Tragedy hit America's ‘royal couple' in 1999. Now the tale's heading to TV

The Age

31-07-2025

Twenty-six years ago last month, on a hazy summer night, a Piper Saratoga plane spiralled into the Atlantic Ocean just off Martha's Vineyard, killing all three people on board: its pilot John F. Kennedy Jr, his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and her older sister, Lauren Bessette.
Within hours, then-US president Bill Clinton ordered US Navy warships to comb the area in search of wreckage, telling bristling taxpayers that the Kennedys had 'suffered much and given more'. The bodies, still strapped into their seats, were recovered five days later. It was the final chapter in a tragic family history, the early, sudden deaths enshrining the mystique of 'John-John', 38, and Carolyn, 33, in legend.
He was, of course, the handsome, adored, only surviving son of a young assassinated president and his elegant wife, Jacqueline; she was the shiny-haired fashion publicist whose cool blonde beauty and distinctive look – distinctive but anonymous (she would ask for the Prada labels to be stripped from her ski-suits) – captivated style-watchers. They were the closest thing the US had to royalty; the prince and princess of Manhattan. When they married quietly in September 1996, inside a small candlelit church on Georgia's Cumberland Island with only 40 guests in attendance, her simple white slip dress spawned millions of imitations and put the name of its designer, Narciso Rodriguez, on the fashion map.
Interest in the couple is reigniting with the news that mega-producer Ryan Murphy has started filming the first instalment of his new TV series, American Love Story, which will bring the Bessette-Kennedy romance to the small screen for the first time. Relative unknown Paul Kelly reportedly beat 1000 hopefuls to win the role of JFK Jr, while Sarah Pidgeon, familiar to audiences of Prime Video's The Wilds, will be Carolyn. Naomi Watts, no stranger to Murphy's TV projects, has signed on to play Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. (Interestingly, Carolyn never met her mother-in-law, who died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1994 at the age of 64.)
But early stills posted by Murphy to social media in June of his two young leads in character drew sharp criticism from the dark lords of New York style. Carolyn's hair was 'too 2024', said Brad Johns, who had perfected her 'child of the beach' hue in the '90s, while The Cut 's Danya Issawi pointed to 'fast-fashion knock-offs of her high-designer style'. 'Sorry, but the wardrobe is wrong,' agreed Moda Operandi founder Lauren Santo Domingo. And what was with the No. 35 Birkin? She only ever carried a No. 40.
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Murphy had to tell everyone to just cool it. The shots were only camera tests for lighting and colour that he'd been forced to post to beat salivating paparazzi to the punch. More short videos, to be released as filming got properly under way in the northern autumn, would amply demonstrate costume designer Lou Eyrich's attention to detail. A 10-person style advisory board had already been confirmed.
At the time of the couple's death, rumours of a fairytale starting to fray at the edges had begun to circulate. Was JFK Jr, still only a rookie pilot, distracted the night that he succumbed to spatial disorientation while trying to land the aircraft? The Piper Saratoga was close to its destination, but it was dark and visibility was poor.