< PreviousWHO IS THE RAKE John F. Kennedy Jr. at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 1999. TRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 830/12/2021 12:43:27 PMNot long ago, a fresh rumour gained traction amid the phantasmagoria of the QAnon conspiracy theory- industrial complex. It held that John F. Kennedy Jr. had faked his death in a plane crash in 1999 and was about to emerge from a Pennsylvania bolthole to be declared Donald Trump’s vice-presidential pick for the 2020 election. Some went further, positing that JFK Jr. was responsible for the recondite call-to-action postings of Q himself. For a movement that contains such self-evident truths as the existence of a cannibalistic cabal of abusers running the ‘deep state’ from the basements of Washington pizza parlours, this particular shibboleth not only verged on the comparatively plausible but tapped into an inchoate yearning for the advent of some kind of American saviour, maybe the yin to Trump’s yang. In any case, it was a suitably Arthurian allusion for a man who seemed to embody all the gilded, truncated promise of the Camelot his name and inheritance conferred. Ridiculously handsome, shadowed by tragedy, JFK Jr. was the nearest thing the republic had to a bona fide dauphin, a role he regarded with no little ambiguity. “It’s hard for me to talk about a legacy or a mystique,” he said in a 1993 interview. “It’s my family. The fact that there have been difficulties and hardships, or obstacles, makes us closer.” That John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. should have grown up in the public eye was a given. He was born two and a half weeks after his father’s victory in the 1960 presidential election, and became the first infant to live in the White House since 1893. But two images seared him indelibly in the national consciousness: the Life magazine shot of him as a toddler, playing under the Resolute desk in the Oval Office as his father looked indulgently on; and, on his third birthday, the heartbreaking salute he gave his father’s coffin as it rolled by outside St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington (his mother, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, had leaned down and prompted him to pay homage in advance). The newspapers subsequently gave him a nickname — John-John — that was equal parts mawkish and proprietary. Young John Jr. had natural ebullience — his Secret Service detail codenamed him ‘Lark’, for his rambunctiousness — but his mother also commented on his precipitate maturity: “Sometimes it almost seems that he’s trying to protect me, instead of just the other way around.” The question of security seemed even more pressing after Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968, and Jackie’s answer was to marry the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, propelling John into a roundelay of New York private schools and summers in Monte Carlo, Paris, Athens and Skorpios, Onassis’s Greek island. At the same time, his mother was at pains to ensure he was on at least nodding terms with the prosaic — “Unless he’s allowed freedom, he’ll be a vegetable,” she told her bodyguards — even regarding John’s mugging in Central Park when he was 13 as a salutary experience. As an adult, he made a point of riding the subway and playing frisbee on the park’s Great Lawn. “I have a pretty normal life, surprisingly,” he once told Larry King. For ‘normal’ read ‘as much as the ever-present crushing weight of expectation will allow’. As the scion of an almost mythic dynasty, John knew his every move would be scrutinised. He flirted with an acting career, and graduated from Brown University in 1983, majoring in American history. He was also mindful of his grandmother Rose’s frequently voiced mantra, a paraphrase of Luke 12:48: “Of those to whom much is given, much is required.” He taught English to underprivileged children, lobbied against the apartheid regime in South Africa, and, after enrolling at New York University Law School in Manhattan in 1986, defended minors accused of felonies in Brooklyn Family Court and worked with the homeless and disabled. He passed the New York State bar exam on his third attempt — giving gleeful tabloid editors the chance to label him ‘The Hunk That Flunked’ — and joined the District Attorney’s office, racking up a perfect 6-0 conviction record before resigning in 1993, claiming his heart was never really in the law. “I don’t want to be just another passenger on a liner,” he said. For many, this should have marked the moment when John bowed to the inevitable and entered the political fray. After all, hadn’t he given a speech at the Democratic Convention in 1988, invoking his father’s legacy, no less — “because he is with us still” — and receiving a two-minute standing ovation? Yet it seemed that he didn’t want to buy into that ticket, either. How different would the 21st century have looked had John F. Kennedy Jr. lived? Impossible to say, of course, but that hasn’t stopped some observers casting the liberal scion in the role of American saviour. THE PRESIDENT THAT NEVER WAS by stuart husband GETTY IMAGES John had natural ebullience — his Secret Service detail codenamed him ‘Lark’, for his rambunctiousness. 9 TRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 930/12/2021 12:43:33 PM10 GETTY IMAGES WHO IS THE RAKE John Jr. salutes as the casket of his father, the late President John F. Kennedy, is carried from St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington in 1963. TRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 1012/01/2022 09:50:21 AMClockwise from top left: the Kennedys on vacation in Hyannis Port; Labor Day in Hyannis Port, 1980; at the U.S. Open tennis tournament in Forest Hills, 1976; graduation day at the Phillips academy in Andover, 1979; and with his sister, Caroline, at a charity gala. WHO IS THE RAKE GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK 11 TRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 1130/12/2021 12:43:46 PM12 Clockwise from top left: John and his wife, Carolyn Bessette, at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 1999; walking together in New York, 1997; leaving a black-tie dinner in 1996; papped again with their dog in New York; and with his signature bicycle and backwards-turned cap, the original hipster, in 1996. GETTY IMAGES TRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 1212/01/2022 09:50:31 AM“A public career — it’s a lot to bite off,” he told a T.V. interviewer when the subject inevitably loomed. “And you’d better have your life set up for it, and you’d better be prepared for the long haul.” As the nineties came in, he seemed content to assume the role of a kind of fresh prince of the New York social scene. He was voted most attractive man alive by People magazine (the citation enumerated his “regulated billows of brown hair atop a face of chiselled perfection and a honeyed, honed torso that is frequently exposed”). He was often seen rollerblading (and was generally regarded as the only person ever to look remotely cool while doing so). He affected a ‘scumbro’ look — berets, puffa jackets, baggy dad jeans, hiking boots — years before the likes of Succession’s Kendall Roy did so (“The thing about John was, he looked like Superman in a suit, but every day he was kind of a slob,” said Steven M. Gillon, the author of America’s Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. “It was a kind of reverse elitism, where those of us who are trying to be respectable try to look nice, but John knew he didn’t have to”). He had a string of girlfriends, culminating in a tempestuous relationship with Splash and Blade Runner star Daryl Hannah. And he features in three of the era-defining east coast comedies: he’s posited as a would-be suitor for Elaine in Seinfeld; he’s lauded as a social saviour for Samantha in S** and the City; and he actually appears in Murphy Brown, to hysterical screams from the studio audience, when Candice Bergen’s titular news anchor mistakes him for her new secretary (his slightly hammy cameo suggests that he was wise to forswear the thespian life). The Murphy Brown slot was part of John’s effort to hype what would prove to be his most enduring venture: the glossy George, which was, in his words, “a lifestyle magazine with politics at its core, illuminating the points where it converges with business, media, entertainment, fashion, art and science”. If, as the old adage has it, politics is showbusiness for ugly people, George looked to bridge the gap, with Cindy Crawford dressed as George Washington as its debut cover star (or, at least, George Washington had he assiduously worked on his ab crunches and developed a penchant for crop-tops). John, who omitted both his middle initial and ‘Jr.’ on his business cards, observed in a 1988 interview with USA Today, “I think everyone needs to feel they’ve created something that was their own, on their own terms”. His imprimatur was all over the magazine, as interviewer (it turned out that his Rolodex encompassed everyone from Billy Graham to his father’s nemesis, Fidel Castro); essayist (he called out his first cousins Joseph and Michael in a celebrated piece as “poster boys for bad behaviour”); and centrefold (a nude \shot of him, gazing longingly at an apple, appeared in, of all things, the women’s issue). By this time, however, such blatant come-ons were strictly business. John had met Carolyn Bessette in the early 1990s, allegedly while jogging in Central Park; a few days later he turned up at the Calvin Klein showrooms on Madison Avenue, where she worked as head publicist, and walked out with three suits and her phone number. Bessette, whose Connecticut high-school class had named her the ‘Ultimate Beautiful Person’ in 1983, had model looks and a poise that was soon severely tested by everything that came with close Kennedy proximity: paparazzi run- ins, leaked videotape of an explosive tiff in Central Park, etc. However, they married in 1996 on Cumberland Island, off the coast of Georgia, and seemed destined to inhabit a societal niche that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle would come to occupy three decades later: media and charitable eminence enhanced by quasi-regal status. That was before the fateful night in July 1999, when John opted to pilot his Piper Saratoga to a cousin’s wedding in Hyannis Port, accompanied by Carolyn and her sister, Lauren. Always physically improvident — he’d previously gone to Mount Rushmore not with the intention of gazing on his father’s predecessors but to rappel down the faces of Jefferson, Washington, et al — his decision to fly at night without a full licence surely played its part in the plane’s subsequent disappearance. But the overwhelming sense, once again, was of promise snuffed out and potential nullified in the face of what seemed a near-cursed Kennedy blight. Two decades on, it’s not just swivel-eyed QAnon-ers who think John F. Kennedy Jr. might have been the transcendent figure to save American politics from its seemingly intractable partisanship. “Things would be different [had he lived],” the rightwing commentator Ann Coulter told The Hollywood Reporter. “The polarisation and hatred would have to be less because he set a standard.” Or maybe he would have chafed against its confines. “To have a great life,” he once said, “you have to have an adventurous life.” Abbreviated though it was, JFK Jr.’s life was one lived to the full. 13 It turned out that his Rolodex encompassed everyone from Billy Graham to his father’s nemesis, Fidel Castro. WHO IS THE RAKE TRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 1330/12/2021 12:44:02 PM14 GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK WHO IS THE RAKE Clockwise from top: Interviewing the former U.S. president Gerald Ford for George magazine in 1996; promoting the magazine on Jay Leno, 1998; looking like the true American prince in 1991; and candid shots of him playing football in Central Park. Opposite: Weaving through traffi c at 7th and 56th in Manhattan. TRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 1412/01/2022 09:50:38 AMTRME_8-15_Arbiter WITR JFK_11914738.indd 1530/12/2021 12:44:19 PMKin was shot in Dublin. As a native, what’s something you generally miss? I love Dublin, but I don’t miss it. Growing up was complicated, and when I decided to act, there were little to no opportunities for me there. So I moved to England in 2010. I could probably tell you more about Cheshire than Dublin, but while shooting Kin, I started to appreciate parts I didn’t see before... I was glad, and surprised, to find so many plant-based restaurants. I think Dublin has the most of any city in Europe. But the show was an opportunity to bring my son home for the first time to meet my family, and to work with terrific Irish talent. It’s also a story about family, so with my newborn son and wife in tow, I spent my time shooting Kin while making new kin. Have you ticked anything off your bucket list? It had always been my dream to visit New York; to go there and have a glass of something at a proper blues bar. I went with my wife and we had the best time. It’s the best city in the world, the only other place I could live. We got married there on New Year’s Eve. Now, whenever the end of year comes around, it’s a time to celebrate, not the constant disappointment it used to be. You often portray hardened characters. Where do you find the intensity in your performances? It’s easy when you’ve got a face like this [laughs]. To tell the truth, growing up, I had a short fuse. I had a rebellious childhood to draw from and some scrapes with, let’s say… authority. So that helps. But it’s not necessary. The job is to pretend. When I play a role, I try to stay present, to listen and react to the script and other actors, but the life experiences and the situations I put myself in as a young man maybe gives me something to draw from that adds texture and depth to the performance. How important is discipline in your work? What you call discipline, I call a ferocious love. Acting to me is living more than one life. It’s taking on the lives of others, and I always found that exciting. It’s therapeutic... 16 The Irish actor Emmett J. Scanlan has been busy. He is starring in no fewer than three shows, including the final series of Peaky Blinders, and there is the small matter of an addition to his family… ‘FATHERHOOD CAN BE SCARY. BUT THE TSUNAMI OF LOVE DROWNS OUT THE FEAR’ by chris cotonou photography kim lang fashion direction amelia hudson Emmett J. Scanlan appears with an intense stare, a warm Dublin accent, and a dark beard so perfectly formed that he looks like one of Leonidas’s mighty Spartans. The actor is speaking to us from his home in Cheshire in the UK, where he is proudly describing his one-year-old son. “Look at him there,” he says, showing a video on his phone, a wide grin over his face: “that’s my boy, Ocean-Torin. It means ‘Chief of the Ocean’!” Having finished filming the next season of Peaky Blinders, in which Emmett plays an even bigger role, as well as the police drama The Tower (written by Homeland scribe Patrick Harbinson) and the Irish gangster series Kin, the actor is looking forward to spending more time with his family. “There’s nothing as important,” he tells me. And by the look on his face, you know he means it. The kind of deep conviction he shows speaking about his own life and family echoes the sort of characters he portrays on screen. These are men: fathers, brothers, husbands and sons. And like so many men, they have the capacity to be brutal, often harbouring an untapped vulnerability that the actor accepts is a part of his own nature. It’s within these emotions that Emmett likes to play, and his strong performances for both Kin and The Tower have earned him resounding critical acclaim. So, before the final series of the phenomenal Peaky Blinders turns his life on its head again, The Rake talked to Emmett about his work, his future and fatherhood. TRME_16-21_Arbiter RIP Emmett J Scalan_11914740.indd 1630/12/2021 12:48:03 PMBrown Casentino wool coat, brown fi ne Merino wool gilet and cream fl annel single-pleat trousers, all New & Lingwood; off-white twill cotton shirt and black silk knit tie, Eton Shirts. RAKE-IN- PROGRESS TRME_16-21_Arbiter RIP Emmett J Scalan_11914740.indd 1730/12/2021 12:49:31 PMNext >