Lee Radziwill

Lee Radziwill – Life, Influence, and Memorable Quotes

Explore the life of Lee Radziwill (1933–2019) — American socialite, style icon, interior designer, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy, and a figure of glamour, ambition, and complexity. Her life, work, and memorable words captured a certain era of New York elegance and cultural intrigue.

Introduction

Lee Radziwill (born Caroline Lee Bouvier on March 3, 1933 – died February 15, 2019) was a prominent American socialite, interior decorator, and public figure. Though often known in relation to her sister, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lee forged her own path in design, high society, and cultural circles. Her polished appearance, aesthetic sensibility, and connections with figures like Truman Capote, Andy Warhol, and many others made her a lasting icon of mid-20th century glamour.

In this article, we explore her life story, roles, personal dynamics, and some of her more revealing quotations.

Early Life and Family

Lee was born Caroline Lee Bouvier in Manhattan, New York City, to stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and socialite Janet Norton Lee.

She grew up in a family of privilege but also complexity: after her parents’ divorce in 1940, her mother remarried Hugh D. Auchincloss, giving Lee and her sister Jackie additional half-siblings. Chapin School in New York, the Potomac School in Washington, D.C., and Miss Porter’s School in Connecticut. She later enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College.

While Jackie’s public profile would eventually eclipse hers, Lee was very much aware of her sister’s elevated status — and often lived in her shadow, navigating a dynamic of admiration, rivalry, and identity.

Career, Public Life & Roles

Society, Style, and Public Persona

From her early adult years, Lee Radziwill moved in elite social circles. She was considered one of New York’s leading debutantes, and her style and image were often covered in society pages.

Her taste in interiors, decoration, and design emerged as one of her more tangible talents. She worked as an interior decorator and was associated with a refined, evocative aesthetic influenced by European style.

She also aspired to acting and appeared in a few productions — notably a 1967 staging of The Philadelphia Story and a television adaptation of Laura. Her foray into acting was met with criticism, and it never became her main domain.

The Grey Gardens Connection

One of the most enduring cultural footprints linked to Lee is Grey Gardens, the documentary about Lee’s aunt and cousin, Big Edie and Little Edie. Originally, Lee had commissioned the Maysles brothers to film her extended family for a personal project; what became Grey Gardens came partly from that material.

That intersection of family, art, memory, secrecy, and public gaze is part of what makes Lee’s narrative complex: she occupies roles of patron, insider, and mediator between worlds.

Marriages, Family, and Personal Loss

Lee Radziwill was married three times:

1. Michael Temple Canfield (1953) — their marriage ended in annulment in 1958.

2. Prince Stanisław Albrecht Radziwiłł (1959) — with whom she had two children: Anthony Radziwill (1959–1999) and Anna Christina Radziwill (born 1960).

3. Herbert Ross (1988) — the Hollywood director; they divorced in 2001.

She endured personal tragedy, most notably the death of her son Anthony from cancer in 1999, which deeply affected her in later years.

Lee died on February 15, 2019, in her Upper East Side apartment in New York City, at the age of 85.

Legacy and Influence

Lee Radziwill’s legacy is multifaceted:

• Style Icon: She is often remembered for sartorial elegance, poise, and taste. She was inducted into the Vanity Fair International Best Dressed Hall of Fame in 1996.

• Interior Aesthetic: Her homes and decorative sensibilities have been published and admired. The blend of traditional base with exotic touches was her signature.

• Cultural Bridge: She moved between elite social worlds (politics, publishing, art) and the creative realm (design, aesthetics, patronage).

• Symbol of Her Era: Lee embodies an earlier mid-20th century world of glamour, salons, aesthetic patronage, and social networks that have now transformed.

• Personal Narrative of Ambition, Sibling Dynamics & Reinvention: Her life reflects themes of identity, rivalry, searching, and reinvention in the shadow of a much more famous sister.

Personality & Themes

From accounts and retrospectives, several consistent themes emerge in how Lee saw herself and how others perceived her:

• Elegance with reserve: She cultivated a calm, controlled public presence, marked by poise and style.

• Tension with visibility: Part of her struggle was reconciling being “known” yet wanting autonomy.

• Beauty & memory: She often spoke of objects, design, and collected pieces as more than mere decoration — they carried memory and presence.

• Ambivalence & regret: Later in life, she admitted regrets and expressed a mix of contentment and longing:

  “There have been many things in my life to have regrets about … I continue to do interesting things and meet fascinating people.”

• Privacy & exposure: In articles and interviews, she sometimes commented on the cost of being in public view and the tension between exposure and inner life.

Famous Quotations

Here are some of Lee Radziwill’s notable quotes — revealing, witty, reflective:

“If I see an orchid that’s fantastically expensive, I’ll buy it. It’s worth it, for no other reason than it gives me pleasure.” “When I was married, I didn’t work. When I had my children, I didn’t work. But before that, I’d work for Diana Vreeland at ‘Harper’s Bazaar.’” “Paris is the most beautiful city in the world. It brings tears to your eyes.” “I have a great curiosity to see new things, but not to own them. It’s very peaceful this way, and one of the nice things about getting older.” “I think grieving is the same for everybody that lost someone you love deeply. … You know, you’re really no different than anybody else who’s lost somebody they adored.” “Decorating has always been my hobby.” “Divorce is a 50-50 thing, and it can be a number of petty things that finally drive you out of your mind.” “One can’t help but be a bit melancholy when you see how the world has changed …”

These quotations reflect her eye for beauty, her internal reflections on life, and her conversational candor about identity, family, and loss.

Lessons and Reflections from Lee Radziwill

1. Curate life as art
   Like her orchid quote suggests, beauty was not just passive — she treated her surroundings, décor, and public image as expressions of self.

2. Value memory & connection
   Her life shows how objects and spaces carry personal history. She resisted the idea of discarding possessions — she believed in accumulation as memory.

3. Embrace restlessness
   Her multiple identities (socialite, decorator, would-be actress) illustrate a life of experimentation, not fixed comfort zones.

4. Acknowledge regret, but keep moving
   Her later reflections show she held regrets, but also acceptance and curiosity for the things yet to come.

5. The tension of visibility
   She navigated a space between visibility and privacy, and in doing so showed how one might live publicly yet protect interior life.

Conclusion

Lee Radziwill lived a life that was at once glamorous and introspective, public and private, aesthetic and emotional. In her pursuit of beauty, memory, and identity, she carved a space beyond being merely “sister of Jackie Kennedy.” Her legacy endures in style history, design publications, and the ongoing fascination with her persona and world.