CAROLYN BESSETTE KENNEDY
Name: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
Born: 7 January 1966 White Plains, Westchester County, New York
Died: 16 July 1999 Atlantic Ocean
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (January 7, 1966 – July 16, 1999), née Carolyn Jeanne
Bessette, was the wife of John F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of assassinated U.S.
President John F. Kennedy. She died at age 33, along with her husband and her
sister Lauren Bessette, when the private plane that her husband was piloting
crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Their ashes
were scattered at sea on July 22, 1999.
Bessette-Kennedy was born in White Plains, Westchester County, New York, the
youngest daughter of Dr. William J. Bessette and Ann Messina, an administrator
in the New York public school system. She grew up in affluent Greenwich,
Connecticut, and attended St. Mary's High School, where she was voted an "All-Around
Beautiful Person". After graduating from Boston University in 1988, she went to
work at a Calvin Klein store in Boston.
With her classic, cool blonde looks, Bessette occasionally worked as a model in
New York City, before becoming a publicist for Calvin Klein, where she met
Kennedy. The attractive couple became a popular paparazzi target, with gossip
columns detailing where they ate, shopped and even arguments they had.
Photographers waited outside their Tribeca apartment to snap photographs.
Bessette was reportedly very uncomfortable with the media frenzy and the
repeated comparisons to Jacqueline Kennedy. She married Kennedy on September 21,
1996 on Cumberland Island, Georgia in an historic Baptist church. The wedding
was small and secret in an effort to elude the media.
On July 16, 1999, Bessette-Kennedy left Essex County Airport in Fairfield
Township, New Jersey in a small plane piloted by her husband to attend a family
wedding in Hyannis, Massachusetts. Her sister Lauren (who was survived by a twin,
Lisa Ann) was to be dropped off at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts before the
couple continued on to their destination. Due to a confluence of circumstances,
including poor visibility at nightfall, Kennedy's relative inexperience in these
conditions as well as having a recently healed broken leg, he lost his bearings
and the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, approximately seven miles off the
coast of Martha's Vineyard. All three were killed in the crash.
In 2005, close friend Carole Radziwill published her memoirs, containing fond
memories of Carolyn and John.
Bessette's blonde hair coloring was the model for that of the "Bergdorf Blondes"
in the 2004 novel by Plum Sykes.
Name: Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy
Born: 7 January 1966 White Plains, Westchester County, New York
Died: 16 July 1999 Atlantic Ocean
Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (January 7, 1966 – July 16, 1999), née Carolyn Jeanne
Bessette, was the wife of John F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of assassinated U.S.
President John F. Kennedy. She died at age 33, along with her husband and her
sister Lauren Bessette, when the private plane that her husband was piloting
crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Their ashes
were scattered at sea on July 22, 1999.
Bessette-Kennedy was born in White Plains, Westchester County, New York, the
youngest daughter of Dr. William J. Bessette and Ann Messina, an administrator
in the New York public school system. She grew up in affluent Greenwich,
Connecticut, and attended St. Mary's High School, where she was voted an "All-Around
Beautiful Person". After graduating from Boston University in 1988, she went to
work at a Calvin Klein store in Boston.
With her classic, cool blonde looks, Bessette occasionally worked as a model in
New York City, before becoming a publicist for Calvin Klein, where she met
Kennedy. The attractive couple became a popular paparazzi target, with gossip
columns detailing where they ate, shopped and even arguments they had.
Photographers waited outside their Tribeca apartment to snap photographs.
Bessette was reportedly very uncomfortable with the media frenzy and the
repeated comparisons to Jacqueline Kennedy. She married Kennedy on September 21,
1996 on Cumberland Island, Georgia in an historic Baptist church. The wedding
was small and secret in an effort to elude the media.
On July 16, 1999, Bessette-Kennedy left Essex County Airport in Fairfield
Township, New Jersey in a small plane piloted by her husband to attend a family
wedding in Hyannis, Massachusetts. Her sister Lauren (who was survived by a twin,
Lisa Ann) was to be dropped off at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts before the
couple continued on to their destination. Due to a confluence of circumstances,
including poor visibility at nightfall, Kennedy's relative inexperience in these
conditions as well as having a recently healed broken leg, he lost his bearings
and the plane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, approximately seven miles off the
coast of Martha's Vineyard. All three were killed in the crash.
In 2005, close friend Carole Radziwill published her memoirs, containing fond
memories of Carolyn and John.
Bessette's blonde hair coloring was the model for that of the "Bergdorf Blondes"
in the 2004 novel by Plum Sykes.