Jackie Kennedy's Iconic Response After Kissing a Hollywood Legend Who 'Just Wanted To Be Able To Say He Made Out With Jackie O'
They say all is fair in love and war, and Jackie Kennedy would surely agree after her alleged kiss with a famous Hollywood actor and filmmaker. The former First Lady allegedly kissed Robert Redford, who supposedly claimed he only did so for bragging rights but Jackie didn’t let herself be the butt of the joke.
The clandestine kiss was first revealed in Jackie: Public, Private, Secret, a new biography by J. Randy Taraborrelli. The biography has revealed a bunch of new information about Jackie’s other Hollywood fling, her phone call with Marilyn Monroe and how she felt about affair rumors with Robert F. Kennedy.
According to the book, the kiss with Redford took place in 1973 — a decade after the assassination of John F. Kennedy — while Jackie was still married to her second husband, Aristotle Onassis. At the time, Redford was filming an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby directed by Jack Clayton with a script written by Francis Ford Coppola. According to Taraborrelli, production took place on Hammersmith Farm, the Newport, Rhode Island home where Jackie spent her childhood. Her mother and stepfather, Janet and Hugh Auchincloss, were still living in the home.
“I remember everyone as being very la-de-da rich,” the book quotes Redford’s son, James, as saying. “I later heard from my father that the Auchinclosses were having money problems, but sure you would never know it.” James, now a documentary filmmaker, recalls his summer spent living on the grounds of the home while his father worked. In one instance, the Auchincloss family hosting a picnic which Jackie and her sister Lee attended alongside stars of the film Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, and Sam Waterston.
However, perhaps the most dramatic thing that happened on set was the kiss between Jackie and the film’s protagonist. Taraborrelli claims Jackie showed up to watch the movie being filmed one day but wound up sneaking off with Redford for about a half hour without anyone knowing where they went. It would be another ten years before Jackie dished on the exchange.
“I made out with Robert Redford,” Taraborrelli says Jackie eventually confessed. She allegedly elaborated that Redford told her he had always wanted to ask certain questions about the Cuban Missile Crisis, which occurred during JFK’s presidency. Taraborrelli says Jackie claimed Redford was “totally obsessed with” Nixon and Watergate so they ended up chatting about that. She recalled, according to the book, “He leaned in and kissed me. What was I to do? He’s Robert Redford for Christ’s sake, and he’s drop dead gorgeous.”
Redford alleged told her he “just wanted to be able to say he made out with Jackie O.” And while that might seem harsh and somewhat derogatory, Jackie wasn’t going to let Redford be the only one who got a good story out of it. Taraborrelli writes that Jackie quipped, “So, now I get to say I made out with Robert Redford, and we’re even.”