To her admirers and her critics, this attention is justified; to them, Jackie has always represented more than herself. She was an ideal, a symbol, or a caricature, but never just another American woman. As far back as 1960, the media put her under the kind of scrutiny from which First Ladies are usually spared (or were, until Hillary Clinton). Even after her husband’s death and her departure from the White House the press continued to report and critique her movements, her clothing, her hairstyle, her work—anything to feed the abiding interest of her supporters and critics.

In 1967, journalist Alan Levy spent a week trying to understand this intense interest and “what it is like for a lively 37-year-old mother to live the life of a tourist attraction.” As he reported in his Post article “Jackie Kennedy: A View From the Crowd,” she was not hard to find. Levy saw her several times without too much effort. He was there when she appeared at an art exhibition:

Jackie Kennedy's Manhattan

There were more than a thousand people … and fully half of them were watching for the one we had come to watch. You could tell by the way they talked in rushed little phrases so that their eyes wouldn’t be diverted from the doorway. Repeated assurances of “She’s expected at nine” gave way to “She was expected at nine” and then, toward 10, to “Well, she didn’t swear she was coming.”

At 10:05 … our bartender declared, “There she is!” So did dozens of others, and the words seemed to hit Jacqueline Kennedy like the wail of an air-raid siren. She didn’t flinch: she froze. For … 30 seconds, she was absolutely rigid.

As [she] advanced into our room, her audience became her entourage. Some preceded her with a harrumphing fanfare of “Make way for Mrs. Kennedy!”

There were small flurries of applause. She acknowledged these with a smile. She could clearly have done without this $35-a-ticket ovation.

A waiter said, “She looks tired. She must have many appointments in a day.”

“She won’t stay long,” said another waiter. “She never stays long.” Both waiters spoke of her with more compassion than I’d heard all evening.

Levy was there at Kennedy airport, along with a crowd of reporters, waiting for Jackie and her children to arrive for a flight. When they appeared outside the terminal—

"By staying behind Jacqueline Kennedy, I was photographed with her numerous times ... and now a long-forgotten boyhood dream of mine came true: In Monday morning's photographic captions I was identified as a Secret Service man." Alan Levy, seen here on Jackie's left.

[John Jr.] waited for his mother, who wore a white coat, black scarf and the same frozen smile I had seen at the Madison Avenue art gallery. Little John, wearing shorts and little-boy bruises, reached for her hand, but one of the photographers barked, “Out of the way, kid!” and he obeyed.

So did his mother when a woman photographer called, “Look this way, Jackie!”

The little boy wandered away from the action [and played] with the treadle that operated the automatic door. Here John F. Kennedy Jr. achieved one moment of triumph. A photographer poised for an arty shot through the doorway, suddenly was hit in the face by the door when little John stepped off the treadle. The man exclaimed, “Jesus Christ, kiddo!”

After two minutes of picture-taking, Mrs. Kennedy switched off her smile and entered the terminal where she assembled the children for the march to the gate.

Little John, however, tarried at a poster advertising a movie. This momentary delay enabled the working press to scurry ahead and board the escalator first.

In case she wanted guidance, however, a loudspeaker on the mezzanine was blaring: “Mrs. K., Mrs. K., arriving Gate Three.” For the airline had more than a dozen employees scattered about the terminal to “protect” Mrs. Kennedy from the press that, in effect, the airline had invited. Thus was my quest coming full circle: I was watching an event become An Event.

But if he was dismayed by the throngs of reporters at the airport, he was reassured by the response of passing New Yorkers when she appeared on the sidewalk outside her apartment.

She was standing … and chatting with her brother-in-law, Robert F. Kennedy. He was freckled, sparkling and bushier-haired than any man of 41 has a right to be. Alongside Robert and Jacqueline Kennedy sat the blue convertible, motor purring, with the Secret Service man at the wheel.

Levy crossed the street to Central Park where he could study the reaction of other passersby.

The passing parade continued, but the Kennedys did have a silent grandstand of some 25 or 30 benchwarmers. Nothing was said, other than an occasional “That’s her.” A young father hoisted his baby girl onto his shoulders to watch she-knew-not-what. Seeing this, a couple of mothers struggled to afford their children equal opportunity.

More interesting to me were the reactions across the street. In my five minutes of Kennedy-watching, 11 people walked right past Jacqueline and Robert Kennedy. Three didn’t even notice. Two men and two women broke step but didn’t halt. A swarthy maintenance man in uniform came to a dead stop and doffed his cap with a proletarian flourish. Without a pause in his conversation, Senator Kennedy acknowledged him with a nod.

My favorite was a blowzy woman in a nurse’s uniform. She stopped in her tracks. Her face drooped. Her frame sagged. She seemed as limp and lifeless as a badly hung dress. Then her eyes perceived that Jacqueline Kennedy was smiling, and her ears perceived that Jacqueline Kennedy was cheerful. Slowly, like a sunrise, the woman came back to life. Her mouth unpuckered into a crescent smile. Her face beamed. As she straightened up, her hair seemed to catch the sun. She strode onward, restored and refreshed by what she had witnessed.

No one had mobbed her, or tried to grab her attention. No one sought an autograph or photo.

That much-abused folk ogre, The Typical New York Man-in-the-Street, had acquitted himself handsomely.

This was 1967, however. In June of 1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot, and Jackie had to reassess the risks to which her children were exposed. She became more reclusive, and soon married a billionaire who could give the security she wanted.

Which prompted another wave of Kennedy commentary.

Jacqueline and the young senator from Massachusetts.

Watching the Jackie Watchers The Saturday Evening Post

In its youth, television was a chunky piece of furniture with a tiny, round screen showing fuzzy images of low-budget programs. Despite its shortcomings, it became popular. Between 1950 and 1963, the number of American household with a television jumped from 9% to 92%.

As the audience got larger, the technology got better. Television sets became more reliable through the ‘60s. The reception improved. The picture improved. The major networks started broadcasting programs in color.

Even greater improvements were coming according to Sanford Brown, who wrote  “Tomorrow’s Many-Splendored Tune-In” for the Post in 1967. Surprisingly, just about every prediction he made in the article became reality. For example:

All sets in the not-distant future will be color instruments, with black-and-white having long before gone the way of the windup phonograph.

Integrated circuits will make sets smaller, simpler, more reliable and less expensive, and may forever loosen the TV repairman’s grip on the U.S. economy.

(“Grandpa, what’s a ‘TV repairman’?”)

Smaller sets do not, of course, mean smaller screens. TV engineers expect screens to get much bigger … the screen of the future [will use] electro-luminescent panels embedded in the screen.

In fact, today’s flat screen TVs are able to create images without an enormous cathode ray tube by embedding small cells of ionized gases in the screen.

Three-dimensional TV is even farther away, if it is coming at all. There is some doubt that the public would be eager to pay for it, in view of the fairly tepid reception given to 3-D movies.

An even more important device will be the videograph, or whatever name is eventually coined for recordings that register pictures as well as sound. The price is still too high for the average consumer—about $400 for a player … and $20-$100 for each program cartridge, depending on length and content—but a vast home market would be in sight as soon as [the developers] brings the cost down.

But the technology with the greatest potential, according to Brown, was cable television, which was still in its infancy (only 2% of households had cable service that year.) With a cable connection to a national network, he said, “the passive TV viewer will be able to send back signals along the line.”

As he predicted, the future was highly interactive. It wasn’t cable television that gave Americans their electronic connection to the world, however. It was the internet.

Homes could be connected to a central computer for instant figuring of, say, income taxes

High-speed electrostatic printing devices could be attached to TV sets so the viewer need only press a button, then wait a minute before tearing off an electrostatic newspaper to read at breakfast.

Housewives could examine merchandise projected on TV screens and place orders by punching a couple of buttons.

Pollsters could obtain immediate reactions to TV show, or commercials, or even political candidates. Politicians could obtain an accurate consensus from their constituents on important public issues.

He even foresaw the virtual office and the digital workplace:

Using picture phones, instant memorandum printers, big-screen television for conferences, and computer circuits providing information at the touch of a button, a company could operate just as well as if everyone were in the same building. It might even operate better, since employees could live closer to work, in pleasant surroundings, and feel like members of team rather than cogs in a giant corporate machine.

For all the promise of this new technology, though, Brown saw no corresponding rise in the quality of programming. Maybe the picture on the screen was getting clearer and more colorful, but the sitcoms and westerns had barely evolved since the 1950s.

Brown quoted the current FCC chairman—”The future of television is no longer a question of what we can invent. It is a question of what we want.”—and then asked:

What do we want?

It may be that we will turn to TV for ever more exotic escapism and more titillating titillation and let it go at that, leaving its real potentials untapped.

If such is the case, it might be inaccurate to say that it is what we “want,” but it would not be unfair to say it is what we deserve.

Demonstrating the newest hazard that science has introduced to modern living. This night-clubbing husband, having told his wife that he was working late at the office, will have things to regret—including the invention of television—he instant he gets home." from "Be Good! Television's Watching" August 14, 1949.

A Clear Picture of Television’s Future In 1967 The Saturday Evening Post

Elizabeth Taylor – December 3, 1966

Elizabeth TaylorPhoto: Paul RonaldDecember 3, 1966

Elizabeth Taylor may have been a shrew on the December 3, 1966 cover, but she was also a stunner. She and Richard Burton were starring in The Taming of the Shrew. The Paul Ronald photo gives credence to those who argue she was the most beautiful screen actress of all. To my surprise and delight, the cover folded out to show the man attempting to tame her (Burton as Petruchio). Well, it certainly never happened in real life.

Sophia Loren – October 21, 1967

Sophia LorenPhoto: M-G-M PhotoOctober 21, 1967

Just when you stick your foot in it and assert that Liz was the greatest screen beauty ever, you run across a gorgeous cover of Sophia Loren from 1967. The battle rages on. The movie star had a rough beginning, “even for a poor Neapolitan,” wrote John Cheever in the accompanying article. “She was seven years old when the three-year of bombardment of Naples began during World War II, and she and her mother suffered the hazards of poverty and war.” Forty-three years later, she’s still gorgeous.

Ann-Margret – May 4, 1963

Ann-MargretPhoto: Lawence J. SchillerMay 4, 1963

Looking sassy, sexy and joyful all at once is Ann-Margret, an “explosive new star.” Her rise to Hollywood fame was considered lightning fast. “At 22, having emerged from nowhere by way of Sweden and Illinois, Ann-Margret has worked the film town’s official chroniclers into a froth of admiration,” wrote Dean Jennings. As ingenuous as the young star was, she planned “to be the girl who sustains, year after year.” We’re delighted she succeeded.

Faye Dunaway – September 7, 1968

Faye DunawayPhoto: Jerry SchatzbergSeptember 7, 1968

I have been known to rue the day photography replaced art and illustration on the covers of The Saturday Evening Post, but a photo like this reminds even a curmudgeon like myself that photography is an art form, too. The beautiful star was nominated for Best Actress for Bonnie and Clyde from the year before.

Julie Andrews – January 29, 1966

Julie AndrewsPhoto: Philippe HelsmanJanuary 29, 1966

I love the fresh-faced Julie Andrews of this 1966 cover. She was a long way from the Mary Poppins of only a couple of years before, starring in a cold-war themed Hitchcock movie. With her in “Torn Curtain” was Paul Newman (who’ll be one of our “leading men” next week). She was the first to make fun of her squeaky clean image. When Hitchcock complained during a scene, “That light is making a hell of a line over her head,” she responded with hands primly on hips, “That’s my halo.” Okay, no halo, but she certainly had a radiance.

Brigitte Bardot – May 8, 1965

Bridget BardotPhoto: Dan Ornitz and OrlandoMay 8, 1965

“For people like me,” Bardot was quoted as saying, “there is no place left to hide.” The sex kitten was still a hot property at the ripe old age of thirty. According to the article, “police almost lost control of the mob when she got off the plane in Mexico City to assume her part in Viva Maria! Being hounded by the paparazzi isn’t a new thing—the alluring actress was brutally pursued by photographers. She retired less than ten years later and became an outspoken advocate for animal rights.

Classic Covers: Leading Ladies of the ’60s The Saturday Evening Post