Lee Radziwill Socialites Information

Caroline Lee Radziwill (née Bouvier, formerly Canfield and Ross; Polish pronunciation: [ra'd͡͡ʑivʲiww]; March 3, 1933 – February 15, 2019), usually known as Princess Lee Radziwill, was an American socialite, public-relations executive, and interior decorator. She was the younger sister of First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and sister-in-law of President John F. Kennedy. Radziwill was married three times, with the marriage to third husband Herbert Ross ending in divorce shortly before his death in 2001.

Caroline Lee Bouvier was born at Doctors Hospital in New York City to stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and socialite Janet Norton Lee.[a] She attended Potomac School in Washington, D.C., Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, and pursued undergraduate studies at Sarah Lawrence College. In her birth announcement, and from her earliest years, she was known by her middle name "Lee" rather than Caroline.

In the 1960s, Radziwill attempted to forge a career as an actress. Her acting attempt was unsuccessful, if highly publicized. She starred in the 1967 production of The Philadelphia Story as the spoiled Main Line heiress Tracy Lord. The play was staged at the Ivanhoe Theatre in Chicago, and Radziwill's performance was widely panned. A year later, she appeared in a television adaptation of the 1944 film Laura, which was also badly received.

A London townhouse and a manor, Turville Grange (which she shared with her second husband) that she owned had both been decorated by Italian stage designer Lorenzo Mongiardino; they were greatly admired and frequently photographed by Cecil Beaton and Horst P. Horst. She herself worked briefly as an interior decorator in a style much influenced by her association with Mongiardino. Her clientele were the wealthy; she once decorated a house "for people who would not be there more than three days a year". She frequented celebrity company, including travelling with The Rolling Stones during their 1972 tour of North America, which she attended alongside the writer Truman Capote.

Her Paris and Manhattan apartments were featured in the April 2009 issue of Elle Décor magazine. Radziwill was named to the Vanity Fair International Best Dressed Hall of Fame in 1996. She was listed as one of the fifty best-dressed over-50s by the Guardian in March 2013. She was interviewed by director Sofia Coppola in February 2013 about her life as part of Radziwill's cover story for T: The New York Times Style Magazine as well as about Coppola's film The Bling Ring and the loss of privacy.

In 1972, Radziwill hired documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles to work on a film about the Bouvier family. At the outset, the brothers filmed two eccentric and reclusive members of the extended family, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale ("Big Edie") and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale ("Little Edie"), who were Radziwill's aunt and cousin, respectively. The Beales lived in a rambling, decaying home in East Hampton, New York and were supported by other members of the family.

Radziwill's original film project was not completed, and Radziwill kept the footage that had been shot of the Beales. However, the Maysles brothers were fascinated by the strange life the two women led, and after raising funds for film and equipment on their own they returned and filmed 70 more hours of footage with Big Edie and Little Edie. The resulting film, titled Grey Gardens (1976) after the name of the Beales' home, is widely considered a masterpiece of the documentary genre. It was later adapted as a 2006 musical of the same name, in which the characters Lee and Jackie Bouvier appear as visiting children in retrospect. An HBO television movie based upon the documentary and surrounding story of the Beales' lives, also called Grey Gardens, appeared in 2009.

Radziwill was married three times. Her first marriage, in April 1953, was to Michael Temple Canfield, a publishing executive. They divorced in 1959, and the marriage was annulled by the Roman Catholic Church in November 1962. Her second marriage, on March 19, 1959, was to the Polish aristocrat Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwill, who divorced his second wife, the former Grace Maria Kolin, and received a Roman Catholic annulment of his first marriage to re-marry (his second marriage had never been acknowledged by the Roman Catholic Church, so no annulment was necessary).

Upon her marriage she became Her Serene Highness Princess Caroline Radziwill. They had two children, Anthony (1959–1999) and Christina. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1974.

On September 23, 1988, Radziwill became the second wife of American film director and choreographer Herbert Ross. Their divorce was finalized shortly before his death, and she returned to using Radziwill, her children's name.

Radziwill died on February 15, 2019, aged 85, in New York City from undisclosed causes.

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