Historian Brings Jackie Kennedy to Life in One-Woman Show

For four days in November 1963, her slim black figure held millions of grief-stricken television viewers together, forever searing her public legend in the nation’s collective memory.

Historian Leslie Goddard reveals the private Jacqueline Kennedy behind the public myth in a fascinating portrayal of the former First Lady this Friday--the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination--at the Oak Lawn Library.

Jackie Kennedy was just 34 years old when her husband was felled by an assassin’s bullets while riding in an open limousine through the streets of Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Goddard picks up Jacqueline Kennedy’s story in 1964, portraying the private woman behind the public myth, with stories from her life, her fight for privacy, her work to restore the White House, and her attempts to showcase the arts.  

“Whenever I do Jackie I ask people in the audience what they remember of that day and I’m astonished by how vivid people’s memories are,” Goddard said. “A lot of women in their eighties were at home with their children watching ‘Bozo’s Circus’ when the news broke that President Kennedy had been shot.”

A trained actress with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in theater, Goddard got her start portraying famous women from history in a roundabout way.

“I thought I’d be teaching theater and theater history, but I fell in love with history and got a Ph.D in it,” Goddard said. “I thought that was end of my acting days.”

Goddard was working at the Evanston Historical Society when someone found out about her theatrical background and asked her to portray Evanston’s most famous prohibitionist--Frances Willard--and the rest, as they say is history.

“I thought, ‘what an interesting way to present history,” the Darien resident said. “There are a lot of people who never liked history in school, but audiences do like to learn about famous people from the past. Biographies are hugely popular.”

Goddard develops her portrayals of historic women from primary resources, such as letters, diaries and autobiographies.

“For Jackie, I relied heavily on Theodore White’s interview a week after the assassination where she laid out her husband’s legacy around the legend of King Arthur and Camelot,” Goddard said.

Other fascinating facts about Jackie:

• She told the Warren Commission, the task force established by President Johnson to investigate the Kennedy assassination, that because she was told specifically to wave at the crowd on the left side of the street, she didn’t see the first bullet that hit JFK’s neck, a wound from which he could have survived. “They wanted them waving to the crowd on both sides of the street,” Goddard said. “She said if she had been looking to her right she could have seen the first shot and pulled him down … it must have been devastating for her to live with the feeling, ‘could I have done something.’”

• Jackie was a voracious chain smoker. “When I do a program and talk about her smoking, people are amazed,” Goddard said. “She wasn’t loyal to any one brand. She smoked L&Ms, Marlboro …”

“Jacqueline Kennedy” will be presented at 2 p.m. Friday, at the Oak Lawn Library, 9427 S. Raymond Ave. The show is free and will be followed by a question and answer session.

Learn more about Leslie Goddard’s living history portrayals including Abigail Adams, Amelia Earhart, Civil War nurse Clara Barton, Titanic stewardess Violet Jessop, Bertha Palmer and more on her website.