‘Love Story’ | A modern Camelot tragedy

Back in the 1960s, when John F. Kennedy (JFK) was president of the US, there seemed to be a special magic to America, summed up in the lyrics from the 1960s musical Camelot and quoted by the assassinated president’s wife: “Don’t let it be forgot/That there was once a spot/For one brief shining moment/That was known as Camelot!”

Riding the coattails of victory in World War 2, the country’s industrial machine went into overdrive, offering middle-income families the dream of education, healthcare and prosperity. America became the shining city on the hill.

Into that world came two children — unusually young children for a president to have in the White House — and seemingly every moment of their lives was photographed. The world was fascinated by their parents, even more so after JFK was assassinated in 1963 and, later, when his widow Jacqueline, played by Naomi Watts, married one of the wealthiest men of the era, Aristotle Onassis.

As the children grew up, Caroline Kennedy largely eschewed the limelight, but her brother was so handsome and charismatic that he seemed drawn to it like a moth to a flame. The paparazzi chased John F. Kennedy Jr. everywhere. He dated one of the most beautiful and famous actresses of the time, Daryl Hannah, before marrying Carolyn Bessette, the striking blonde Calvin Klein publicist who’d become a style icon in her own right.

When they both died in 1999, after a plane piloted by Kennedy crashed into the Atlantic, their tragedy was devoured by the media. Then, as these things do, it slowly receded into memory.

Why the history lesson? Because FX has resurrected the story of JFK Jr. and Bessette, inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s 2024 biography, Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy .

It’s a story some might dismiss as belonging to a bygone era. But give yourself over to these characters and it’s difficult not to be drawn in. It’s a tale of pain: of a boy who could never quite live up to the legend projected onto him, and a woman diminished in the public imagination because of the man she loved.

At its heart is the peeling back of fantasy to reveal the wounded truths of two people who found each other, only to have their love tarnished by a world that wanted them to be something they weren’t.

Don’t let it be forgot/That there was once a spot/For one brief shining moment/That was known as Camelot!

Producer Nina Jacobson explains the enduring fascination with the couple: “They were American royalty; icons. People knew her much more than they knew him, but only visually. She became a posthumous influencer. This distant WASP ideal.”

Those who actually knew Bessette, however, painted a different picture: a self-possessed, funny woman who refused to be consumed by either the Kennedy mystique or the pressure of the paparazzi.

The anthology series, Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette , has received six Emmy nominations, and FX invited a handful of journalists to celebrate the moment at the iconic Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood.