Exclusive extract
My
friend Jackie,
On paper, they’d seem unlikely friends. But when former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis met free-spirited singer-songwriter Carly Simon, a rare and wonderful friendship was born. In a new book, Touched by the Sun, Carly reveals the intimate time she spent with Jackie in the decade before her death in 1994 and the deep kinship they formed. 84 The Australian Women’s Weekly | FEBRUARY 2020
t was the summer of 1983 when Carly Simon, by then famous for such hits as Nobody Does It Better, You’re So Vain and You Belong To Me, attended a dinner at the Ocean Club in Massachusetts’ affluent summer playground, Martha’s Vineyard. Also there that evening was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She was accompanying her son, John Kennedy Jr; himself a sometime Martha’s Vineyard resident and acquaintance of Carly’s; and he introduced the two women briefly. Conversation haltingly began and soon they were bumping into each other more frequently – and an invitation to Carly’s home on the island was issued not long after. This would prove the birth of an incredible friendship which would see them share long lunches, dinner dates, trips to the movies and theatre as well as insights on love, life and the most intimate of secrets. Now, more than 35 years since that first chance meeting, Carly has shared her memories of the woman she came to love and cherish in a new book, Touched by the Sun. Following is an edited extract Carly has granted exclusively to The Weekly.
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