The House of Kennedy(83)
Admissions officers at Brown University see evidence of this when in 1979 Jackie completes John Jr.’s undergraduate application for him, since John is out of the country on an educational trip to Africa. She is careful to avoid trading on the famous Kennedy name. On the application, Jackie merely lists his late father’s occupation as being “in government” and that “mother, sister grew up in New York City.”
John Jr. may have opted out of traditional Kennedy alma mater Harvard, but not the academic struggles that his father and uncles variously encountered. When John fails to complete his freshman-year coursework, Jackie writes to a Brown official in July 1980. “I have never asked for special consideration for my children because I feel that is harmful to them,” she explains, “but there was an extra burden John carried this year that other students did not—and I would like to mention it. He was asked to campaign almost every weekend for his uncle.” She is referring to Ted Kennedy, then in the thick of his ultimately failed quest for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination.
At school, John Jr. is naturally popular, even though he had the “bad habits of borrowing money and of losing his wallet, which occasionally had some borrowed money in it,” says Cohan. Newsweek’s Martha Brant writes of John’s need “to borrow a quarter every night for coffee,” contextualizing, “Like many rich people—including his own father—Kennedy often has to borrow cash, and he is sometimes forgetful about paying it back.”
John Jr. graduates in 1983 with a bachelor’s degree in American studies, and returns to New York. While at Brown, he had pursued a passion that sparked at Phillips Andover—acting—and on August 4, 1985, John makes his off-off-Broadway debut at the Irish Arts Center on Manhattan’s West Side, starring in Brian Friel’s Winners, set in Northern Ireland. On stage, he can be his character (a Catholic teenager with a pregnant fiancée), not a Kennedy. In the climactic scene, John plays a drowning victim (which many viewers consider loaded with symbolic reference to Chappaquiddick), though his mother and sister are out of town throughout the play’s six-show run and never see him perform.
“He’s one of the best young actors I’ve seen in years,” director Nye Heron recalls of John Jr., but feels he lacks the focus and determination needed to hone his natural talent to a professional-level skill. “John’s problem as an actor was that he didn’t take it seriously,” says Don Wilmeth, who directed John in Brown Theater Department productions. “He did it for fun and lacked discipline. He would work hard for short stints and then go off and lose it.”
“It’s only a hobby,” John tells reporters, mainly for Jackie’s benefit. When he talks of applying to Yale School of Drama, his mother steers him away from the stage and toward the courtroom. He lands at New York University Law School, earning his degree in 1989. In May 1990, the New York Post trumpets the humiliating news—“THE HUNK FLUNKS . . . AGAIN”—of John’s second failed attempt to pass the New York State Bar Exam. “I am very disappointed,” he tells the press. “God willing, I will be back [to take the test] in July. I am clearly not a legal genius.”
Even though John’s been working under the watchful eye of Manhattan district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau (who was with Bobby at Hickory Hill when J. Edgar Hoover called to break the news of JFK’s death), should he fail the test a third time, he’ll be forced to leave his position. In July 1990, he passes, is appointed assistant district attorney, and in August 1991, wins his first victory at trial. “This case would have posed serious difficulties for any defense,” says veteran lawyer William Kunstler of the robbery defendant known as the “Sleeping Burglar” (apprehended while napping in his victim’s apartment, pockets filled with her stolen jewelry), but John Jr. takes the high road, declaring, “Winning is better than losing.”
Chapter 56
Despite Jackie’s repeated warnings of the dangers of paparazzi (“Don’t let them steal your soul,” she tells him), John Jr. continues to live his life fully in the public eye. Photographers swarm to document his string of celebrity girlfriends—including Cindy Crawford, Daryl Hannah, and Sarah Jessica Parker—and his frequent, bare-chested outings in Central Park, where he Rollerblades and plays Frisbee with his dog, Friday. Photographer Victor Malafronte recalls “trying to get this gorgeous image of the man skating down West Broadway,” when John stepped in for a handshake. “Hi, I’m John” (his preferred form of address—no middle initial or suffix; the “John-John” nickname was used purely in the press). “I was blown away,” Malafronte says, and so are the editors at the New York Post and People, who deem his close-up pictures cover-worthy.
In the summer of 1988, twenty-seven-year-old John Jr. starts dating thirty-year-old pop star Madonna (still technically married to, but estranged from, actor Sean Penn). John and Madonna quarrel over how to handle fame—she seeks it; he shuns it. According to J. Randy Taraborrelli, they’re running through the park, arguing. “I’m just a guy,” John says. An eyewitness takes in Madonna’s response. “You’re not ‘just a guy,’ you’re a Kennedy.”
That September, People magazine names John F. Kennedy Jr. 1988’s “Sexiest Man Alive.” But according to his personal assistant RoseMarie Terenzio, John has a major hang-up about one aspect of his appearance. “He hated his hair,” Terenzio says. “He was constantly putting stuff in it to hold it down. That’s why he always wore a hat, ’cause he hated his hair.”