Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

On January 20, 1961 - 62 years ago today - John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States, and the 1st Catholic and 1st to be born in the 20th century.

Phil Stern's request of Frank Sinatra to be appointed photographer for JFK's inaugural gala of 1961.


Phil Stern Archives


Invitation to JFK inaugural events, starting with "Distinguished Ladies," this week 1961:



JFK's inaugural top hat and gloves on display at Kennedy Library, 2017:




JFK's inauguration was watched on TV by approximately 60 million people... and *at least* 1 cat.



Frank Sinatra at rehearsal for JFK inaugural gala.



Here's Nancy Pelosi at JFK's inauguration gala.



Marilyn Monroe and Maria Callas at JFK’s birthday gala, 1962.



Maria Callas, La Divina ("the Divine one") mistress to Aristotle Onassis before he married Jackie Kennedy.

In 1957, while still married to husband Giovanni Battista Meneghini, Callas was introduced to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis at a party given in her honor by Elsa Maxwell, the original party girl.

Learn from a master...

Maxwell told interviewer Mike Wallace in 1957:

I did not feel fit, to be only married. I belong to the world. I knew it instinctively when I was quite young. I belong to the world. Certainly I am the most shall we say immodestly, [among] the best-known people in the entire world today. Why, because I did not marry and I felt that I was not for marriage. It wasn’t my … thing to do.

She died of heart failure in a Manhattan hospital.

Her longtime friend Dorothy “Dickie” Fellowes-Gordon was Maxwell’s sole heir.