New film explores Jackie O's influence
BOSTON — How much of John F. Kennedy’s public persona was privately molded by his wife, Jacqueline?
Quite a bit, according to a new documentary, “JFK: Fact and Fable.” The film examines the role she played in reshaping the presidency by popularizing the Camelot image.
One little-known factoid: Jackie O. was behind the modern look of Air Force One. She persuaded the government to paint “United States of America” on the plane.
The stylish first lady, who died in 1994, also redecorated the Oval Office, giving it an elegant yet homey feel. And she created the manicured Rose Garden on the grounds of the White House as it is known today.
“Jackie Kennedy is responsible for creating the Kennedy legacy,” says Noah Morowitz, the film’s executive producer. She devoted much of her life, he says, to “making him into the great president he so badly wanted to be.”
“While she’s long been regarded as a cultural and style trendsetter, her historical influence actually runs far deeper,” Morowitz says.
“JFK: Fact and Fable,” which premieres Friday on CuriosityStream, a nonfiction streaming platform, also explores how she set to work preserving and orchestrating the 35th president’s legacy within days of his assassination in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. Step one was her insistence that JFK’s funeral replicate America’s farewell to Abraham Lincoln — a dictate designed to forever link the two slain presidents.
The film combines archive footage and stills of JFK and his young family with commentary by historian and author Thurston Clarke and Larry Sabato, a Kennedy biographer who directs the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
