Why are we so obsessed — still — with John F. Kennedy Jr.?
Here was a man literally born to be famous. He was America’s crown prince, a destiny he wrestled with his entire, all-too-short life.
Spike TV’s documentary “I Am JFK Jr.” (tomorrow at 9 p.m.) from director/producer Derik Murray (“I Am Chris Farley”) investigates the times and turmoil that surrounded the only surviving son of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy.
The special combines archival footage of JFK Jr. over the years — from babyhood to his final weeks, some familiar, some hilarious, some heartbreaking — with new interviews with a range of his associates, from friends to college roommates to some unlikely pals, including conservative pundit Ann Coulter, actor Robert De Niro and boxer Mike Tyson.
(No member of the Kennedy family cooperated, at least on camera. Actress Daryl Hannah, with whom he shared a five-year relationship, is also absent.)
When your parents are two accomplished people who have managed to captivate and change the world in a twinkling of time, how do you find your place as the star of the second act?
To many in the public, John Jr.’s life was defined and shaped by the image of his 3-year-old self saluting his father’s casket as it passed by.
His good friend and CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour notes that he knew he was heir to the promise and the challenge of Camelot.
From a young age, he was practically hunted by paparazzi. Some of the film clips of photographers chasing after him are terrifying.
As an adult, he was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive (1988). He flunked the bar exam three times and was lampooned by the tabloids. CNN’s Chris Cuomo says he had a reading disability and was entitled to take more time on the exam but refused because he didn’t want anyone to think he was getting special treatment.
His magazine “George” captured the collision of politics and pop culture and seems downright prescient.
In one hilarious anecdote, Bill Clinton adviser Paul Begala shares that after the then-president was caught in a sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky, John sent a handwritten fax to the White House, reminding him he had been under that desk in the Oval Office and it barely had any room for a 3-year-old, much less an intern.
Carolyn Bessette was his match, and their love was real, but his bride was completely unprepared for the media spotlight that turned on her.
Their deaths, along with Carolyn’s sister Lauren, in a 1999 plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard, still weigh on their friends.
Those here seem to agree that they expected one day ambition would align with the times, and John F. Kennedy Jr. would become president.
Cuomo says, “I miss not having that future to look forward to.“
Something special lost indeed.
“I Am JFK Jr.” might make you feel young again — and then remind you how old the world has become.
