All language subtitles for American.Prince.JFK.Jr.S01E01.540p.X265.AAC.[9jaRocks.Com]_track3_[eng]

♪♪

We're back on "Larry King Live"
with John F. Kennedy Jr.

It's very good to be
the son of a legend.

Uh, I mean, it's --
it's complicated.

Gillon: I think John,
his entire life was spent

trying to find out who he was.

And the one constant
was his desire

not to be treated
as if he were his father's son.

Couric: You haven't
given up the notion

of maybe going
into politics.

Maybe, maybe not.

Oh, come on, John.
[ Laughs ]

There was a pressure --
"You're a Kennedy.

You're going to be successful.

You're going to be
well-respected.

John was just, like, a little
bit more of a free spirit.

Politics isn't dry.
It isn't dull.

He just did things differently.

Jackie had raised John
to be media-savvy.

There was no shucking off
of this celebrity.

Man: Can I please get
a couple shots, John, please?

You've kind of grown up
being this public figure

even before you knew
you were a public figure.

-Come on, John.
-Oh [bleep]

Sometimes I wish
it wasn't always that way.

Rigueur: He will forever be
that little boy,

even as he is jaunting
through New York City,

even as he is struggling
to pass the bar,

even as he is launching his own
political career and magazine.

Ladies and gentlemen,
meet George.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Woman: Being John Kennedy Jr.
sets the bar so high.

And I think that there's
less room for error.

Man: Oh, come on.
[ Laughter ]

It's obviously
a very difficult job.

Gillon: That was John's
lifelong struggle --

to not be crushed by the burdens
that were placed on him.

Woman: Are we going to see you
go into politics?

It's something that,
you know, you never say never.

And it's obviously a source
of interest.

Radziwill: Being in that family,
people like to think it's,

you know, it's like good and bad
and black and white.

Reporter: John Kennedy managed
to keep his wedding

to Carolyn Bessette so private.

They don't know the real story
and the heartbreak

and the heartache
that we were all feeling.

CNN has confirmed now
that the U.S. Coast Guard

is conducting a search
for a private aircraft.

Even after his death,
John continues to be part

of this larger
American mythmaking.

So it's always about,
what would he have done?

What would he have been?

Hello. I'm John Kennedy.

♪♪

♪♪

Man: He returned
to Washington to be greeted

by the skipping figure of his
2 1/2-year-old son, John-John.

My first guest is, of course,
somebody we've all watched

since he was a little boy
in the White House.

Some of you know him
as John-John.

Reporter: The boy the country
knew as John-John.

When John-John...

Cover it with a picture
of John-John.

We want to believe that
John-John is pure and wonderful.

Radziwill:
This whole John-John thing,

I don't know where it came from.

I think it was a press thing.

Something happened
where people thought

that maybe his family
called him John-John.

So people just sort of
started saying that

to imply that they
were close to him.

But I promise you, his sister
didn't call him John-John.

His mother,
no one in his family,

even, like, the extended cousins
ever called him John-John.

Winfrey: I hear he doesn't like
to be called that,

but he's all grown up now,
so we will just call him John.

Soren: It was remarkable,
the kind of aura around him.

Unless you know him personally,
he is a myth,

even if he's standing
in front of you.

I was at a dinner party
with him once.

I wasn't talking to him
because I just felt like

everybody's always trying
to talk to him,

and just give the kid a break.

I was nervous,
but it was coupled with

trying to have some compassion

for this person
who is under a microscope,

because he comes with
an entire lifetime of baggage

in us knowing things
that we probably shouldn't know

or maybe understanding things
that aren't true about him.

Man: How you doing, John?
Good. How are you?

Pretty good.

John became
the biggest celebrity in America

when he was conceived.

♪♪

Narrator: In Georgetown,
a hopeful crowd

waits for a glimpse of
John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr.,

first-baby-to-be,
who is whisked by

heavily swaddled
against the subfreezing weather.

Gillon: He made the front page
of every major newspaper

when he was born.

You have to realize
that JFK came to power

just as television was becoming
the primary source

for people getting their news.

The candidates
need no introduction.

The Republican candidate,
Vice President Richard M. Nixon,

and the Democratic candidate,
Senator John F. Kennedy.

Gillon: The White House
that John was born into

was really the beginning
of the combination

of celebrity and politics.

His mom was a cultural icon.

His father was the
most powerful man in the world.

[ Crowd cheering ]

I liked them, what their
feelings about things were,

their politics, everything,
you know.

And they were a hope,
a big, big hope.

There was something about them
that was good and true.

And you felt that.

Only you can decide
what you want,

what you want
this country to be,

what you want to do
with the future.

De Niro: That was
his public persona,

and everybody really needed it.

Even saying things like...

Ask not what your country
can do for you.

..."but what you can do
for your country,"

those were very good things.

Kennedy: We can organize
our life so that our people

will find themselves living
in a world of peace and freedom.

Soren: You're talking to
an Irish Catholic person

whose parents
are New Englanders,

who had a picture of Jesus,
literally,

and JFK next to each other
over the couch.

He meant so much to my family.

[ Indistinct singing ]

I'm a professor
of counseling psychology

at Fordham University.

And I do research
in psychobiography

and multicultural psychology.

My family was always interested,
you know, in President Kennedy,

the first Catholic president,
immigrant Irish family.

So that launched my interest
in John F. Kennedy.

Then in recent years,
I was saying,

"Can you imagine young
John F. Kennedy Jr. being born

into that umbrella of notoriety
and fame of his father?

How does he find
his own identity?"

Gillon:
When John was a little kid,

you know, growing up
in the White House,

there was this tug-of-war
going on

between his father
and his mother.

His mother wanted to protect
his privacy as much as possible.

Jackie is trying
to put up these large trees

to block people
from taking pictures,

and JFK is having them torn up

because he wants people
to see him.

He understands that political
value of a wholesome family.

[ Gunshot ]

Man: It appears as though
something has happened

in the motorcade route.

Something, I repeat, has
happened in the motorcade route.

President Kennedy died at
1:00 p.m. Central Standard Time.

Soren: The whole country
endured this assassination.

People remember exactly where
they were when this happened

and stood in front of
their televisions and cried.

Man: There's only one word
to describe the picture here,

and that's "grief."

John became not just a young son
of an assassinated president,

but John became almost like
a nephew or a younger cousin

or even a son to the millions
of people watching.

Man: John, what happened
to your father?

Young Kennedy Jr.:
So, he's gone to heaven.

He's gone to heaven?
Yeah.

Do you remember him?
Yeah.

What do you remember?

I don't -- I don't
remember anything.

The Kennedys, I think, are the
epitome of the American dream.

But they are also the epitome
of everything

that Americans hold in ambition,
right,

the politics, the wealth,
the mystery.

And then in an instant,
it's cut off.

So now we don't know
what that possibility is.

But when we see
his 3-year-old son John

saluting the casket,

the American public immediately
casts all those aspirations,

all those myths,

all those understandings
about John F. Kennedy

and his unfinished legacy
onto his son.

And so we see, I think,
a kind of heightened intensity

and focus on John,
the boy who would be king.

The great burden John had
was to play the role

of John F. Kennedy Jr.

And in many ways,

his mother unintentionally
raised those expectations.

I think every woman
wants to feel needed.

And in politics, you are,

so much more than
in many other fields.

You're always living
in a state of crisis.

You're always being demanded
to meet a challenge.

And when you meet it,
it's a great satisfaction to me.

Gillon: She was so determined
to preserve the legacy

of her husband that she created
the myth of Camelot.

As Jackie Kennedy said in
her interview in Life magazine

just a few months
after his death,

"Let's not forget there
once was a Camelot.

There may be other
great presidents,

but there will never be
another Camelot."

Gillon: That myth is what
would carry forward.

When people saw John,
they saw him as the person

who was going to bring
Camelot alive again.

And I think that became
a burden for him.

Ginsberg: I mean, he was
3 years old when his dad died.

His uncle was a big part
of his life.

When Bobby asked him what
he wanted to do as an adult,

I think he told Bobby
he wanted to be a chef.

Bobby was like, "Are you
out of your [bleep] mind?"

[ Laughs ]

[ Applause ]

Gillon: His family's greatest
accomplishments were public.

They were presidents
and they were senators.

They left a legacy
of accomplishment.

John was the heir.

If you were
to have a son,

would you encourage
a political career for him?

Yes, and I hope
if I had a daughter,

I might encourage her
to play some part.

But I would, definitely.

I would hope he would grow up
to be if not a politician,

I would hope
that whatever he did do

that he would have some sense of
responsibility for what went on.

Radziwill:
People had the expectation

that John was going to grow up
and probably go into politics,

and he may have eventually,

but I think he envisioned,
you know, this other life.

Ginsberg: I was a paper boy
for seven years on one block

outside of Buffalo, New York,

and I told people
when they asked,

"Where are you
going to college?"

I said, "I'm going
to Brown University."

And to a person, they all said,

"Isn't that where
John-John Kennedy goes?"

I met him the first week of
sophomore year, his junior year.

We were both taking a European
intellectual history class,

and we were in a smaller seminar
with the professor.

And so we had to one time
do a conversation

between Kierkegaard
and Nietzsche and Kant,

and neither of us had a clue
how to do it.

And I got up
and I gave my conversation.

It was like
a two-minute conversation,

and she just looked at me,

kind of shaking her head
like, "What?"

Then John gets up,
and he gives what I think

is an equally obtuse,
inane conversation

between these two intellectuals.

And she says, "John,
that was so profound."

And I thought,
"Damn, life is not fair."

It was called the JK Factor,
which he later coined,

which was there was always
that kind of special --

he got a little bit
special treatment

that the rest of us didn't get.

Gillon: I was a graduate student
at Brown

when John was an undergraduate.

You know, I was older than him.

You know, I understood the role
I played in John's life.

I was the professor.

We spent a lot of time together.

I felt I really got to know him.

Two, three times a week
sometimes,

we'd hop in his little blue
Honda, and we would go there

and we would have these really
intense games of racquetball,

and then we would lift weights

and then we would go
and get something to eat.

And, of course,
John never had any money.

So I was a graduate student
living on $5,000 a year,

and I'm buying him --
Of course, it's Wendy's.

Jackie knew
that John was scattered.

She knew that he was
not good at making deadlines,

filling out applications,
so she used to do it for him.

Jackie filled out part
of John's application to Brown.

Ponterotto: His mom was
a very powerful, strong figure.

She had to be a loving,
nurturing mother

but also a stern father
as a single mom.

Gillon: I referred to her
as the "hidden hand" mother.

She did things behind the scenes
so John didn't know it.

Like this letter to a professor.

She writes, "Dear Mrs. Romer,
I received today my copy

of your letter
to my son John Kennedy,

telling him that
he needs to complete two courses

to be in good standing.

I have never asked for special
consideration for my children,

but there was an extra burden
John carried this year.

He was asked to campaign almost
every weekend for his uncle."

I come here today to ask for
your help and your support.

Gillon: "And he thought
he could carry both loads."

Ponterotto: John had
an adventurous streak

and somewhat
of a risk-taking streak,

and I think Mrs. Kennedy
wanted to make sure

that there was balance there

and John did not get himself
into trouble,

which he did at times.

Gillon:
He always said, you know,

"I don't want to do
what people expect me to do."

He needed to do something
that stood out,

so that next year, he graduated
and went to India.

Every once in a while,
he would write me a letter.

"Dear Stevie,
I've spent most of my time

traveling around to different
projects in different regions.

Of course,
the inevitable thought is

about what to do
when I get back.

Might you keep your eyes
and ears open for me?

And if anything passes your way,
perhaps you pass it on.

Later, John."

While he was in India,

he thought about
going to law school.

But John didn't want
to be a lawyer.

For John, it was kind of a,
"You know what?

What the hell?

My mom wants me
to do something serious.

It's serious.
I'll do it."

John was at NYU's law school
when I was at NYU.

Yes, it was always a good day
if you had a JFK Jr. sighting.

He went to law school
when I was graduating.

So he was always, you know,

asking me about
what law school was like,

'cause, you know,
I was seeing him all the time.

John loved New York City.

He was so much a part
of the landscape of New York,

like, you know, 'cause
he rode his bike everywhere,

played football
on the city playgrounds,

if you can believe it.

He wanted to live
a normal New York life.

From East Harlem to Chinatown,

from Mott Haven in the Bronx
to the Lower East Side,

there is no place
quite like New York.

Radziwill: He wanted to maybe
break some rules,

and then he did.

It sounds silly, but, like,
he moved downtown to Tribeca

when his whole family lived
on the Upper East Side.

And it just was like
in these little ways,

you're making boundaries and
you're creating independence

and you're creating
this other life.

Rigueur: There is no such thing
as a private,

normal day in the life
of John F. Kennedy Jr.

He is repeatedly a focus
of not just tabloid fodder,

but also fawning
public adoration.

De Niro:
The first time I met him,

he lived around the corner
from where I lived.

He would be followed more
than, say, I was followed.

Well, he was John Kennedy Jr.
[ Laughs ]

Who wouldn't be interested
in him?

He had those good looks,
and he was a regular person.

People were just --
they couldn't get over him

or get enough of him.

Newspapers kept, you know,
selling because of him.

And once you got the tabloid TV,

it kept being so popular
because of him.

That's when he became the most
desirable bachelor in New York.

His dating life was just,
you know,

the frenzy
of the gossip columns.

You dated
John F. Kennedy Jr. once.
I did, yeah.

A few times.
Yeah, for a while.

Great guy.

The stuff about being sexy
and attractive...

Listen, people can say a lot
worse things about you, right,

than you are attractive

and you look good
in a bathing suit.

John Kennedy's
going to be in my class?

I can get you a spot
right behind him.

He has got
a great butt.

He looks like his father.

His mother was, you know, the
most iconic beauty in the world.

And they were America's
royal family, essentially.

And John Jr., you know,

looked like he had everything
going for him

that could make him
a real spear carrier

for the next gen of that karma,
essentially.

Rigueur: There is an intense
amount of scrutiny around,

what is John F. Kennedy Jr.'s
thing going to be?

Do you think
you might be interested

in going into politics?

Well, I'm completely busy and
consumed by what I'm doing now.

And, you know, obviously, I find
public issues interesting.

And I can't help but find

a convention like this
interesting.

But I'm just --

You know,
I'll see what happens,

and I'm happy doing
what I'm doing.

Ginsberg: We studied
for the LSAT together.

It was not a natural thing
for us.

And yet he didn't care.

You know,
he was willing to put himself

into uncomfortable situations

and overcome
whatever limitations

he thought he might have
to succeed.

You know, God willing,
I'll be back there in July

and I'll pass it then
or I'll pass it the next time

or I'll pass it when I'm 95.

Normally it's
a private experience

when you fail the bar, right?

Your parents know,
your siblings know,

maybe a couple of co-workers.

the entire world knew.

Unfortunately, flunked again,
and unfortunately,

the media was just as vicious.

He was able to finally pass it
by his third try.

Slow news day,
I guess, huh?

Man:
How do you feel about it?

It tastes pretty sweet
at the moment.

Gillon: John felt he needed to
redefine himself to the public.

He didn't want to be remembered
as the hunk flunks.

He didn't want to be remembered
as the sexiest man alive.

He wanted to have
some accomplishment.

You going to stay here
in the DA's office?

Sure, absolutely.

What kind of cases
are you looking forward to?

[ Indistinct singing,
cheers and applause ]

Ginsberg: In 1992,

John was watching
the campaign really closely

because Clinton
had captured the imagination

of a much broader group
of voters and personalities

and people to bring them
into the political process.

America can be made
forever young,

the idea that drove John Kennedy
to the presidency in their time.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Bill Clinton really just
zeroed in on young people.

It's like, "If I can get
the young vote,

I can win this election."

Education, the environment,
AIDS, the economy,

why young people don't vote.

Governor Bill Clinton
will be here to answer

those questions and more next.

Until Bill Clinton,

I had always thought
of presidential candidates

as about probably
my grandfather's age.

One reason for
the alienation of young people

is this is
a more diverse society

than you can tell by looking
on television at night

at the people running it.

For me, the two snapshots
of the entire campaign in 1992

are doing a town hall
with Clinton

and having him
be asked questions

that showed his humanity.

If you had it to do over again,
would you inhale?

Sure, if I could.
I tried before.

[ Laughter ]

The other snapshot for me

is being on the back
of a moving train

with the person
I was interviewing,

who happened to be
George H.W. Bush.

The message isn't
really getting through.

The Republican platform
says abstinence.

Well, I'm a little concerned
about 13-year-old pregnancies.

Maybe others aren't.
I'm very much concerned.
Well, but --

May I finish, please?

When Bush is interviewed
by Tabitha Soren,

it is one of the most awkward

political-meets-pop-culture
interviews.

Bush doesn't understand
the culture in a way

that translates
to MTV's audience.

All of a sudden, Clinton
is conveying a stark contrast

to all the other options,

and he's using
non-traditional media to do it.

[ Saxophone playing ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

Carmody:
Politics was becoming --

I don't want to say sexy,

but it was becoming
more part of the mainstream.

You know what
your drummer said?
What?

He said, "If this music thing
doesn't work out,

you can always
run for president."

[ Laughter ]

Soren: You can't be dismissive
of young people,

and young people insist
that you move with the times.

And because JFK Jr.
was a young person,

he didn't need any convincing.

What he needed was
the ability to create,

you know, some sort of entity
to further those ideas.

So, John is working for

the New York Office
of Business Development,

I believe, and Michael Berman,

who was a very successful
advertising executive,

was volunteering one day a week,

and they met,
and they bonded right away.

And they decided after a while
to go into business.

You came from PR, right?

Right. I had a public relations
and marketing company.

We launched products
in the marketplace,

so that was my forte here,

and combined with John's,
you know, incredible knowledge

and passion for politics.

Ginsberg: Michael had
a very commercial mind.

He was more of a businessman.

He understood numbers.
He understood marketing.

He understood
how to sell a product.

He brought a certain discipline
to the process

that John perhaps lacked.

In addition to the fact

that political magazines
wouldn't sell,

the experts early on advised us
of just one other key point --

Never go into business
with a friend.

Well, being right one time
out of two ain't bad.

It was a process
of hashing it out.

I think it was
during that period

when I had my first conversation
with John about it,

and he obviously
had bought into the idea

and was very excited about it.

So the two of them
together created George.

Brown: John's relationship
to the press was extremely wary.

They wanted quotes.
They wanted scandal.

They wanted a piece of him.

And yet because he had been
a celebrity all his own life,

it is also very much something
he understood

and wanted to be a player in.

[ Indistinct talking ]

John held journalists,
in a slightly exalted place.

His father was a journalist
before he went into politics,

and Jackie was a photographer,
then she was an editor

for a major book publishing firm
in New York.

Ginsberg: So I would presume
that there was a part of her

that actually really liked
the idea

of John starting
a political magazine.

Gillon: She was putting him
in touch with influential people

in the magazine world
that would normally not have met

with two people
coming up with an idea

that had no background
in magazines.

John didn't like to be treated
differently most times,

but his mom was the one
who was calling in the favors

and not him, and I think that
made it a little easier for him.

Radziwill: In any family
that has that kind of rich,

long history,

everyone kind of has roles,
right?

Everyone has a role
in the family.

Even in typical families,
I think everyone --

There is, like,
the middle funny child

and the bossy older sibling,

and everyone kind of
takes on a role.

And I think John was just, like,

a little bit more
of a free spirit.

There was a lot of, "Oh, John,
what is he doing now?

What did he get himself into?"

This was his, like, tagline.

Anthony was his cousin.

They grew up together
from childhood,

and they were always
playing jokes on each other.

They were just fun together.

Anthony and I started dating

eight months after
I first met him in L.A.

We were together sort of casual

because we were both
at ABC News

and we just felt like,
"Let's just keep this quiet."

But, of course, it was the '90s.

Everyone was hooking up at work.

The weekend I met John, he was
out at the beach with Carolyn.

She was sort of extraordinary
in so many ways.

We were in our late 20s
at the time,

and she was the first girl
I ever knew who really was,

like, this much overused
expression, girl's girl.

She was so beautiful.

South: I met Carolyn when
she worked for Calvin Klein.

I was at Vanity Fair.

I was the kind of person
on the editorial side

who was meant to have

the best relationship
with the advertisers,

and Calvin was certainly
one of the biggest.

Carolyn was one of those people
that the moment you met her,

she kind of filled the room.

I mean,
she was incredibly beautiful.

She was very, very smart.
She had a serious brain.

They met -- He had come in

to get some suits fitted
or something,

and she was sort of
Calvin Klein's muse

and also ran PR.

She was very sophisticated
in that way.

And that's how
they originally met.

And then two weekends later,
he brought Daryl Hannah,

who he had had a previously
pretty long relationship with.

He said that Daryl decided
to move back to New York --

she was living in L.A.
or something --

and that he felt
like he owed it to her

to try to see if it could work

that they were both living
on the same coast.

His mom did have concerns with
Daryl Hannah, the movie star.

Christina Haag,
who he dated after Brown,

you know, once said,
"To love John,

you need the approval
of his mom first."

Radziwill:
And I'm sure he loved Daryl.

They stayed together
for a couple years

until his mother got sick.

Reporter:
Through a family spokeswoman,

the former first lady has
revealed she is being treated

for a form of cancer
of the lymphatic system,

the lymph nodes scattered
around the body

that play a major role
in the immune system.

The 64-year-old Mrs. Onassis

found out she was suffering
from the disease

after going to her doctor last
month with flu-like symptoms.

It was very traumatic
because my husband --

well, at that point, my fiancé,
you know, was battling cancer.

He called Jackie to tell her,
and he's like,

"I have something to tell you."

Then I remember him saying,
"Okay, you go first."

And she said,
you know, "I have bad news,

that I've been diagnosed
with lymphoma."

The former first lady
is suffering

from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma,
a form of cancer.

A spokeswoman says Mrs. Onassis

will not have
any further treatment.

The disease has progressed

and there is nothing
doctors can do for her.

All day long,
family and relatives

paid visits to her apartment
on Fifth Avenue.

You know,
the end came pretty quickly.

I remember, like, it was Sunday
when we all were together,

and Thursday she passed away,

so it was a very short
little window.

Reporter: Bettina,
family members are now leaving

the apartment building
on Fifth Avenue in New York

across from Central Park
where Mrs. Onassis died

now almost three hours ago.

John did say to me one time --

He said,
"I'm too young to be an orphan."

He was just
absolutely devastated.

Kennedy Jr.:
My mother passed on.

She was surrounded
by her friends and her family

and her books and the people
and the things that she loved.

And she did it in her own way
and on her own terms.

And, uh --
And we all feel lucky for that.

Ginsberg: This is a note
that John's mom wrote to John

days before she died

and only to be opened
after her death in May of 1994.

"I understand the pressure
you'll forever have to endure

as a Kennedy,
even though we brought you

into this world as an innocent.

You especially have a place
in history,

no matter what course in life
you choose.

All I can ask
is that you continue to make me,

the Kennedy family,
and yourself proud."

Gillon: So he had
this whole drama going on

with Daryl Hannah, who he
had really broken up with.

But, you know,
so this is like --

This is John's life, right?

His mom dies.
He's mourning his mom.

But he's afraid
that if the public knows

he's broken up
with Daryl Hannah,

the media is going to focus
on that and not on his mom

and his mom's life.

So he went through the pretense
of still being together,

and they went rollerblading
down Fifth Avenue,

I think, just so everybody
could see them together.

That's the kind of calculation
John has to make

that most of us
don't have to make.

Radziwill: John and Jackie,
they were very close.

He was heartbroken, and it was
a really hard time for him.

But there was almost like, I
would say, like an emancipation.

I think for the first time,

he felt free to do
what he wanted to do in a way

that he wouldn't have
when his mom was alive.

And, you know, there's --
a lot of good came out of that.

He reconnected
pretty quickly with Carolyn,

and, of course, he had started
working on the magazine

years earlier.

This was like a rebirth for him,
in a way.

He just felt free.

-CNN. John!
-John!

Andersen: I was the editor
of New York Magazine

when John Kennedy,
whom I'd never met, said,

"I'd love to have lunch with you
and my partner, Michael Berman."

And we did, of course,
at the Royalton Hotel.

And it was --
I was impressed by him.

He was, you know, intelligent,
thoughtful, charming,

not arrogant-seeming,
not entitled-seeming,

although, of course,
the most entitled human being

in existence, probably.

But I liked him,
and he wasn't stupid.

I thought you were
a lawyer.

I was.

You were a DA.
Are you now --

This is it?
This is going to be your life?

Editing, publishing,
magazines, writing, is that it?

I don't remember
the specific presentation,

"This is what I want to do,"

but I understood it
to be a magazine

about politics
and political figures

that would be smart

but in a in a sassy, glossy way.

I thought, oh, this is worth --

some version of this
is worth a try.

One of the challenges
for us was

how you come up with
a magazine about politics

that somehow gets around
the word "politics."

John wanted to take
this arcane process of lawmaking

and popularize it.

So he said, "I'm going to
use graphics, use diagrams."

Make it accessible
and make it familiar

and create an identity.

He said George is to politics

with Sports Illustrated is
to sports

and Allure is to beauty
and music is to Rolling Stone.

Ginsberg:
He wanted people in the middle
of the country to read it.

He wanted to make it
post-partisan,

because I think Bill Clinton had
this aura of post-partisanship.

He shattered the perceptions

that somehow you have to stay
within the two-party system.

If you could
turn on people

who'd never really considered
themselves politically oriented,

turn them onto politics
somehow through this magazine,

that would be a success
for us.

Gillon: I was skeptical.

John's launching a magazine
that's designed

to blur the line between liberal
and conservative

just as American politics
were becoming more polarized

between left and right.

We're going to be open
to working with everyone,

that we will cooperate
with anyone,

and we will compromise
with no one.

Politically it was a pretty wild
time, 'cause think about it.

Like, Clinton wins in '92.

And then midterms...

the Democrats got trounced

by the whole
Newt Gingrich revolution.

You've got Gingrich
waging war on the government.

You know,
he tried to shut it down,

if you remember,
with the budget.

We also begin to see
the success of Rush Limbaugh

during this period.

Limbaugh:
You people in the press

have got to
understand something.

This country is conservative.
It has been for a long time.

Get used to it.

You tried to change it,
and you failed.

It was an incredibly risky
thing for John to do,

and he could have taken
the safe route.

But John's fiercely competitive,
right.

Brown: Starting a magazine
is so hard.

I had heard
that he'd talked to people.

My immediate instinct about it

was it was a vanity project
for him

and was very skeptical
that it would be any good.

But when I first met him

and I saw him to be this kind of
rather gentlemanly figure,

he was more kind of courtly
and slightly old-fashioned,

actually, than I'd expected.

And he understood
that he was a star

and that he really
could have whatever he wanted.

Carter:
I knew John, and when he started
the magazine, we had a chat.

If I'd been his father
or an uncle or something,

I would have said,
"Go work at another magazine

for three years
before you do this."

You know, "Get your feet under
the desk on somebody else's dime

and figure out all the things
you don't want to do

and do want to do
before you actually launch it,

because it's going to be big
at first

and it's going to get noticed."

And it's a tough job.
There's no school to get --

You know, there's a school --
you need to get a license

to practice real-estate sales
and home -- and decorating.

There's nothing to be an editor

unless you've worked
at a magazine.

And he hadn't done that.

Ginsberg:
Finally, we were ready to go.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

John and Michael --
they were pitching everybody.

And everybody
would take the pitch

'cause they all
wanted to meet John.

So he had a lot more pitches
than the average person.

But it also meant he had
a lot more rejections.

And they would come back,
and, you know, it's like,

"Great meeting, great meeting,"
and then you'd find out

a day or two later they'd
get a phone call it's a no-go.

George was a huge risk
for John.

Look, George was a risk
for any person

wanting to start a magazine.

You were starting
a political magazine,

which, by definition,
never worked.

It was a risk for anybody.

And if it weren't,
Condé Nast would have done it.

It was a huge risk.

That fearlessness
is what drove him

throughout his adult life,
ultimately to his detriment.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

The 1980s and 1990s in New York

were great times
to be in the magazine business.

I mean, there's nothing
that could touch

what magazines could do.
They drove the culture.

Gillon: So, just when John
and Michael think it's over,

and this dream they have of
creating this magazine is dead,

they meet a guy
named David Pecker,

who was then the CEO
of Hachette.

So, at Hachette, we don't shy
away from taking chances.

A magazine launch is
a commitment from a company

in the upwards of $20 million.

Pecker was the kind of guy
who John avoided his whole life.

I'm sure glad
I picked up the check.

Andersen: David Pecker
was a funny figure in my eyes,

a diminutive man in a mustache
and a big smile.

He was a hustler

and years later was involved
with the National Enquirer.

And he was not top-drawer

in terms
of the publishing industry.

I mean,
David was a complicated person.

Um, you know, I can't lie

and say that it wasn't part
of it was the allure of John.

You know, I guess the Kennedy
thing didn't hurt, okay?

[ Chuckles ]

But I think David also

was entrepreneurial enough

to understand a good idea
when it was pitched to him.

Ginsberg: Hachette said yes.
It was really exciting.

You know, it wasn't ideal.

They didn't have any history
of publishing

a first-rate, high-quality
political magazine.

It wasn't Condé Nast.

Put it that way.

Gillon: So, what happens is,
day one,

you know they meet with
the editorial director,

who says they're gonna change
the name of the magazine

to Crisscross.

And John's like --
John was furious.

And they also told him that,
you know,

Hachette always wanted George

to be essentially
a celebrity fan club,

with John as the main celebrity.

John's a passive guy,
but he was furious.

And he went up to David Pecker's
office, and he said,

"We're done.

This relationship
isn't gonna work."

Eventually, Pecker backed down.

But this was a constant
source of tension

throughout the life
of the magazine.

Radziwill: At that time, he was
really focused on the magazine,

and Carolyn was really focused
on the magazine.

I feel like it was
just as much her baby

as it was his, in a way.

Like, she was definitely
a driving force

in keeping him focused
and keeping him out

of the side circus shows that he
could have gotten involved in.

Ginsberg: She was fiercely
protective of him.

She was always saying to him,

"John, you're being taken
advantage of by X,"

or, "You're being played by Y."

Radziwill: She made him feel,

probably more than anyone
in his life,

that he could be his own person,

he didn't have to follow
what people expected of him.

Of course, the magazine --

that was a real departure
from anything

anyone in his family
had done before.

It was a really physically
and emotionally taxing time.

John lost -- I don't know --
like 30 pounds, 20 pounds.

I don't remember exactly.

We wanted to prove
the doubters wrong.

Also, he was carrying
around a ring.

When you're John,
you know, it's a big step.

He knows it's gonna have,
you know, major implications.

Radziwill: They were
in the vineyard, and he, um...

I think it was kind of
a surprise for her.

She called me.

They had just gotten back
to New York,

and she said
that John had proposed

with a ring that his mother
had called her swimming ring,

and it was a band
of sapphires and diamonds.

She was happy, but nervous.

She didn't want to tell anyone.

Interviewer: Why?

Because both within the family

and then, obviously
for them publicly,

it just became --
it became something else.

Everyone started hearing
about it and started realizing,

"Oh, she's just not just another
girl that he's hanging out with.

Like, he's really serious.

He's gonna marry her."

And there was
a higher expectation, I think,

even in the family.

She wanted to stave that off,
I think, as long as possible.

Woman: Hi.
Yeah, my question --

I'm just sitting around with
a bunch of friends tonight,

and we're curious to see, um,

how John proposed to Carolyn.

News anchor: Liz, I'll give you
that question.

I wish I knew.

There's a kind of frenzy
around this.

I think it's great.
Everyone should be happy.

Wright Rigueur: The world's
most eligible bachelor

is off the market,

but it's still about America's
3-year-old growing up,

about him moving on
into the next phase of his life.

And when you introduce
a woman into that...

Man #1: Are there any little
Johns on the way?

Man #2: John, we're not getting
you. Can you look over?

...that's going to spark
an insane level of curiosity.

Who is she?
What makes her tick?

Why is she so special?