The huge outpouring of condolence letters written to Jackie Kennedy in the wake of the JFK assassination forms the basis for Director Bill Couturié’s latest film Letters to Jackie: Remembering President Kennedy.
Based on Ellen Fitzpatrick’s book Letters to Jackie: Condolences from a Grieving Nation, Couturié’s film reveals how for two months after JFK’s assassination, the White House received more than 800,000 letters for the first lady from all over the world. The writers represented all ages, races, religions and political persuasions including: a 13-year-old suffering from polio; a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia; and an African-American woman who told the first lady how her husband’s efforts in the Civil Rights Movement had affected her life.
On March 27, following the DGA's Documentary Series screening at the Guild's Los Angeles Theater, Couturié sat down with DGA Award-winning Director Chuck Braverman (High School Boot Camp) to discuss the making of Letters to Jackie: Remembering President Kennedy.
Couturié’s previous work includes the Emmy-nominated documentaries Boffo! and Last Letters Home; the Emmy-winning documentaries Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam and Earth & the American Dream; an Emmy-winning episode of The West Wing; the Academy Award-nominated documentary Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks; and the Academy Award-winning documentary Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt. Couturié has been a member of the DGA since 1995.