John Vernou “Black Jack” Bouvier III (Father of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) Signed Cheque

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John Vernou “Black Jack” Bouvier III (May 19, 1891 – August 3, 1957) was an American Wall Street stockbroker and socialite. He was the father of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and of socialite Lee Radziwill, and was the father-in-law of John F. Kennedy.

John Vernou Bouvier III, was a hard drinking, gambling, and womanizing man notorious for his unstable behavior. Nicknamed “Black Jack” Bouvier due to his dark complexion, he became a notorious figure during the Kennedy’s age of Camelot.

Despite initial disagreements, JFK and Black Jack Bouvier came to get along. In fact, the two were such great pals they ended up sharing women and drinking heavily together. Bouvier lived hard and ended up succumbing to liver cancer due to years of binge drinking. He left quite the legacy behind, remembered as a polarizing figure in the United States political scene.

John Bouvier had a string of infidelities and affairs during his marriage to Janet Lee. He even bragged about his sexual escapades to his daughter Jackie. While attending Parents’ Day at his daughter’s prep school, he discreetly pointed out all of the moms he had slept with.

Like his father-in-law, John Kennedy was known for having a slew of affairs during his marriage. Bouvier didn’t seem bothered by his son-in-law’s infidelities – in fact,  according to Danforth Prince and Darwin Porter in their biography of Jacqueline Kennedy, the two men slept with some of the same women. In a story recounted by musician Cole Porter, Bouvier and Kennedy got very drunk together one night and invited a showgirl over. Both men seduced her that evening.

John Bouvier III was stylish and obsessed with his physical appearance. His nickname, “Black Jack,” came from the fact he had very dark, bronzed skin. He maintained his tan by spending hours each week sunbathing under a tanning lamp or outdoors. He also maintained a muscular physique by spending hours at the gym and kept this hair meticulously groomed.

Bouvier had a mustache that was similar to Clark Gable’s. People actually thought Bouvier was Gable on occasion. It was not uncommon for movie fans to ask Bouvier for an autograph, mistaking him for the Gone With the Wind star.

Bouvier was known for his vanity and liked to adorn walls with photographs of himself.

John Bouvier III was born into money but squandered his fortune through gambling and poor financial decisions.

Bouvier developed his love of gambling from a young age: he was kicked out of Phillips Exeter for it. In adulthood, he frequented the racetrack.

As an investment banker, Bouvier’s love of gambling encouraged him to take unwise risks in the stock market, which ultimately led to poor investment decisions and a depletion of his funds – he spent what he earned.

This – in addition to his infidelity and unstable behavior – was a major causal factor in his divorce from his wife Janet Norton Lee. She would go on to remarry the more financially stable investment banker Hugh Dudley Auchincloss in 1942.

Despite his philandering, alcoholism, and gambling, John Bouvier was an indulgent father to his daughters Jackie and Lee. As his niece Kathleen Bouvier recalled:

He devoted himself to making sure every day was special for them, whether it was gifting them with a new dog – and there were plenty in the household already – or taking them to the park, just spending time with them, there was no limit to what he would do for them. [His wife] Janet was more of a disciplinarian than Jack so, naturally, they gravitated toward him. Janet felt he spoiled the girls. Maybe so, but it was out of love.

Lee acknowledged that she and her sister worshipped their father: “To be with him when we were children meant joy, excitement and love.”

John Bouvier was especially close to Jackie, whom everyone – including Lee – believed was his favorite child. He would frequently praise Jackie for her looks and accomplishments. The family joked that Bouvier’s compliments to Jackie were doses of “Vitamin P” – the “P” standing for praise.

John Bouvier III was known as an alcoholic. His own wife even called him “that no-good drunk.”

At Jackie Bouvier’s wedding to John F. Kennedy in 1953, he became so intoxicated that he couldn’t escort her down the aisle – her stepfather instead escorted her. Rather than blame her father, however, Jackie held her mother responsible – she believed her father’s drunkenness was a result of her mother excluding him from the rehearsal dinner the night before.

John Bouvier eventually died of liver cancer, likely brought on by his heavy drinking.

John Bouvier III is best known for being the father-in-law of John F. Kennedy. But though the two shared a familial connection through Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, the pair’s politics couldn’t have been more different.

According to Kennedy biographer Geoffrey Perret, Bouvier was “a right-wing Republican who hated [Democratic President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt, the New Deal and all those associated with it.” Kennedy’s own father, Joseph P. Kennedy, had served in the Roosevelt administration.

John Bouvier III blamed his financial losses on his daughter’s new father-in-law. Joseph P. Kennedy headed up the federal agency that outlawed the financial practices that Bouvier had leveraged to amass his wealth. But despite their differences, both fathers worked together in 1956 to ensure that their children didn’t divorce during a rough patch in their marriage.

Even though Bouvier got along reasonably well with his son-in-law – they bonded over televised sports – John F. Kennedy would formally call him “Mr. Bouvier.”

Both John Bouvier III and his eventual wife Janet Lee claimed the proper credentials for membership into East Coast high society. But despite the couple’s shared social status, some doubted the prudence of their union. Even Lee’s father objected to the match. As he complained, “You need not only money in life, but power. This man [Bouvier] has neither.”

Janet Lee went against her father’s wishes and married John Bouvier in 1928.

The marriage was soon beset by problems, heightened by John Bouvier’s alcoholism, philandering, and financial losses. They separated in a painfully public divorce in 1940.

John Bouvier III’s behavior inevitably impacted his daughter. According to Jackie Kennedy biographer Darwin Porter, Bouvier’s philandering shaped his daughter’s expectations for romantic relationships: “That’s what Jackie grew up expecting of a man. So when she married JFK’s infidelities didn’t seem unusual.” Since Bouvier frequently told his daughter, “All men are rats,” Jackie may have been willing to overlook her husband’s affairs.

Bouvier’s financial failures also shaped what one biographer has called Jackie’s “primal fear of poverty.” As John F. Kennedy’s widow, she refused to marry men with modest means, opting instead to wed Aristotle Onassis, the obscenely wealthy tycoon.