Caroline Lee Radziwill, 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.
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 badly received. A London townhouse and a manor, Turville Grange 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 worked briefly as an interior decorator in a style 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. Radziwill was named to the Vanity FairInternational Best Dressed Hall of Fame in 1996. Her Paris and Manhattan apartments were featured in the April 2009 issue of Elle Décor magazine. She was interviewed by director Sofia Coppola in February 2013 about her life as part of Radziwill's cover story for as well as about Coppola's film The Bling Ring and the loss of privacy. She was listed as one of the 50 best-dressed people over 50 by The Guardian in March 2013.
''Grey Gardens'' documentary
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 and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale, 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 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 1958, and the marriage was annulled by the 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. Upon her marriage she became Her Serene Highness Princess Caroline Radziwill. They had two children, Anthony and Christina. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1974. On September 23, 1988, Radziwill married for a third time, becoming 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.
