Among Lee Radziwill’s grand personal effects to be auctioned at Christie’s on Thursday is a dusty copy of “Jackie After Jack,” a biography of Jackie Onassis. And a source tells Page Six that Radziwill — Onassis’ sister, who died in February — had dog-eared the pages on which she appeared, and written terse notes in the margins disputing parts of the account.
For example, in a passage that claimed the former first lady “splurged shamelessly” on furs, shoes and handbags, the book quotes Radziwill as saying, “Trying to make Jackie Onassis stick to a budget is like trying to make Jackie Gleason stick to a diet.” Next to it, Radziwill wrote in green pen, “Never said. Didn’t know who Gleason was!”
In another part of the 1998 book, the author Christopher Andersen claimed that Radziwill had “physically escorted her sister to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at St. Luke’s Church in East Hampton.” Radziwill scratched by it, “I’ve never been to St. Luke’s. J + I were never in East Hampton together for 30 years, except for two aunts’ funerals.”
Said an insider, “The funniest thing is the book is saying how Jackie would scribble comments in the margins of newspaper articles about herself, and Lee writes [in the margin], ‘Totally false.’ But she is doing it!”
It’s not clear what the purpose of her annotations is, or whether she complained to the author or publisher about the alleged inaccuracies.
We couldn’t reach Andersen for comment.
The tome is being sold in a lot alongside five other books and a vinyl record, all on the subject of the Kennedy family. The group of Radziwill artifacts was estimated to go for between $800 and $1,200.
The auction, called the Collection of Lee Bouvier Radziwill, features furniture, art and other belongings, with estimates up to $60,000 for a book commemorating “Mrs. John F. Kennedy’s” trip to India in 1962.
The sale starts at 10 a.m. on Thursday.