Of Diamonds and Diplomats
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With a track record that included serving as Clare Boothe Luce’s personal aide and running the PR operation of Tiffany’s, Baldrige was well suited to overseeing a new era under America’s pretty, young president and his even younger and prettier wife. Baldrige was “the powerhouse behind the glittering evenings” that brought world-acclaimed artists to the White House, Kitty Kelley’s biography Jackie Oh! quotes the chief usher as saying. She was also the one who groomed Jackie Kennedy for her public responsibilities–and apologized or filled in when the first lady ditched them to go foxhunting or spend time alone with her kids.
Now, a year after Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis’s death, Live Bait Theater’s managing director, Edward Thomas-Herrera, has adapted Baldrige’s book for the stage as the linchpin of the company’s “extrava-Jackie-ganza,” which also includes the off-night performance anthology Dear Jackie. But the play’s real subject isn’t the former first lady, who is kept at a bit of a distance, as she is in the book. Rather it’s a fluffy, discreetly selective account of Baldrige’s activities as party planner and troubleshooter.
