Editor Jackie O. Missed the Best Book of All--Her Own

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis worked as a New York book editor for 19 years but apparently made no effort to produce one of the most sought-after books in publishing--her autobiography.

Industry colleagues say they knew of no attempt on her part to write either a personal memoir or even a more selective account--for example, of the world figures she had known. Indeed, her unyielding efforts to guard her privacy prompted one high-level editor to speculate that it was “wildly improbable” that she had written a manuscript.

“There was never any awareness on the part of her Doubleday colleagues that she had any inclination or expectation to write her story,” an associate said.

Onassis chose to shine her celebrity on the books of others.

After joining Viking Press in 1975--she moved to Doubleday three years later--Onassis spoke with reporters at parties launching her books. At one such gathering last fall, held at the Consulate General of India in Manhattan to mark the publication of “The Garden of Life,” an artistic book about the plants of India, she mingled with guests and introduced them to her author, Naveen Patnaik. When approached by this reporter, a notebook in his hand, Onassis spoke about how the book had come together.

Onassis edited titles that reflected her interest in history and the arts, as well as her keen eye for commercial hits.

At a Doubleday editorial meeting years ago, she laid out her plans for a book by a pop singer few in the room had heard of. The author was Michael Jackson, the book became “Moonwalk” (1988) and the editor’s hunch paid off in handsome sales.

Her other books included Bill Moyers’ “Healing and the Mind,” a leading seller of recent years; Edvard Radzinsky’s “The Last Tsar”; Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s “Poet and Dancer”; “The Best of Rolling Stone: 25 Years of Journalism on the Edge,” edited by Robert Love, and four children’s books by singer Carly Simon.

Onassis also acquired Vasily Peskov’s “Lost in the Taiga,” an account of Russian Orthodox peasants discovered living in remote Siberia, which Doubleday will publish in July. Her other project scheduled for release this year is “Toni Frissell: Photographs 1933-1967,” a collection of striking pictures taken by the veteran photographer, who died in 1981.

The books will speak for her. That is, except for interviews about her publishing career that she gave Ms. magazine in 1979 and Publishers Weekly in 1993, her own documented recollections since her husband’s assassination consisted mainly of a few minutes of testimony before the Warren Commission and interviews with historians Theodore White and William Manchester.

Manchester recorded 10 hours of interviews with Onassis as he researched “The Death of a President.” He gave many of these tapes to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Cambridge, Mass., where they are under seal until 2067. The library also has tapes of the White interviews, which are off-limits until next year.

Postscript: One of the more surprising details in this week’s ocean of ink about Onassis comes in the New Yorker (May 30), which devotes all of its “Talk of the Town” to memories of her and reveals that she too once wrote an unbylined piece for the section. Her article about New York’s International Center of Photography appeared Jan. 13, 1975.

Who knew?

A Few Minutes With Judy Krantz: Judith Krantz’s success with commercial novels rich in steamy sex and glamorous excess began in 1978 with her effort, “Scruples,” the story of a swank boutique. “Scruples Two” came six books later, followed by the new “Lovers” (Crown), the conclusion to her trilogy that has more than 400,000 copies in print and will spawn an ABC miniseries.

For all of Krantz’s knowledge of conspicuous consumption--”my beat is not the lady next door”--the resident of pricey Bel-Air confesses that she no longer has time to go out and shop on Rodeo Drive or anywhere else.

“I have managed to acquire clothes, but in lightning forays,” said Krantz, 67, a diminutive gabber who was clad in a muted green Chanel suit during a recent New York visit.

“J. Crew and J. Peterman are my favorite catalogues. And then I go to Chanel. They have a book of the spring and fall collections with swatches of fabric and designs, and drawings or photographs. I order from that.

“When I couldn’t afford it, I was shopping anyway. . . . Now that I can more than afford it, I don’t have the time. It’s not a really tragic story, but I don’t have the time.”

Top Editor Joins Murdoch: Judith Regan has earned more newspaper and magazine coverage than any book editor in history, or so it seems, mainly because she helped turn manuscripts by Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern and Kathie Lee Gifford into best-selling riches. Now, after much speculation about Regan’s plans, an announcement this week revealed that Simon & Schuster has lost the hard-charging editor to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and its subsidiary companies.

The 40-year-old Regan will become a reporter for a Fox TV newsmagazine in development. She will start up Regan Books within HarperCollins Publishers and she will develop films for 20th Century-Fox.

* Paul D. Colford is a columnist for Newsday. His column is published Fridays.