Two Losses: Frank Zachary And Hugh Auchincloss III

Last week saw the deaths of two accomplished men. They came from very different backgrounds, but both would have crossed paths, metaphorically speaking, in the society pages. One as subject, the other as reporter.

Frank Zachary (pictured above) was the editor of Town & Country during the WASPy ’80s. The son of Croatian immigrants and raised in Pittsburgh, his colleagues included John O’Hara and Slim Aarons. Town & Country has a tribute to him here.

In contrast, born with a silver spoon was Hugh “Yusha” Auchincloss III, step-brother of Jacqueline Kennedy and a fixture of Newport society. From the Newport page at Patch.com:

Auchincloss attended Groton School in Groton, Mass., before he joined the United States Marine Corps when he graduated in 1945.

In 1947, he entered Yale University and in the 1950s, completed two tours of duty in Korea and studied at the American University of Beirut.

Later, Auchincloss served with the U.S. delegation to the United Nations and published a book on his early life growing up alongside Jackie, “Growing up with Jackie: My Memories, 1941-1953.”

Hammersmith [the family estate] was purchased by John W. Auchincloss in 1887. It was the backdrop for as royal-seeming as any moment in American history when Jackie and JFK held their wedding reception there and it was promptly featured on the front page of the New York Times the following day.

Auchincloss was related to the novelist Louis Auchincloss, and by marriage to Gore Vidal. Here is his father’s Wikipedia entry.

“Yusha,” as he was known, is to the right of JFK in the photo below. — CC