It’s a love story, FX-on-Hulu viewers, just say yes.
FX has set the premiere date for the inaugural season of Ryan Murphy‘s newest anthology series, Love Story, which is focused on JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette. The debut is timed to Valentine’s Day, which is a pretty good scheduling peg. That said, no one wants a Saturday series, so Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette will bow on Thursday, Feb. 12. The season’s first three episodes will launch that evening on FX and Hulu (and on Disney+ internationally) beginning at 9 p.m. ET. After that, one new episode of the subsequent six will air/stream each week.
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is inspired by Elizabeth Beller’s book Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Paul Anthony Kelly will play JFK Jr. and Sarah Pidgeon will portray Bessette.
“It was a love story that captured the attention of the nation: John F. Kennedy Jr. was the closest thing to American royalty. The country watched him grow from a boy to a beloved bachelor and media sensation,” the FX press release, which I guess doubles as a logline, reads. “Carolyn Bessette was a star in her own right. Fiercely independent and with a singular style, she rose from being a sales assistant to an executive at Calvin Klein, and became a trusted confidante of its eponymous founder. John and Carolyn’s connection was immediate, electric and undeniable. As their love story unfolded on a national stage, the intense fame and media attention that came along with it threatened to rip them apart.”
JFK Jr. and Bessette-Kennedy died in 1999 when his single-engine airplane crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Martha’s Vineyard. Bessette’s sister Lauren Bessette also died. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the cause of the accident to be spatial disorientation while flying over the ocean at night. In its most basic sense, the pilot loses their sense of up and down.
The series also stars Grace Gummer as Caroline Kennedy, Naomi Watts as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Alessandro Nivola as Calvin Klein, Leila George as Kelly Klein, Sydney Lemmon as Lauren Bessette) and Constance Zimmer as Ann Marie Messina.
OK wait, so here’s the actual logline: “Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette charts the complex and heartbreaking journey of a couple whose private love became a national obsession.”
Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette is created by Connor Hines and executive produced by Murphy, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Connor Hines, Eric Kovtun, Nissa Diederich, Scott Robertson, Monica Levinson, Kim Rosenstock, D.V. DeVincentis and Tanase Popa. Max Winkler executive produced and directed the pilot episode; the series is produced by 20th Television.
