Age, Biography, and Wiki
John F. Kennedy Jr. was born on November 25, 1960, and passed away on July 18, 1999, at the age of 38. He was the son of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. His life was marked by the challenges of being a member of the famous Kennedy family, and he carved out his own path in law and journalism.
| Occupation | Journalist |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 25 November 1960 |
| Age | 64 Years |
| Birth Place | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Horoscope | Sagittarius |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 16 July, 1999 |
| Died Place | Atlantic Ocean, near Martha's Vineyard, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Information about John F. Kennedy Jr.'s exact height and weight is not readily available. However, he was known for his athletic build and tall stature, typical of many members of the Kennedy family.
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Dating & Relationship Status
John F. Kennedy Jr. married Carolyn Bessette in 1996. The couple's relationship was highly publicized, and they were considered one of the most glamorous couples of their time. Tragically, both John and Carolyn died in a plane crash in 1999.
Born two weeks after his father was elected president, Kennedy spent his early childhood years living in the White House until his father was assassinated. At the funeral procession, which took place on his third birthday, Kennedy gave his father's flag-draped casket a final salute as it came past him.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. His father, Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy, had been elected president less than three weeks earlier and was inaugurated two months after his son's birth. His parents had a stillborn daughter, Arabella, in 1956 and later had an infant son, Patrick, who died two days after his premature birth in 1963. His putative nickname, "John-John", came from a reporter who misheard his father calling him "John" twice in quick succession; the name was not used by his family.
Kennedy lived in the White House during the first three years of his life and remained in the public spotlight as a young adult. His father was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and the state funeral was held three days later, on Kennedy's third birthday. In a famous moment, Kennedy stepped forward and rendered a final salute as his father's flag-draped casket was carried out from St. Matthew's Cathedral. The photo was called "the most impressive...shot in the history of television" by NBC News vice president Julian Goodman. Several photographers captured the moment, including United Press International photographer Stan Stearns (who became chief White House photographer during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration) and Dan Farrell for the New York Daily News. Lyndon B. Johnson wrote his first letter as president to Kennedy and told him that he "can always be proud" of his father.
Following the assassination, the family continued with their plans for a birthday party to demonstrate that they would go on despite the death of the president. They moved to the Georgetown area of Washington, D.C. for a short time, and then to a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, where Kennedy grew up. In 1967, his mother took him and Caroline on a six-week "sentimental journey" to Ireland, where they met President Éamon de Valera and visited the Kennedy ancestral home in Dunganstown.
Kennedy returned to the White House with his mother and sister in 1971 for the first time since his father's assassination. President Richard Nixon's two daughters gave Kennedy a tour that included his old bedroom and Nixon showed him the Resolute desk under which his father had let Kennedy play.
Kennedy attended private schools in Manhattan, starting at Saint David's School and moving to Collegiate School, which he attended from third through tenth grade. Kennedy completed his education at Phillips Academy, a preparatory boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts. After graduating, he accompanied his mother on a trip to Africa. Kennedy's group got lost for two days without food or water while on a pioneering course and he rescued them, winning points for leadership.
In January 1983, Kennedy's Massachusetts driver's license was suspended when he received more than three speeding summonses in 12 months and failed to appear at a hearing. The family's lawyer explained that Kennedy most likely "became immersed in exams and just forgot the date of the hearing." That same year, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in American studies and took a break, traveling to India and spending some time at the University of Delhi, where Kennedy did his post-graduate work and met Mother Teresa.
In the summer of 1992, Kennedy worked as a journalist and was commissioned by The New York Times to write an article about his kayaking expedition to the Åland Archipelago, where he saved one of his friends when a kayak capsized. Kennedy then considered creating a magazine with his friend, public-relations magnate Michael J. Berman, a plan which his mother thought too risky. In his 2000 book The Day John Died, Christopher Andersen wrote that Jacqueline had worried that her son would die in a plane crash and asked her longtime companion Maurice Tempelsman "to do whatever it took to keep John from becoming a pilot".
Kennedy had appeared in many plays while at Brown and had done a bit of acting afterwards. He expressed interest in acting as a career but his mother strongly disapproved, considering it an unsuitable profession. Kennedy made his New York acting debut on August 4, 1985 in front of an invitation-only audience at the Irish Theater on Manhattan's West Side. The executive director of the Irish Arts Center, Nye Heron, said that Kennedy was "one of the best young actors I've seen in years". Kennedy's director, Robin Saex, stated, "He has an earnestness that just shines through." Kennedy's largest acting role was playing a fictionalized version of himself in the eighth-season episode of the sitcom Murphy Brown called "Altered States", in which he visits Brown's office to promote a magazine he is publishing.
In July 1997, Vanity Fair published a profile of New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, claiming that he was sleeping with his press secretary (which both parties denied). Kennedy was tempted to follow up on this story but decided against it. That same month, he wrote about meeting Mother Teresa, declaring that the "three days I spent in her presence was the strongest evidence this struggling Catholic has ever had that God exists."
The September 1997 issue of George centered on temptation and featured two of Kennedy's cousins, Michael LeMoyne Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy II. Michael, a Boston attorney, had been accused of having an affair with his children's underage babysitter, while Joseph, a Massachusetts congressman, had been accused by his ex-wife of having bullied her. John said that both his cousins had become "poster boys for bad behavior", and that he was trying to show that press coverage of the pair was unfair because they were Kennedys. Joseph paraphrased John's father by stating, "Ask not what you can do for your cousin, but what you can do for his magazine."
Kennedy addressed the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, introducing his uncle Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. He invoked his father's inaugural address, calling "a generation to public service", and received a two-minute standing ovation. Republican consultant Richard Viguerie said he did not remember a word of the speech, but remembered "a good delivery" and added, "I think it was a plus for the Democrats and the boy. He is strikingly handsome."
Kennedy dated models Cindy Crawford and Julie Baker and actress Sarah Jessica Parker, who said that she enjoyed dating Kennedy but realized he "was a public domain kind of a guy." Parker said she had no idea what "real fame" was until dating Kennedy and felt that she should "apologize for dating him" since it became the "defining factor in the person" she was.
Kennedy had known actress Daryl Hannah since their two families had vacationed together in Saint Martin in the early 1980s. After meeting again at the wedding of his aunt Lee Radziwill in 1988, they dated for five and a half years, though their relationship was complicated by her feelings for singer Jackson Browne, with whom she had lived for a time.
After his relationship with Daryl Hannah ended, Kennedy lived with Carolyn Bessette, who worked in the fashion industry. They were engaged for a year, though Kennedy consistently denied reports of this. On September 21, 1996, they were married in a private ceremony on Cumberland Island, Georgia, where his sister, Caroline, was matron of honor and his cousin Anthony Radziwill was best man. His nieces Rose Kennedy Schlossberg and Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg served as the flower girls, and nephew Jack Kennedy Schlossberg served as the ring bearer.
On July 16, 1999, Kennedy departed from Fairfield, New Jersey, at the controls of his Piper Saratoga light aircraft. He was traveling with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette. Lauren was to be dropped off at Martha's Vineyard and Kennedy and his wife would continue on to Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to attend the wedding of his cousin Rory Kennedy. He had purchased the plane from Air Bound Aviation on April 28. Carolyn and Lauren were passengers sitting in the second row of seats. Kennedy had checked in with the control tower at the Martha's Vineyard Airport but the plane was reported missing after it failed to arrive on schedule.
A memorial service was held for Kennedy on July 23, 1999, at the Church of St. Thomas More in New York City, a parish that Kennedy had often attended with his mother and sister. The invitation-only service was attended by hundreds of mourners, including President Bill Clinton, who presented the family with photo albums of John and Carolyn on their visit to the White House from the previous year.
Kennedy's last will and testament stipulated that his personal belongings, property, and holdings were to be "evenly distributed" among his sister Caroline’s three children – Rose, Tatiana, and Jack – who were among 14 beneficiaries in his will. A scrimshaw set that belonged to his father, President Kennedy, was left to his nephew Jack.
In 2000, Reaching Up, the organization which Kennedy founded in 1989, joined with The City University of New York to establish the John F. Kennedy Jr. Institute. In 2003, the ARCO Forum at Harvard Kennedy School was renamed the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum of Public Affairs. Kennedy had been a member of the Senior Advisory Committee of Harvard's Institute of Politics for 15 years and an active participant in Forum events. Ted Kennedy said the renaming symbolically linked Kennedy with his late father; Caroline Kennedy said the renaming reflected his love of discussing politics.
In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the 1963 presidential assassination, the New York Daily News re-ran the famous photograph of the three-year-old Kennedy saluting his father's coffin during the funeral procession. Photographer Dan Farrell, who took the photo, called it "the saddest thing I've ever seen in my whole life".
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| Husband | Carolyn Bessette (m. 1996) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death, John F. Kennedy Jr.'s net worth was estimated to be around $50 million. This wealth was largely inherited from his family's vast fortune, built through investments in real estate, business ventures, and strategic financial decisions made by his ancestors.
Hachette Filipacchi Magazines were partners in George. CEO David Pecker said the decline was due to Kennedy's refusal to "take risks as an editor, despite the fact that he was an extraordinary risk taker in other areas of his life." Pecker also said, "He understood that the target audience for George was the eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old demographic, yet he would routinely turn down interviews that would appeal to this age group, like Princess Diana or John Gotti Jr., to interview subjects like Dan Rostenkowski or Võ Nguyên Giáp." Shortly before his death, Kennedy had been planning a series of online chats with the 2000 presidential candidates. Microsoft was to provide the technology and pay for it while receiving advertising in George. After his death, the magazine was bought out by Hachette, but it folded in early 2001.
Career, Business, and Investments
John F. Kennedy Jr. pursued a career in law and journalism. He worked as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's office before becoming the publisher of George magazine, which he co-founded in 1995. The magazine focused on celebrity politics and was known for its unique blend of politics and pop culture.
After the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, Kennedy returned to New York to earn $20,000 a year at the Office of Business Development, where his boss said that he worked "in the same crummy cubbyhole as everybody else. I heaped on the work and was always pleased." Kennedy continued there as deputy director of the 42nd Street Development Corporation in 1986, conducting negotiations with developers and city agencies.
In 1988, Kennedy became a summer associate at Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Phillips, a Los Angeles law firm with strong connections to the Democratic Party, working for his uncle Ted Kennedy's law school roommate and former Democratic National Committee chairman Charles Manatt. Later that year, Kennedy was named by People Magazine as 1988's “Sexiest Man Alive”.
In 1995, Kennedy and Michael Berman founded George, a glossy, politics-as-lifestyle and fashion monthly, with Kennedy controlling 50 percent of the shares. Kennedy officially launched the magazine at a news conference in Manhattan on September 8 and joked that he had not seen so many reporters in one place since he failed his first bar exam.
Bessette was disoriented by the constant attention of the paparazzi. The couple were permanently on show, both at fashionable Manhattan events and on their travels to visit celebrities such as Mariuccia Mandelli and Gianni Versace. She complained to her friend, journalist Jonathan Soroff, that she could not get a job without being accused of exploiting her fame. The couple began seeing a marriage counselor in March 1999 and sought counseling from Cardinal John O'Connor in the summer of 1999.
Social Network
In his lifetime, John F. Kennedy Jr. was not active on what we now know as social media platforms since they did not exist during his adult life. However, his legacy continues to be celebrated across various digital platforms today.
In 1976, Kennedy and his cousin visited an earthquake disaster zone at Rabinal in Guatemala, helping with heavy building work and distributing food. The local priest said that they "ate what the people of Rabinal ate and dressed in Guatemalan clothes and slept in tents like most of the earthquake victims," adding that the two "did more for their country's image" in Guatemala "than a roomful of ambassadors." On his 16th birthday, Kennedy's Secret Service protection ended and he spent the summer of 1978 working as a wrangler in Wyoming. In 1979, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was dedicated and Kennedy made his first major speech, reciting Stephen Spender's poem "I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great."
The first issue was criticized for its image of Cindy Crawford posing as George Washington in a powdered wig and ruffled shirt. In defense of the cover Kennedy stated that "political magazines should look like Mirabella."
By early 1997, Kennedy and Berman were locked in a power struggle, which led to screaming matches, slammed doors, and even a physical altercation. Berman sold his share of the company and Kennedy took on Berman's responsibilities. Berman's departure was followed by a rapid drop in sales for the already declining magazine.
The next day, Kennedy's cousin Patrick revealed that the pair had married. When they returned to their Manhattan home a mass of reporters was on the doorstep. One of them asked Kennedy if he had enjoyed his honeymoon, to which he responded: "Very much." Kennedy added, "Getting married is a big adjustment for us, and for a private citizen like Carolyn even more so. I ask you to give her all the privacy and room you can."
Education
John F. Kennedy Jr. attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and later graduated from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American Studies. He then received his Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law.
Kennedy attended Brown University, where he majored in American studies. Kennedy co-founded a student discussion group that focused on contemporary issues such as apartheid in South Africa, gun control, and civil rights. He was appalled by apartheid when visiting South Africa on a summer break and arranged for U.N. ambassador Andrew Young to speak about the topic at Brown. By his junior year at Brown, Kennedy had moved off campus to live with several other students in a shared house and spent time at Xenon, a club owned by Howard Stein. Kennedy was initiated into Phi Psi, a local social fraternity that had been the Rhode Island Alpha chapter of national Phi Kappa Psi fraternity until 1978.
Kennedy earned a Juris Doctor degree from the New York University School of Law in 1989. He then failed the New York bar exam twice before passing on his third try in July 1990. After failing the exam for a second time, Kennedy vowed that he would continue to take it until he was 95 years old or passed. If Kennedy had failed a third time, he would have been ineligible to serve as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan DA's Office, where Kennedy worked for the next four years; handling such matters as consumer fraud and landlord-tenant disputes. On August 29, 1991, Kennedy won his first case as a prosecutor.
While attending Brown University Kennedy met Sally Munro. They dated for six years, and visited India together in 1983. While at Brown, he also met model and actress Brooke Shields, with whom Kennedy was later linked.
