Book details alleged affair between RFK, Jackie

By Mark Shanahan & Meredith Goldstein, Globe Staff  |  July 7, 2009

Excerpts from “Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story’’ - a tell-all that hits shelves next Tuesday - are making waves thanks to writer C. David Heymann’s claims that Jacqueline Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy were deeply in love and had a long-term affair after John F. Kennedy’s assassination. The book details overnights, topless sunbathing, and a love kept secret to protect Bobby’s political career and marriage (he was married to Ethel at the time). The book quotes the late Franklin Roosevelt Jr., who worked for JFK, as saying, “I suspect Bobby would’ve liked to dump Ethel and marry Jackie, but, of course, that wasn’t possible.’’ Not surprisingly, naysayers are already coming out to dispel Heymann’s theories about Jackie and her brother-in-law, but the author is probably used to that. He’s a tell-all veteran with a resume that includes biographies of Elizabeth Taylor, Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr., and individual books about Jackie and Bobby.

Is it possible that Gisele Bundchen, one of the wealthiest women in the world, isn’t paying all of her taxes? So says Robert Snell, a business writer for the Detroit News, who posted an interesting item yesterday about Tom Brady’s bride. Citing records from the LA County Recorder of Deeds office, Snell says the supermodel has been slapped with a $72,003 tax lien by the state of California. Bundchen’s rep had no response. Safe to say the Brazilian beauty, who’s believed to be pregnant with her first child, can afford to pay. She ranked 37th on Forbes.com’s list of the 100 highest-paid celebs, earning an estimated $37 million last year.

The new season of “Entourage’’ starts Sunday, but you’ll have to wait until Aug. 9 to see Tom Brady on the show. As you may remember, our superstar QB filmed an episode for the HBO series in Los Angeles back in March. He and “Entourage’’ producer Mark Wahlberg play themselves in the fifth episode of the season, which will feature the two Boston celebs mingling at a celebrity golf tournament with “Entourage’’ boys Vince (Adrian Grenier), Drama (Kevin Dillon), and Turtle (Jerry Ferrara). We’re hoping Brady can make it onto “True Blood’’ next. Can’t you just see him with fangs?

Shelved Sox third baseman Mike Lowell dined with his wife, Bertha, and a few friends at Sweetwater in Boylston Alley. The gang sat on the patio, had a few drinks and spinach dip before heading to the movies.

In the beginning, Robert McNamara didn’t want to talk. “He was what I would call a reluctant interviewee,’’ says Cambridge-based filmmaker Errol Morris. McNamara had a long list of reasons why he wouldn’t talk, but in the end the former secretary of defense did, and the result was the Academy Award-winning “Fog of War.’’ When McNamara died yesterday at the age of 93, the media immediately rang up Morris. “People ask if [McNamara] was like [Donald] Rumsfeld, and the answer is no, they’re not at all alike,’’ said the director, who last spoke to McNamara a year ago. “The situations they inherited were diametrically opposed - McNamara and Kennedy didn’t want war.’’ Morris said he and his wife eventually became friendly with McNamara, and occasionally had him over to dinner. During one visit, McNamara fell down and cut his forehead. “We were frantic,’’ said Morris, who was an antiwar protester in the ’60s. “Forty years ago, if we’d killed Robert McNamara, we would have been heroes.’’

Former Channel 5 anchor Natalie Jacobson was among the fancy folks at Max and Cheryl Batzer’s July Fourth bash on Martha’s Vineyard. Others at the annual event in Aquinnah included Alan and Carolyn Dershowitz and Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. Jacobson made the scene with her boyfriend, Craig Wiggins. . . . Meanwhile, Meg Ryan was out and about window shopping with her daughter in Edgartown, and actress Jennifer Gray was spied at camp drop-off at the Chilmark Community Center.

Tanglewood folks got their hopes up last week when they read in the Globe that Elvis Costello had been spotted at a Boston Legal Sea Foods with his wife, Diana Krall. They hoped that meant he might stick around for a cameo with Krall in Lenox on July 4. Sadly, Costello skipped town before the show. Apparently, he was booked to play the Taste of Minnesota festival in St. Paul. As you can see, Krall did just fine on her own. And though Tanglewood may not have had Elvis in the building, it did welcome a number of guests throughout the weekend. Its opening-night concert and gala festivities on Friday brought out former state Senate president William Bulger, state Representative Smitty Pignatelli, Tanglewood Opening Night Event Committee member Jack Fitzpatrick, and former N.J. congressman Peter Frelinghuysen, who serves as Boston Symphony Orchestra’s overseer emeritus.

“The Fighter’’ isn’t just another job for Mark Wahlberg. Playing a boxer on the big screen has been one of the actor’s longtime ambitions and, finally, he’s getting his shot. Wahlberg plays pugilist “Irish’’ Micky Ward in director David O. Russell’s movie, which starts filming next week in Lowell. “Growing up, I was a huge ‘Irish’ Micky Ward fan,’’ the actor said before throwing out the first pitch at Fenway the other day. Wahlberg told us he’s been training hard for the role, and judging from his bulging biceps and sinewy frame, he’s not lying. “I’ve been trying forever to play a boxer, and, really, who better to play than ‘Irish’ Micky Ward?’’ In the late ’90s, Wahlberg said he was in negotiations to play Vinnie Curto, who was tormented by his father but still managed to win the cruiserweight championship. (Robert De Niro was set to play Curto’s trainer, Angelo Dundee.) That deal fell through, but then “The Fighter’’ came along. The film is a biopic of sorts about Ward and his brother, Dicky Eklund, who’ll be played by Christian Bale. The stellar cast also includes Melissa Leo, who plays Ward and Eklund’s mom, and Amy Adams, who is Ward’s tough-talking girlfriend.

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