Sisters who competed to snare the world's richest men: a new book reveals the jealousy between Jackie O and sister Lee and how they both bedded JFK

They were two of the most beautiful women of their generation - but behind the dazzling good looks Jackie Onassis (right of centre image) and her sister Lee (left on the centre image) were brought up ruthlessly by their mother Janet (left image) and were bitterly jealous of each others' conquests - including that of JFK (seen with Jackie, top right image). In earlier years the Bouvier sisters, Jackie and Lee (bottom right image) were two of the most glamorous women of their generation.

Described by the writer Truman Capote as 'American geishas' - women who existed only to captivate the world's richest and most powerful men - their conquests not only included JFK but also Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis and various royals and aristocrats.

The story of the colourful lives of Janet and her two beautiful daughters has now been told in detail in a book by J. Randy Taraborrelli.

Lee’s bitterness over Jackie’s trump card — becoming wife of a U.S. president — made clear, they weren’t the most loyal of siblings. Their fierce and lifelong rivalry — over money, men, success and even their mother’s love — is revealed in a riveting new book.

In Jackie, Janet & Lee, veteran Hollywood biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, drawing on interviews with family members, reveals how their formidable and hard-nosed mother, Janet Bouvier Auchincloss, sought to mould her daughters in her own ruthlessly mercenary and social-climbing image.

He also reveals startling new details of a little-known love affair Jackie had with Jack Warnecke, the architect who designed JFK’s tomb and whom she almost married.

The new book has already upset Lee, now 84, who reportedly feels ‘betrayed’ by relatives who talked to Taraborrelli.

‘Lee doesn’t like her dirty laundry being aired and she feels betrayed by her cousins,’ according to a friend. And what laundry it is.

When they were young, Janet liked to take her two beautiful daughters to tea at New York’s Plaza Hotel to show them off - and to impart some motherly advice.

‘Do you know what the secret to happily-ever-after’ is?’ she once asked them. ‘Money and power.’

Janet later recalled that while Lee looked appalled by the notion of a loveless match, Jackie, three years older, was perfectly accepting of the idea.

Janet was only 21 when she married her first husband and the girls’ father, Jack Bouvier, a handsome but heavy-drinking Wall Street stockbroker and socialite, whom she divorced 12 years later over his philandering.

She struggled financially for years, but was determined her daughters should never want for money themselves. They must always ‘marry up’, she told them.

And when Janet married a second time, it was to a much older, rather dull — but very wealthy - investment banker, Hugh Auchincloss. Together, they had a daughter, also Janet, and son, James.