Carolyn Bessette was turning heads long before she married John F. Kennedy Jr.

Born to privilege and glamour, Bessette became an instant tabloid favorite after she married John F. Kennedy Jr. She was tailed by paparazzi, gossiped about by columnists and compared to her husband's late mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

The former Calvin Klein publicist, 33, joined her husband in the jet-set life he knew from birth -- honeymoon in Turkey and the Greek islands and dinner at the White House.

She wed Kennedy in September 1996 on Cumberland Island along the Georgia coast in a ceremony so secret that even some family members weren't invited. "She's got Princess Di and Jackie O down pat," one former colleague said in a 1996 magazine article about Bessette.

Bessette's high school classmates had dubbed her "The Ultimate Beautiful Person." She was so stunning, reports had it, that she landed a job at a Calvin Klein shop in Boston just by walking down the street.

"She is one of those mysterious creatures that understands, on some deep level, mystical femininity," JFK Jr.'s friend John Perry Barlow told New York magazine.

"She is very good at making people feel they are special and important, and largely because she means it. It was the same thing with Jackie."

Klein himself later hired her to work as a publicist in his New York office.

"I think that she gave Calvin a lot of inspiration in terms of her personal style," Sciascia Gambaccini, the fashion director for Marie Claire magazine and former Klein employee, told New York magazine.

The willowy Bessette, a doctor's daughter, was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut, spending two years at public school before transferring to St. Mary High School, where she graduated in 1983.

She majored in elementary education at Boston University, earning a bachelor of science degree in 1988, but took a marketing job with a nightclub consortium after graduation.

Gossip columnists had lots of theories about how she met her future husband. Some said the two first talked as she helped him buy Calvin Klein suits; others said he contacted her after he saw her jogging in a park.

But life as Kennedy's wife brought pressures as well as privilege.

Paparazzi photographed Kennedy and his bride-to-be arguing in Central Park in February 1996 -- he reportedly pulled a ring off her finger -- and a television newsmagazine aired a videotape of the fight.

Kennedy asked paparazzi to give the couple some privacy after their wedding, but few heeded his pleas. He lashed out at one photographer after a group of paparazzi refused to leave the couple alone as they walked their dog near their Tribeca apartment.

And speculation about a new Kennedy heir was endless. Every time Bessette gained an ounce, it seemed, the tabloids had her pregnant.

Lauren Bessette

Lauren Bessette, who is 18 months older than Carolyn, has a twin sister, Lisa Ann Bessette. A 1982 graduate of Greenwich High School, Lauren has been working as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in New York City.

Lisa Ann, a graduate of the University of Michigan, has been working on a doctorate in Renaissance studies in Munich, Germany.

The sisters were raised by their mother, Ann Freeman, who worked as a teacher and administrator in the New York public schools, and their stepfather Richard Freeman, an orthopedic surgeon. He brought three more girls into the family.