, Turville Grange (which she owned and shared with her second husband), had both been decorated by Italian stage designer Lorenzo Mongiardino and were greatly admired and frequently photographed by Cecil Beaton and Horst P. Horst. She worked briefly as an interior decorator in a style influenced by her association with Mongiardino. Her clientele were wealthy; she once decorated a house "for people who would not be there more than three days a year".New York Magazine, "The Decorating Establishment" February 12, 1979. She frequented celebrity company, including travelling with The Rolling Stones during their 1972 tour of North America,Keys, Bobby. Every Night's a Saturday Night (Counterpoint, 2012) page 159 which she attended alongside the writer Truman Capote.{{Cite web|url=https://www.wmagazine.com/story/rip-lee-radziwill|title=Lee Radziwill, American Style Icon and Jackie O's Sister, Dies at 85|last=Barna|first=Dan|website=W Magazine|date=February 16, 2019 |access-date=2019-02-18}}

Radziwill was named to the Vanity Fair International Best Dressed Hall of Fame in 1996.{{cite news|url=http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/bestdressed/bestdressed_women?currentPage=1 |title=World's Best Dressed Women |work=Vanity Fair: The International Hall of Fame: Women |year=1996 |access-date=February 15, 2012 |author=VF Staff |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130712215415/http://www.vanityfair.com/style/the-international-best-dressed-list/hall-of-fame-women |archive-date=July 12, 2013 }}{{cite book|title=Ultimate Style: The Best of the Best Dressed List |page=160 |isbn=2-84323-513-8 |year=2004|last1=Zilkha |first1=Bettina |publisher=Assouline }} Her Paris (49, Avenue Montaigne){{cite web| url = https://scenetherapy.com/lee-radziwills-paris-apartment/| title = Lee Radziwill's Paris Apartment - Scene Therapy}} and Manhattan (160 East 72nd Street){{cite web| url = https://nypost.com/2019/10/30/home-of-jackie-os-late-sister-lee-radziwill-sells-at-a-discount/| title = Lee Radziwill's Upper East Side apartment sells for $4.25M| date = October 30, 2019}} apartments were featured in the April 2009 issue of Elle Décor magazine. She was interviewed by director Sofia Coppola in February 2013 about her life as part of Radziwill's cover story for T: The New York Times Style Magazine as well as about Coppola's movie The Bling Ring and the loss of privacy.{{cite news|url=http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/in-conversation-lee-radziwill-and-sophia-coppola-on-protecting-privacy|title=In Praise of Privacy|last=Radziwell|first=Lee|date=June 9, 2013|newspaper=The New York Times Style Magazine|access-date=June 10, 2013}}{{Unreliable source?|date=December 2021}} She was listed as one of the 50 best-dressed people older than age 50 by The Guardian in March 2013.{{cite news|title=The 50 best-dressed over 50s|url=https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/gallery/2013/mar/29/50-best-dressed-over-50s|newspaper=The Guardian|location=London|first=Jess|last=Cartner-Morley|date=March 28, 2013 |access-date=31 October 2019}}

Family

Radziwill hired documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles in 1972 to work on a movie about the Bouvier family. At the outset, the brothers filmed two eccentric and reclusive members of the extended family, Radziwill's aunt and cousin, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale ("Big Edie") and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale ("Little Edie"). The Beales lived in a rambling, decaying home in East Hampton, New York, and were funded by other members of the family.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2002/feb/09/guardianobituaries|title=Obituary: Edith Bouvier Beale|last=Woodman|first=Sue|date=February 9, 2002|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-02-18|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}

Radziwill's original movie project was suspended, and she retained the footage of the Beales. However the Maysles brothers saw the cinematic potential of the two women and their peculiar lives, and after raising funds for film and equipment of their own, returned and recorded many hours of new footage with Big Edie and Little Edie—the resulting 1975 film Grey Gardens is widely ranked among best of the documentary genre. The film was adapted as a 2006 musical of the same name, where the characters Lee and Jackie Bouvier appear as visiting children in retrospect. HBO produced the 2009 television movie Grey Gardens based on the lives of the Beales.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/arts/television/12roht.html|title='Grey Gardens,' Back Story Included, on HBO With Drew Barrymore|last=Rohter|first=Larry|date=April 7, 2009|work=The New York Times|access-date=February 18, 2019|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}

Surviving footage of Radziwill's 1972 visit to the Beales was included in the 2017 film That Summer.{{Cite web|url=https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/that-summer-review-1202740165/|title=Film Review: That Summer |last=Weissberg|first=Jay|date=March 30, 2018|website=Variety}}{{cite web | title=It's All In The Film: Direct Cinema, 'Grey Gardens' and 'That Summer' | website=The White Review | date=2018-09-27 | url=https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/film-direct-cinema-grey-gardens-summer/ | access-date=2024-02-16}}

Personal life and death

File:Książę Stanisław Radziwiłł w czasie Świąt Bożego Narodzenia 1962 roku, Palm Beach, Floryda, USA.jpg and other family on Christmas Day 1962 in Palm Beach, Florida]]

Radziwill was married three times. Her first marriage, in April 1953, was to Michael Temple Canfield, a publishing executive. They divorced in 1958, and the marriage was declared annulled by the Sacred Rota in November 1962.{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873839-1,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102060202/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,873839-1,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 2, 2012|title=Roman Catholics: The Law's Delay|date=February 28, 1964|magazine=Time|access-date=September 4, 2009}} According to the memoirs of Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Edward VIII believed that Canfield was actually the biological son of his brother Prince George, Duke of Kent (the fourth son of King George V and uncle of Elizabeth II) and Kiki Preston.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

Her second marriage, on March 19, 1959, was to the Polish aristocrat Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł, member of the House of Radziwill, who divorced his second wife, the former Grace Maria Kolin (Grace later married William Ward, 3rd Earl of Dudley as his third wife. Dudley's second wife was Viscountess (Frances) Laura Long née Charteris who later married Michael Temple Canfield, Lee's first husband) and received a Roman Catholic annulment of his first marriage to re-marry. (His second marriage had never been acknowledged by the Roman Catholic Church, so no annulment was necessary.) Upon her marriage, she began to use the title of Her Serene Highness Princess Caroline Lee Radziwiłł and was sometimes referred to as Princess Radziwill in the American press.{{cite web|url=http://observer.com/2017/08/lee-radziwill-paris-apartment-sale/|title=Lee Radziwill Is Ready to Part With Her Glamorous Paris Home|last=Halberg|first=Morgan|date=August 10, 2017|website=The New York Observer|access-date=April 27, 2021}}{{cite magazine|last=Locker|first=Melissa|date=July 13, 2017|title=The Bouvier Sisters: 12 Things You May Not Know About Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill|url=https://www.southernliving.com/culture/celebrities/jackie-kennedy-sister-lee-radziwill|magazine=Southern Living|access-date=April 21, 2017}} However, the Second Polish Republic had abolished the legal recognition of noble titles in the March Constitution of 1921 (article 96),{{cite web |title=Ustawa z dnia 17 marca 1921 r. - Konstytucja Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej |url=https://isap.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/DocDetails.xsp?id=WDU19210440267}} with the effect that the Radziwills were pretenders to the title. They had two children, Anthony (1959–1999) and Anna Christina (b. 1960).{{cite news|url=http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/the-real-lee-radziwill/|title=The Real Lee Radziwill|last=Haslam|first=Nicky|date=7 February 2013|work=The New York Times Magazine|access-date=November 24, 2020}} Their marriage ended in divorce in 1974.{{cite magazine|date=July 29, 1974|title=For Princess Lee Radziwill, It's the End of a Marriage|url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20064301,00.html|url-status=dead|magazine=People|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110210030546/http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20064301,00.html|archive-date=February 10, 2011}}

In 1976, The New York Times reported Peter Francis Tufo, a lawyer and real estate developer, was a "frequent escort" of Radziwill.

On September 23, 1988, Radziwill married for a third time, becoming the second wife of American movie director and choreographer Herbert Ross.{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DA1731F937A1575AC0A96E948260|title=Lee Bouvier Radziwill Weds Herbert Ross, Film Director|date=September 24, 1988|work=The New York Times|access-date=June 21, 2007}} Their divorce was finalized during 2001; he died later that year, and she returned to using Radziwill, the transliteration of her children's name, Radziwiłł.

Lee Radziwill died on February 15, 2019, aged 85, in her apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.{{cite web|url=https://www.vogue.com/article/lee-radziwill-obituary|title=Lee Radziwill Is Dead at 85|last=Codinha|first=Alessandra|date=February 16, 2019|website=Vogue|publisher=Condé Nast|access-date=February 16, 2019}}{{cite web|url=https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/money-and-power/a26368833/lee-radziwill-dies|title=Lee Radziwill Has Died|last=Rathe|first=Adam|date=February 16, 2019|website=Town & Country|publisher=Hearst Communications|access-date=February 28, 2019}}{{cite web|url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lee-radziwill-dies-85-121002847.html|title=Lee Radziwill Dies at 85|date=February 16, 2019|website=Yahoo! Finance|publisher=Oath, Inc.|access-date=February 28, 2019}}

In popular culture

Radziwill was portrayed by Calista Flockhart in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024).

Books

{{Cite book|title=Happy Times|last=Radziwill|first=Lee|publisher=Assouline|year=2001|isbn=9781614280545|location=New York|pages=168}}
{{Cite book|title=Lee|last=Radziwill|first=Lee|publisher=Assouline|others=Foreword by Peter Beard, introduction by Richard David Story|year=2015|isbn=9781614284697|location=New York|pages=184}}

Notes

References

{{Reflist|2|refs=

{{cite news

| url = https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/11/archives/notes-on-people-alexandra-creel-marries-goelet-museum-president.html

| title = Notes on people: Alexandra Creel married Goelet Museum President

| work = The New York Times

| date = 1976-09-11

| page = 12

| access-date = 2019-10-12

}}

= Bibliography =

{{cite book | title=Capote, A Biography | last=Clarke | first=Gerald | author-link=Gerald Clarke (author) | publisher=Simon and Schuster | location=New York | edition=1st | year=1988 | isbn=978-0-241-12549-6}}
{{cite book | title=In Her Sister's Shadow: An Intimate Biography of Lee Radziwill | last=Dubois | first=Diana | publisher=Little Brown & Co | location=New York | edition=1st | year=1995 | isbn=978-0316187534}}
{{cite book | title=Nemesis: The True Story | url=https://archive.org/details/nemesistruestory00evan | url-access=registration | last=Evans | first=Peter | publisher=Regan Books | year=2004 | isbn=978-0-06-058053-7 | id= [0-06-058053-4]}}
Magazine Paris Match July 6, 2008 page 16.
{{cite book | title=Happy Times | last=Radziwill | first=Lee | publisher=Assouline | location=New York | year=2003 | isbn=978-1-614-28054-5}}