(Originally published by the Daily News on May 20, 1994. This story was written by Virginia Breen, Timothy C. Clifford, Jose Lambiet, Laurie C. Merrill, Joanna Molloy, Chris Oliver, Rob Speyer, and Corky Siemaszko.)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died last night, taken by an unforgiving cancer that sapped the last of her storybook life.
The former First Lady was 64.
Onassis died at 10:15 p.m., in her sprawling apartment high above Fifth Ave., according to her spokeswoman, Nancy Tuckerman. Funeral arrangements had not been finalized last night, but Tuckerman said services would be private.
Onassis’ children, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg and John F. Kennedy Jr., were with her, along with her longtime companion, Maurice Tempelsman, and other family members.
“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a model of courage and dignity for all Americans and all the world,” President Clinton said last night. “More than any other woman of her time she captivated our nation and the world with her intelligence, elegance and grace.”
Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who saw Onassis before she died, said: “Jackie was part of our family and part of our hearts for 40 wonderful and unforgettable years, and she will never really leave us. Our love and prayers are with John, and with Caroline and their three children.”
Sources close to the Kennedy family expect that she will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, where her first husband, President John F. Kennedy, is buried near their son Patrick, who died two days after his birth in 1963.
“There’s room for her here. But I never thought of her actually coming here,” said Kathy Shenkle, a spokeswoman for the historian’s office at the cemetery. “I never thought she was going to die.”
On Wednesday, Onassis checked herself out of New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center after doctors ran out of ways to battle the lymph-node cancer that was ravaging her body. She decided to go home and say goodbye to her family.
A week earlier, her doctors had given her about three months to live – but then her condition took a sudden turn for the worse, a source said.
“She has a very aggressive case,” said the source. “It is traveling very fast… There is very little you can do for her except make her as comfortable as possible.”
Last evening Onassis lapsed into a coma, hours after she received last rites from her parish priest.
Throughout the afternoon yesterday, Tuckerman insisted to reporters waiting three deep outside Onassis’ building: “It is just another phase of her illness, which she’s facing with great fortitude.”
Kennedy also predicted that Onassis would not pass through death’s door before dawn.
Then, shortly after 11 p.m., Tuckerman released a statement saying Onassis had died.
Outside the doors of 1040 Fifth Ave., candles were lit in vigil. Then, shortly before she died, one of the candles was extinguished by rain. Many of the admirers and tourists who’d been holding vigil for hours took that as an omen. Although they knew she was dying, a ripple of shock went through the crowd when her death was announced. The doorman could be seen crying.
The first sign that Onassis might not recover came yesterday afternoon, when Msgr. George Bardes of St. Thomas More Church on E. 89th St. – Onassis’ parish – arrived at her palatial 15-room apartment to administer last rites, hear her confession and give her Communion.
All day, a steady stream of visitors came to call: nieces and nephews with the names Kennedy and Shriver, Auchincloss cousins, John Jr.’s girlfriend Daryl Hannah, and a select group of friends Onassis had summoned, such as singer Carly Simon, publisher Joe Armstrong and socialite Bunny Mellon.
After they paid their respects, they stayed throughout the day, gathered in small, hushed groups around the sprawling duplex – grieving quietly, waiting.
“She is very, very sick, and it’s very sad,” said Rep. Joseph Kennedy (D-Mass.), son of the last Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), who descended from the 15th-floor apartment with red-rimmed eyes after saying farewell to his aunt. “There’s a lot of love in her room and in her apartment.”
Tears flowed down the face of Simon, Onassis’ neighbor on Martha’s Vineyard, who said, “I love her very much” after her visit.
Others who came to pay their respects were daughter Caroline’s husband, Edwin Schlossberg; Onassis’ sister, Lee Radziwill Ross; Kennedy niece Maria Shriver; Sargent and Eunice Shriver; Pat Kennedy Lawford, and RFK’s widow, Ethel.
“I think that she definitely left a legacy for women,” said Leticia Baldridge, her social secretary at the White House and a close friend. “Her White House days were pre-women’s movement. But she did her job as the wife of the President and the mother of her children.
“What she did was turn the White House into a museum of the best quality. She organized the White House Fine Art Committee. She hired top historians and raised funds. She got it museum status.”
