​John Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr. (November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999), often referred to as JFK Jr., was an American lawyer, journalist, and magazine publisher. He was a son of the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and a younger brother of Caroline Kennedy. Three days after his father was assassinated, he rendered a final salute during the funeral procession on his third birthday.

From his childhood years at the White House, Kennedy was the subject of much media scrutiny, and later became a popular social figure in Manhattan. Trained as a lawyer, he worked as a New York City assistant district attorney for almost four years. In 1995, he launched George magazine, using his political and celebrity status to publicize it. He died in a plane crash in 1999 at the age of 38 with his wife Carolyn Bessette.

NBC News vice-president Julian Goodman called the shot taken by Stan Stearns"the most impressive...shot in the history of television".

The family continued with their plans for a birthday party to demonstrate that the Kennedys would go on despite the death of the president.

After President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy moved her family from Washington to New York City, in a luxury apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Kennedy Jr. grew up. 

Kennedy attended private schools in Manhattan, starting at Saint David's School and moving to Collegiate School, which he attended from third through tenth grade. He completed his education at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. 
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After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, his mother Jackie Kennedy took Caroline and John Jr. out of the United States, saying: "If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets ... I want to get out of this country." The same year, she married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis, and the family went to live on his private island of Skorpios.

When Onassis died in 1975, he left Jackie Kennedy $25,000, but Jacqueline was able to renegotiate the will and acquired $20 million for herself and her children.

On his sixteenth birthday, Kennedy's Secret Service protection ended and he spent the summer of 1978 working as a wrangler in Wyoming. In 1979, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston was dedicated, and Kennedy made his first major speech, reciting Stephen Spender's poem "I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great."

Kennedy attended Brown University, where he majored in American studies. There, he co-founded a student discussion group that focused on contemporary issues such as apartheid in South Africa, gun control, and civil rights.

While attending Brown University, Kennedy met Sally Munro, whom he dated for six years, and they visited India in 1983. Kennedy also dated models Cindy Crawford and Julie Baker, as well as entertainer Sarah Jessica Parker.

Kennedy was initiated into Phi Psi, a local social fraternity that had been the Rhode Island Alpha Chapter of national Phi Kappa Psi fraternity until 1978.

In 1983, Kennedy graduated with a bachelor's degree in American studies, and then took a break, traveling to India and spending some time at the University of Delhi where he did his post graduation work and he met Mother Teresa. 

After the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco, Kennedy returned to New York and earned $20,000 a year in a position at the Office of Business Development, where his boss reflected that he worked "in the same crummy cubbyhole as everybody else. I heaped on the work and was always pleased."

From 1984 to 1986, he worked for the New York City Office of Business Development and served as deputy director of the 42nd Street Development Corporation in 1986, conducting negotiations with developers and city agencies. In 1988, he became a summer associate at Manatt, Phelps, Rothenberg & Phillips, a Los Angeles law firm with strong connections to the Democratic Party.

Besides his work, Kennedy found time for acting, one of his many passions which was not supported by his mother Jackie.

On August 4, 1985, Kennedy made his New York acting debut in front of an invitation-only audience at the Irish Theater on Manhattan's West Side. Executive director of the Irish Arts Center, Nye Heron, said that Kennedy was "one of the best young actors I've seen in years".

Kennedy's largest acting role was playing a fictionalized version of himself in the eighth-season episode of the sitcom Murphy Brown, called "Altered States". In that episode, Kennedy visits Brown at her office, in order to promote a magazine he is publishing.

He also found time to help his family which was still involved in politics. Kennedy addressed the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, introducing his uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy. He invoked his father's inaugural address, calling "a generation to public service", and received a two-minute standing ovation. Republican consultant Richard Viguerie said he did not remember a word of the speech, but remembered "a good delivery" and added, "I think it was a plus for the Democrats and the boy. He is strikingly handsome."

From 1989, Kennedy headed Reaching Up, a nonprofit group which provided educational and other opportunities for workers who helped people with disabilities. 

In 1989, Kennedy earned a J.D. degree from the New York University School of Law. In 1990, he passed his New York bar exam after two fails and served as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, where he worked for the next four years.

On August 29, 1991, Kennedy won his first case as a prosecutor.

In the summer of 1992, he worked as a journalist and was commissioned by The New York Times to write an article about his kayaking expedition to the Åland Archipelago, where he saved one of his friends from the water when his kayak capsized.

He then considered creating a magazine with his friend, public-relations magnate Michael J. Berman—a plan which his mother thought too risky. ​

​In 1995, Kennedy and Michael Berman founded George, a glossy, politics-as-lifestyle and fashion monthly, with Kennedy controlling 50 percent of the shares. Kennedy officially launched the magazine at a news conference in Manhattan on September 8, and joked that he had not seen so many reporters in one place since he failed his first bar exam.

Each issue of the magazine contained an editor's column and interviews written by Kennedy, who believed they could make politics "accessible by covering it in an entertaining and compelling way" which would allow "popular interest and involvement" to follow.

The first issue was criticized for its image of Cindy Crawford posing as George Washington in a powdered wig and ruffled shirt. In defense of the cover, Kennedy stated that "political magazines should look like Mirabella."

But Carolyn was, in fact, badly disoriented by the constant attention from the paparazzi. The couple was permanently on show, both at fashionable Manhattan events, and on their travels to visit celebrities such as Mariuccia Mandelli and Gianni Versace. She also complained to her friend, journalist Jonathan Soroff, that she could not get a job without being accused of exploiting her fame.

By early 1997, Kennedy and Berman found themselves locked in a power struggle, which led to screaming matches, slammed doors, and even one physical altercation. Eventually Berman sold his share of the company, and Kennedy took on Berman's responsibilities himself. Though the magazine had already begun to decline in popularity before Berman left, his departure was followed by a rapid drop in sales.

David Pecker, CEO of Hachette Filipacchi Magazines who were partners in George, said the decline was because Kennedy refused to "take risks as an editor, despite the fact that he was an extraordinary risk taker in other areas of his life." Pecker said, "He understood that the target audience for George was the eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old demographic, yet he would routinely turn down interviews that would appeal to this age group, like Princess Diana or John Gotti Jr., to interview subjects like Dan Rostenkowski or Võ Nguyên Giáp."

Since he was a child, John Kennedy had aspired to being a pilot. As an adult, he fulfilled his dream of flying by taking flying lessons at the Flight Safety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, and received his pilot's license in April 1998. He purchased his plane on April 28, 1999, from Air Bound Aviation.

The death of his cousin Michael in a skiing accident prompted him to take a hiatus from his piloting lessons for three months. His sister Caroline hoped this would be permanent, but when he resumed, she did little to stop him.

​On July 16, 1999, Kennedy departed from Fairfield, New Jersey, at the controls of his Piper Saratoga light aircraft. He was traveling with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette to attend the wedding of his cousin Rory Kennedy at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts after first dropping Lauren off in Martha's Vineyard. Carolyn and Lauren were passengers sitting in the second row of seats. Kennedy had checked in with the control tower at the Martha's Vineyard Airport, but the plane was reported missing after it failed to arrive on schedule.

On July 19, the fragments of Kennedy's plane were found by the NOAA vessel Rude using side-scan sonar. The search ended in the late afternoon of July 21, when the three bodies were recovered from the ocean floor by Navy divers and taken by motorcade to the county medical examiner's office.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that pilot error was the probable cause of the crash: "Kennedy's failure to maintain control of the airplane during a descent over water at night, which was a result of spatial disorientation."

On July 21, the three bodies were taken from Hyannis to Duxbury, Massachusetts, where they were cremated in the Mayflower Cemetery crematorium. On the morning of July 22, their ashes were scattered at sea from the Navy destroyer USS Briscoe off the coast of Martha's Vineyard.

A memorial service was held for Kennedy on July 23, 1999, at the Church of St. Thomas More, which was a parish that Kennedy had often attended with his mother and sister. The invitation-only service was attended by hundreds of mourners, including President Bill Clinton, Edward Kennedy, Arnold Schwarzenegger with Maria Shriver, Sen. John Kerry, Lee Radziwill, Maurice Tempelsman (Jackie Kennedy's last companion) and Muhammad Ali.

André Paul Guillaume Gide (22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars. The author of more than fifty books, at the time of his death his obituary in The New York Times described him as "France's greatest contemporary man of letters" and "judged the greatest French writer of this century by the literary cognoscenti."

Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide exposes to public view the conflict and eventual reconciliation of the two sides of his personality (characterized by a Protestant austerity and a transgressive sexual adventurousness, respectively), which a strict and moralistic education had helped set at odds. Gide's work can be seen as an investigation of freedom and empowerment in the face of moralistic and puritanical constraints, and centers on his continuous effort to achieve intellectual honesty. His self-exploratory texts reflect his search of how to be fully oneself, including owning one's sexual nature, without at the same time betraying one's values. 

​André Gide est un écrivain français, né le 22 novembre 1869 à Paris 6e et mort le 19 février 1951 à Paris 7e.

Après une jeunesse perturbée par le puritanisme de son milieu, jeune Parisien qui se lie d'une amitié intense et tourmentée avec Pierre Louÿs, il tente de s'intégrer au milieu littéraire post-symboliste et d'épouser sa cousine. Une rencontre avec Oscar Wilde et un voyage initiatique avec Paul Albert Laurens le font rompre avec le protestantisme et vivre sa pédérastie.

​Il écrit notamment Paludes qui clôture sa période symboliste et, après la mort « libératrice » de sa mère, ses noces avec sa cousine Madeleine en 1895, il achève Les Nourritures terrestres, dont le lyrisme est salué par une partie de la critique à sa parution en 1897 mais qui est aussi critiqué pour son individualisme. Après des échecs au théâtre, il s'affirme comme un romancier moderne dans la construction et dans les thématiques et s'impose dans les revues littéraires.

André Gide préfére les amitiés littéraires. C'est avec ces amis qu'il fonde La Nouvelle Revue française (NRF), dont il est le chef de file et joue dès lors un rôle important dans les lettres françaises.

Parallèlement, il publie des romans sur le couple qui le font connaître, comme L'Immoraliste en 1902 ou La Porte étroite en 1909. La Symphonie pastorale (1919), son livre le plus lu, traitant du conflit entre la morale religieuse et les sentiments, Les Faux-monnayeurs (1925) à la narration non linéaire — l'établissent comme un écrivain moderne de premier plan auquel on reproche parfois une certaine préciosité. Les préoccupations d'une vie privée marquée par l'homosexualité assumée et le désir de bousculer les tabous sont à l'origine de textes plus personnels comme Corydon (publié tardivement en 1924) où il défend l'homosexualité et la pédérastie, puis Si le grain ne meurt (1926), récit autobiographique qui relate sa petite enfance bourgeoise, ses attirances pour les garçons et sa vénération pour sa cousine Madeleine, qu'il finit par épouser tout en menant une vie privée compliquée.

Son œuvre trouve ensuite un nouveau souffle avec la découverte des réalités du monde auxquelles il est confronté. Ainsi, le voyageur esthète découvre l'Afrique noire et publie en 1927 le journal de son Voyage au Congo, dans lequel il dénonce les pratiques des compagnies concessionnaires mais aussi celles de l'administration coloniale et l'attitude de la majorité des Européens à l'égard des colonies. 

Il est  honoré par le prix Nobel de littérature en 1947, et il se préoccupe dès lors de la publication intégrale de son Journal. Il meurt le 19 février 1951.

Paul Guillaume André Gide naît le 22 novembre 1869 à Paris 6e. Il est le fils de Paul Gide, professeur de droit à la faculté de Paris, et de Juliette Rondeaux, la fille de riches bourgeois rouennais.

Enfant, André Gide commence l'apprentissage du piano, qu'il redécouvrira dans les années trente au contact de Youra Guller, rencontre qui réorientera le dernier tiers de sa vie. Interprète sensible à l'analyse fine et originale, il regrettera de ne pas avoir connu assez tôt les professeurs qui eussent fait de lui un véritable musicien. En 1877, il intègre l'École alsacienne, entamant une scolarité discontinue. En effet, il est bientôt renvoyé pour trois mois après s'être laissé aller à ses « mauvaises habitudes », c'est-à-dire la masturbation. 

​Le décès de son père, le 28 octobre 1880, l'écarte un peu plus d'une scolarité normale. André perd, avec la mort de Paul Gide, une relation heureuse et tendre, qui le laisse seul face à sa mère. Elle aura toujours à cœur de l'accompagner dans son cheminement intellectuel – quitte à y porter la contradiction – et montrera une souplesse d'esprit bien supérieure à celle que l'on pouvait attendre d'une jeune fille Rondeaux.

Gide est fasciné parsa cousine Madeleine, par sa conscience du mal, son sens rigide et conformiste de ce qu'il faut faire, une somme de différences qui l'attire. Il se construit peu à peu de sa cousine une image parfaite dont il tombe amoureux, de façon purement intellectuelle et néanmoins passionnée.

À partir de 1883, il suit pendant deux ans des cours particuliers chez M. Bauer. Auprès de celui-ci, il découvre, entre autres, le Journal d'Amiel, qui l'incitera bientôt à tenir son propre journal intime. 

Entre 1885 et 1888, le jeune André vit une période d'exaltation religieuse — qualifiée « d'état séraphique » — qu'il partage avec sa cousine grâce à une correspondance nourrie et des lectures communes. Il puise abondamment dans la Bible, les auteurs grecs, et pratique l'ascétisme. 

De novembre 1885 à juillet 1888 André Gide est placé à l'Institution Keller, maison d’éducation protestante, pour rattraper son retard scolaire. À l’époque de Gide, l’institution était dirigée par le fils Keller, Jean-Jacques-Édouard (1837-1913).

Mais aux dires d’André Gide lui-même, il venait suivre un cours avec M. Jacob à contretemps des autres élèves qui quittaient la pension pour le lycée, quand lui-même arrivait pour suivre des cours avec des répétiteurs particuliers (surtout avec monsieur Jacob). Il ne vint ensuite (après 18 mois de présence effective) qu’un jour par semaine (le mercredi) prendre un repas dans l’institution. Ce régime fut très bénéfique au jeune garçon.

En 1887, il réintègre l'École alsacienne en rhétorique. L'année suivante, en se préparant au baccalauréat de philosophie (au lycée Henri-IV), il découvre Schopenhauer. Après le baccalauréat (1889), il se met à fréquenter les salons littéraires, rencontrant de nombreux écrivains. Son premier recueil, Les Cahiers d'André Walter, grâce auquel il espère obtenir un premier succès littéraire et la main de sa cousine, rencontre la faveur de la critique, à défaut d’attirer l'attention du public. Les Cahiers lui permettent de rencontrer Mallarmé, au contact duquel son mysticisme religieux se transforme en mysticisme esthétique. Sa cousine Madeleine refuse de l’épouser et s’éloigne craintivement de lui. Commence alors une longue lutte pour vaincre sa résistance et convaincre la famille, elle aussi opposée à cette union.

En 1891, peu après avoir écrit le Traité du Narcisse, il rencontre Oscar Wilde. L’homme l'effraie autant qu’il le fascine. Pour Gide qui commence à se détacher d’André Walter, de son idéal ascétique et du rejet de la vie, Wilde est l'exemple même d'une autre voie.

Au printemps 1892, un voyage en Allemagne, sans sa mère, est l'occasion d’approfondir sa connaissance de Goethe. Gide commence alors à penser que « c’est un devoir que de se faire heureux ». Dans les Élégies romaines, il découvre la légitimité du plaisir — à l’opposé du puritanisme qu’il a toujours connu — et il en découle pour lui une « tentation de vivre ». C'est aussi le début des tensions avec sa mère. Celle-ci cependant décide de soutenir son fils dans la conquête de Madeleine, contre le reste de la famille Rondeaux et la jeune fille elle-même, qui reste fermement opposée à une union avec son cousin.

Mais son périple avec un jeune peintre Paul Laurens en 1893, rapporté dans Si le grain ne meurt, va être pour Gide l’occasion d’un affranchissement moral et sexuel qu’il appelait de ses vœux. Alors que Paul Laurens rentre en France, Gide poursuit vers la Suisse pour y consulter le docteur Andreae. Celui-ci diagnostique une maladie essentiellement nerveuse et lui redonne foi en sa santé. Après un passage par La Roque-Baignard, il retourne en Suisse et s’installe à La Brévine, qui servira de décor à la Symphonie pastorale. Il y achève Paludes tout en songeant aux Nourritures terrestres.

L’année 1895 débute par un second voyage en Algérie. Gide rencontre à nouveau Oscar Wilde, flanqué de Lord Alfred Douglas (« Bosie »). 

La correspondance avec sa mère accuse une opposition de plus en plus véhémente. Cependant, à son retour en France, les retrouvailles sont sereines. Madeleine, qu'il revoit au même moment, se rapproche enfin de lui. La mort brusque de Juliette Gide, le 31 mai 1895 — provoquant en son fils de la douleur et un sentiment de libération —, semble précipiter les choses.

 Les fiançailles ont lieu en juin, et le mariage, qui ne sera jamais consommé, le 7 octobre au temple protestant d'Étretat. Suit un voyage de noces de sept mois durant lequel André, désormais en pleine santé, se sent sans cesse freiné par une épouse maladive. En Suisse, il travaille aux Nourritures terrestres. Il écrit également une postface à Paludes, qui fait de l'ouvrage une préface aux Nourritures, Paludes clôturant de manière satirique la période symboliste, et les Nourritures ouvrant une voie nouvelle. Gide gardera l’habitude de considérer ses œuvres comme des jalons sur son chemin, écrites par réaction les unes aux autres et qu'on ne peut comprendre que dans une vue d'ensemble.

De retour en France au printemps 1896, Gide apprend qu'il a été élu maire de La Roque-Baignard. S'il exerce consciencieusement son mandat, il refuse de s'engager en politique, de même qu'il refuse de s'enrôler dans une école littéraire. 

​Madeleine Rondeaux, sa cousine, devenue sa femme, n'apprend ses aventures pédérastiques qu'en 1916, en prenant connaissance d'une lettre sans ambiguïté adressée à son mari. 

​Durant l'hiver 1898, Gide commence à s'intéresser à l'affaire Dreyfus. Il signe la pétition de soutien à Émile Zola mais refuse de rompre le dialogue avec ceux qui, dans son entourage, prennent le parti inverse. Sans transiger, il s'efforce de comprendre, sinon de convaincre, ses adversaires. L'année 1898 se traduit également par une activité de critique et de chroniqueur de plus en plus soutenue, notamment dans L'Ermitage. C'est cependant dans La Revue blanche qu'il publie Philoctète qui constituera sa contribution littéraire et intellectuelle au cas du capitaine Alfred Dreyfus.

En 1900, Gide entame une collaboration régulière avec La Revue Blanche. 

​En 1902, L'Immoraliste obtient quelque succès, mais l’auteur, trop vite assimilé par la critique au personnage de Michel, se sent incompris.  Il publie également un hommage à Oscar Wilde, en1902. Après L'Immoraliste, il connaît un passage à vide qui se prolonge jusqu'à la publication de La Porte étroite en 1909. Entre-temps, il peine à écrire.


C'est aussi durant cette période, après avoir vendu son château de La Roque-Baignard en 1900, qu’il fait construire sa maison à Auteuil, maison qu'il juge inhabitable et que Madeleine prend immédiatement en grippe, mais dans laquelle il vivra vingt-deux ans (1906-1928).

La fin de la décennie est marquée par un retour à l'écriture, avec La Porte étroite, et par la création de la Nouvelle Revue Française. La Porte étroite est le premier livre de Gide à lui rapporter quelques subsides.

​C'est à cette période que Gide commence à écrire Corydon, essai socratique qui tend à combattre les préjugés envers l'homosexualité et la pédérastie. Il complètera son œuvre en 1917-1918, pour ne la publier sous son nom qu'en 1924.

​1912 est l'année de l'une des plus célèbres bourdes de l'histoire de l'édition quand Gide, lecteur à la NRF, refuse Du côté de chez Swann, en raison du snobisme de son auteur. Il s'en repentira deux ans plus tard, dans un courrier adressé à Proust : « Le refus de ce livre restera la plus grave erreur de la NRF, et (car j’ai cette honte d’en être beaucoup responsable) l’un des regrets, des remords, les plus cuisants de ma vie. »

​1916 est l’année d’une nouvelle tentation de se convertir au catholicisme. Pour Gide, le problème est moins religieux que moral. Pour poursuivre son cheminement, il commence la rédaction de Si le grain ne meurt.

En mai 1917, Gide tombe amoureux du jeune Marc Allégret alors âgé de 16 ans et entame une brève liaison avec lui. C’est alors que Madeleine se détache de lui. Gide, que cette destruction laisse inconsolable, devient le spectateur impuissant du lent étiolement de celle qui constitue toujours l'axe de sa vie. Ce drame lui offre cependant une liberté nouvelle : celle de publier Corydon et ses mémoires.

​Dans les années 1920, sa réputation ne cesse de grandir. On écoute cette voix qui parle de transformer les esprits sans évoquer de révolution. On reconnaît également, avec enthousiasme ou consternation, son rôle de guide de la jeunesse. Lui conserve l’impression d’être célèbre sans avoir été lu ni compris.

Entre-temps la vie de Gide a été bouleversée par un autre événement : la naissance de Catherine (avril 1923) le fait père. Catherine Gide ne sera officiellement reconnue par son père qu’après la mort de Madeleine, à qui cette naissance est soigneusement cachée.  

Dans sa nouvelle demeure avec Marc Allégret, une chambre est dédiée à Madeleine et à son absente présence, qui pèse sur lui. Les Faux-monnayeurs, publié en 1925, est le premier livre qui n’est pas écrit en fonction d’elle.

Son voyage au Congo, avec Marc Allégret, est l’occasion d’un nouvel élan.

​Durant ce voyage de onze mois, Gide retrouve le plaisir de l'exotisme et le goût de l'histoire naturelle. Mais ce qui devait n’être qu’un voyage d'esthète prend malgré lui une autre tournure, face à la réalité.

Gide publie les Nouvelles Nourritures terrestres en 1935, malgré cette publication, il souffre dans les années 1930 d’un certain essoufflement, qui touche aussi bien l’écriture que les amours ou les voyages, pour lesquels il ressent désormais plus de curiosité que de fièvre. 

Madeleine est morte le 17 avril 1938. Après avoir maudit son époux, celle-ci avait fini par accepter le rôle lointain, mais essentiel qu’elle n’a cessé de jouer auprès de lui, ainsi que l’amour si particulier que Gide lui vouait. 

Gide part à la recherche de sa sérénité perdue. Le contexte historique est peu favorable. La vieillesse lui ôte également certains plaisirs : le piano que ses mains ne parcourent plus aussi souplement ; les voyages pour lesquels il ne ressent plus l’enthousiasme qu’il savait si bien faire partager ; le désir qui s'éteint.

À l’atmosphère de Paris, il préfère un exil doré et serein sur la Côte d’Azur, publiant occasionnellement des articles de critique littéraire dans Le Figaro. À partir de 1942, les attaques dirigées contre lui (et bien d’autres) s’intensifient, sans qu’il puisse se défendre, pour cause de censure. Le 7 juillet 1944, le résistant communiste Arthur Giovoni intervient à l'Assemblée consultative provisoire pour demander que Gide soit emprisonné en raison de passages de son Journal où il mettait en doute la patriotisme des paysans français.

Après la Libération, il choisit de ne pas rentrer directement à Paris. Il craint l'épuration, non pour lui-même ou ses proches, aucun ne s’étant compromis, mais pour la dangereuse unanimité qui se crée à ce moment et qu'il juge totalitaire. 

Après 1947, il n’écrit presque plus. Il accepte les hommages des institutions conservatrices : Université d'Oxford ; prix Nobel de littérature en 1947.

Sa principale préoccupation est désormais la publication de ses dernières œuvres, notamment son Journal (premier tome en 1939, second en 1950, avec quelques coupures à chaque fois) qu’il ne veut pas laisser à la charge de sa descendance familiale et spirituelle. En juillet 1950, il commence un dernier cahier, Ainsi soit-il ou Les jeux sont faits, dans lequel il s'efforce de laisser courir sa plume.  

Il meurt à son domicile parisien au 1 bis rue Vaneau le 19 février 1951, à l'âge de 81 ans, des suites d'une congestion pulmonaire. Gide aura ces mots mystérieux sur son lit de mort : « J'ai peur que mes phrases ne deviennent grammaticalement incorrectes. C'est toujours la lutte entre le raisonnable et ce qui ne l'est pas... »

On l’enterre auprès de Madeleine quelques jours plus tard. Il est inhumé dans le petit cimetière de Cuverville (Seine-Maritime), où l'on peut voir le château familial, près d'Étretat.

​Don Emilio Pucci, Marchese di Barsento (20 November 1914 – 29 November 1992) was an Italian fashion designer and politician. He and his eponymous company are synonymous with geometric prints in a kaleidoscope of colors.

​Il marchese Emilio Pucci di Barsento (Napoli, 20 novembre 1914 – Firenze, 29 novembre 1992) è stato un aviatore, stilista e politico italiano pluridecorato con tre Medaglie d'argento al valor militare, fu un asso dell'aviazione nella specialità aerosiluranti.

Emilio ​Pucci was born in Naples in 1914 to one of Florence's oldest noble families, and he lived and worked in the Pucci Palace in Florence for much of his life. He was a keen sportsman who swam, skied, fenced, played tennis and raced cars.

At the age of 17, Pucci traveled to Lake Placid, New York, as part of the Italian team at the 1932 Winter Olympics, but he did not compete. After two years at the University of Milan, he studied agriculture at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, where he became a member of the Demosthenian Literary Society. In 1935, he was given a full scholarship to Reed College in Oregon in return for developing a college ski team. He earned an MA in social science from Reed College in 1937, and was awarded his doctorate (laurea) in political science from the University of Florence the same year.

In 1938, Pucci joined the Italian Air Force, and served as an SM.79 torpedo bomber pilot during World War II, rising to the rank of captain and receiving decorations for valour. During the war he became a confidant of Benito Mussolini's eldest daughter, Edda Mussolini and played a key role in a plan to save the life of her husband, Mussolini's former Foreign Minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano and helped Edda escape to Switzerland.

He was arrested while attempting to flee to Switzerland himself, and was transported to San Vittore prison in Milan, where he was tortured by the Gestapo in a futile attempt to extract information. Pucci then managed to escape and reach Switzerland, where he remained until the end of the war.

​The first clothes designed by Emilio Pucci were for the Reed College skiing team. His designs came to wider attention in 1947, when he was on leave in Zermatt, Switzerland as a skiwear that he had designed for a female friend was photographed by Toni Frissell, a photographer working for Harper's Bazaar. Frissell's editor asked Pucci to design skiwear for a story on European Winter Fashion, which ran in the winter 1948 issue of the Bazaar.

Pucci was the first person to design a one-piece ski suit. Although there had been some experiments with stretch fabrics in Europe before the war, Pucci's sleek designs caused a sensation, and he received several offers from American manufacturers to produce them. Instead, he left the Air Force and set up an haute couture house in the fashionable resort of Canzone del Mare on the Isle of Capri.

Initially, he used his knowledge of stretch fabrics to produce a swimwear line in 1949, but he soon moved onto other items such as brightly coloured, boldly patterned silk scarves. Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus encouraged him to use the designs in blouses and then a popular line of wrinkle-free printed silk dresses.

Pucci presented his collection in the first fashion shows in Italy in 1950 and then added a boutique in Rome as business thrived, helped by Capri's role as a destination for the international jet set. By the early 1950s, Pucci was achieving international recognition, receiving the Neiman-Marcus Award in Dallas and the Burdine's Sunshine Award in Miami.

By the 1960s Pucci was further thrust into greater status when Marilyn Monroe became a fan. She was photographed by George Barris in a number of Pucci's items in what would be some of her final photographs, and she would be buried in one of Pucci dresses she owned.

In fashion history, especially during the period of the 1950s and 1960s, Pucci was a perfect transition example between luxurious couture and ready-to-wear in Europe and the North America.

In 1959, Pucci decided to create a lingerie line. His atelier in Rome advised him to develop the line abroad, avoiding the difficulties of a decade earlier in matching available fabrics to the patterns of his first swimwear line. As a result, Pucci came to Chicago giving the lingerie contract to Formfit-Rogers mills. The venture proved to be successful, and Pucci was made vice president in charge of design and merchandising for the company a year later.

In February 1959, he married Cristina Nannini from Rome about whom he later remarked, "I married a Botticelli". They had two children, Alessandro and Laudomia. 

​In addition to his work in fashion, Pucci contested the Florence–Pistoia district for the Italian Liberal Party in the Italian election of April 1963. He was elected in the Italian Chamber of Deputies in August of that year but lost it in the 1972 election.

Emilio Pucci died in Florence on 29 November 1992. His son Alessandro died in a car crash in 1998, six years after his father's death.

Nacque a Napoli il 20 novembre 1914, erede della nobile famiglia fiorentina dei Pucci. In gioventù si dedicò allo sci e venne selezionato nel 1934,  dalla squadra nazionale olimpica italiana di sci, partecipando alle Olimpiadi invernali del 1936.

Vinse una borsa di studio per allenarsi nello sci al Reed College nell'Oregon, dove ebbe modo di realizzare i suoi primi abiti, da appassionato di pittura qual era, disegnando l'uniforme della squadra di sci della scuola, da dove nel 1937 concluse il suo master in scienze sociali. Invece di rientrare in Italia compì il giro del mondo.

Si appassionò al mondo dell'aviazione arruolandosi nella Regia Aeronautica nel 1938. Nel luglio 1939 divenne ufficiale.  Durante la seconda guerra mondiale, per le sue imprese venne insignito di una Croce di guerra al valor militare e delle tre prime Medaglie d'argento al valor militare.

L'armistizio dell'8 settembre 1943 lo colse a Venezia,  partì da Venezia raggiungendo Firenze, dove fu raggiunto da Edda Ciano Mussolini, con la quale intratteneva rapporti di amicizia sin dal 1934. Fu informato che suo marito era in stato di arresto a Verona, e che nessuno dei suoi amici o conoscenti in Italia aveva voluto o potuto ospitarla e aiutarla. Inoltre gli rivelò di essere in possesso dei diari del marito che pensava fossero di capitale importanza per l'Italia e per gli alleati. Nel gennaio 1944, accompagnò in Svizzera Edda con i figli ai quali si era ricongiunta.

All'alba del 10 gennaio 1944 viene arrestato da agenti della Gestapo appena fuori Lecco e portato a Milano, nel carcere di San Vittore.Per più di una settimana fu sottoposto, invano, a interrogatori e torture per costringerlo a rivelare dove fossero finiti i diari e Edda Ciano. I tedeschi poi lo trasportarono in Svizzera, dove passò alcuni mesi ricoverato presso un ospedale di Lugano. Una volta dimesso si trasferì a Zermatt, e per guadagnarsi da vivere si mise a fare il maestro di sci. Al termine del conflitto chiuse per sempre la sua attività di pilota e ufficiale dell'Aeronautica Militare.

All'inizio del 1947 intraprese l'attività di istruttore di sci al Sestriere, ma tornò a Firenze in cerca di migliore fortuna, interessandosi alla moda. La sua attività di disegnatore di moda decollò per caso: nel 1947, nel numero di dicembre di Harper's Bazaar, un'importante rivista di moda statunitense, viene pubblicata la fotografia di Toni Frissel nella quale appare un "dashing gentleman" in un moderno completo da sci. Quando fu pubblicata sul magazine illustrato, nell'ambito di un articolo sulla moda invernale in Europa, fu un successo immediato.

​L'episodio lo incoraggiò a creare e vendere vestiti da donna, aprendo la sua prima boutique a Capri nel 1950. Subito la sua produzione si contraddistinse per l'uso di colori brillanti e motivi vistosi e marcati, che tanto influenzarono la moda di quei decenni.

​Nel 1947, momento in cui prevale l'"Haute Couture" e il mondo guarda in particolare a Christian Dior e alla sua linea "Corolle", Emilio Pucci elabora una nuova concezione di abbigliamento identificabile come "Sportswear" volto alla libertà del corpo tramite drappeggio del tessuto, forme semplici ed essenziali. L'idea di libertà è una costante per Pucci che rielabora il tema fino ad oggi. Quest'idea viene ripresa nei suoi tessuti: seta, organza, gabardina di cotone e mussolina.

Fu quindi un pioniere della moda italiana, partecipando per esempio alla prima sfilata di moda tenutasi in Italia, che fu organizzata per il 12 febbraio 1951 da Giovanni Battista Giorgini a Firenze, presso Villa Torrigiani in Via dei Serragli.

Partecipò nel 1952, con Roberto Capucci, Vincenzo Ferdinandi, la Sartoria Antonelli, l'atelier Carosa, Giovannelli-Sciarra, Germana Marucelli, Mirsa, Polinober, la Sartoria Vanna e Jole Veneziani alla prima storica sfilata presso la Sala Bianca di Palazzo Pitti a Firenze.

Fondata l'omonima azienda (Emilio Pucci) agli inizi degli anni cinquanta del XX secolo, tra i suoi primi successi vanno ricordati la linea di vestiti di seta stampata senza pieghe. "The Prince of Prints" così viene riconosciuto per circa trent'anni dalla stampa del mondo anglosassone, inoltre nel 1954 gli viene assegnato il più prestigioso dei trofei, il "Neiman-Marcus Award", per il distinto servizio reso nel campo della moda.

Ebbe un rapporto speciale con la città dei suoi antenati, Firenze, e nel Palazzo Pucci stabilì il quartier generale della sua casa di moda, dove infatti si trova tuttora. L'indirizzo stesso della maison, come pochi al mondo potevano vantare, era di per sé un vanto e rifletteva la sua origine nobile: "Marchese Emilio Pucci, Palazzo Pucci, Via de' Pucci 6, Firenze". Nel corso della sua vita ha applicato le sue creazioni ai campi più disparati, ricevendo sempre ammirazione e riconoscimenti, grazie al suo stile fresco ed elegante. Molto popolare negli Stati Uniti, disegnò per esempio lo stemma per la tuta degli astronauti della NASA per la missione dell'Apollo 15; oppure disegnò le divise per le hostess, i piloti e il personale della compagnia Braniff International Airways tra il 1965 e il 1977, colorate e assolutamente innovative rispetto al panorama di allora; in Italia disegnò le divise classiche dei Vigili urbani, con i lunghi guanti bianchi e gli elmetti ovali sulla divisa blu. Nel frattempo le attività di stilista si allargarono alla moda maschile, ai profumi, alla produzione di ceramica per la casa.

​Entrato nel mondo della politica, venne eletto consigliere comunale deputato tra le file del Partito Liberale Italiano, dal 1963 al 1972, ricoprendo la carica di Sottosegretario al Ministero dei Trasporti.

Si spense a Firenze il 29 novembre 1992.

Suo figlio Alessandro, 11º Marchese di Barsento, morì in un incidente stradale nel 1998.

Sua figlia Laudomia ha ereditato la direzione del marchio Emilio Pucci.

Dopo la sua scomparsa nel 1992, il design degli abiti passò alla figlia Laudomia Pucci. Nel 2000 il gruppo francese LVMH (Louis Vuitton), acquistò l'azienda, i diritti sul logo Emilio Pucci e sulle creazioni storiche rilanciando la griffe nel mercato internazionale. Il legame con il passato si manifesta con la valorizzazione del catalogo storico e la rivisitazione di modelli e motivi. Tra gli stilisti che vi hanno operato vi sono Stephan Janson, Julio Espada e Christian Lacroix. Laudomia oggi si occupa dell'immagine complessiva della maison, che conta circa 50 boutique in località esclusive nel mondo e il cui fatturato viene realizzato al 60% tra Italia, Stati Uniti e Giappone.