Style and sorrow shaped the life of famous First Lady Jackie Kennedy

She was one of the world’s most famous women.

She witnessed the death of her two husbands, one dying in her arms in the most shocking way imaginable.

She became a style icon, and continues to influence fashion today.

She set the template for the modern First Lady of the United States, and has been portrayed by more than 20 actors on the big and small screen.

And she had a nightclub named after her in Kirkcaldy.

She was Jackie Kennedy, who became Jackie Onassis or simply “Jackie O” to the world and in particular the regulars at that Fife nitespot.

Incredibly, it’s now 25 years since the lady born Jacqueline Bouvier died on May 19 1994 aged just 64.

It would be easy to look at Jackie’s life as one constantly overshadowed by tragedy.

Her marriage to future President John F Kennedy didn’t begin smoothly as in quick succession he had to undergo near-fatal spinal surgery for his Addison’s disease and a war injury, then Jackie had a miscarriage followed by a stillborn daughter, Arabella.

In 1963, the couple’s second son Patrick was born prematurely and died just two days old.

Jackie was deeply affected and “entered a state of depression”, recuperating on the yacht of her friend Aristotle Onassis before returning to America two months later, apologising for being away so long but explaining she had been “melancholy after the death of my baby”.

Horribly, barely a month after she returned to the US, JFK was shot and killed as he sat beside her in a limousine driving through Dallas.

The pictures of Jackie, still wearing the suit spattered with her husband’s blood, standing next to Lyndon B Johnson as he’s sworn in on board Air Force One are still chilling.

After the assassination, Jackie relied heavily on her brother-in-law Robert F Kennedy who became a sort of surrogate father to her children.

She supported his presidential campaign but when he, too, was murdered she suffered a relapse of her depression and came to fear for her life and those of her children, saying: “If they’re killing Kennedys, then my children are targets. I want to get out of this country.”

In 1968, Jackie married the aforementioned Onassis, a Greek shipping tycoon, but even then her happiness lasted just five years.

Onassis’ health deteriorated after the 1973 death of his son in a plane crash and he died two years later.

He was 69, she found herself widowed for a second time aged just 45.

A wealthy woman, Jackie relocated to New York and forged a career as a book editor while also campaigning to protect Manhattan’s historic buildings.

She remained the subject of considerable press attention, most notoriously from paparazzi photographer Ron Galella who followed her around and took candid photos without permission, forcing her to take a restraining order out on him which brought attention to the modern phenomenon of “being papped”.

From 1980 Jackie had a close relationship with Maurice Tempelsman, an estranged Belgian industrialist and diamond merchant that only ended with her death.

Jackie was thrown from her horse and on examination a swollen lymph gland was detected. Initially dismissed as an infection, her health deteriorated over six months and non-Hodgkin lymphoma was detected.

The initial prognosis was good but even after chemotherapy the cancer spread to her spinal cord, brain and liver, and she died in her sleep.

But to concentrate on the sadness in her life would be unfair to this iconic woman.

Jackie was just 31 when the Kennedy administration entered the Oval Office, making her the youngest First Lady since Frances Cleveland moved out of the White House in 1897.

She quickly became famed for her emphasis on arts and culture, as well as for her style, elegance and grace.

A socialite once dubbed “debutante of the year”, Jackie spent part of her junior year studying in Paris at the Sorbonne and graduated from George Washington University with a degree in French literature.

She met JFK, then running for the Senate, at a dinner party in 1952 and, after taking time to accept his proposal as she’d been sent to London to cover the Queen’s coronation for The Washington Times-Herald, they married the following year.

When John ran for Congress, he noticed that his wife was a valuable asset to his campaign as she was “always cheerful and obliging” and the crowds were twice as big when she accompanied him.

Described as having “tremendous awareness, an all-seeing eye and a ruthless judgement”, Jackie counselled her husband on improving his wardrobe ahead of his presidential campaign but her stylishness could be a double-edged sword.

While Jackie was admired for her personal style – frequently being featured in magazines alongside film stars and being named one of the 12 best-dressed women in the world – her preference for French designers and her spending on her wardrobe brought negative press.

Alas, the outfit she’ll always be remembered for is the bright-pink Chanel suit and pillbox hat she was wearing on November 22 1969, the day her first husband was shot and killed in Dallas as his motorcade passed Dealey Plaza.

The unlaundered suit was donated to the National Archives but, under the terms of an agreement with her daughter Caroline, it won’t be displayed until 2103.