O JACKIE, WE HARDLY KNEW YE.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

America has been on a first-name basis with Jackie for about 40 years. So how is it we still know so little about Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis?

Certainly we recognized her elegant image during her years as first lady, we observed her dignified grief over the death of her first husband, and we watched her pop in and out of public life over the next 30 years, sometimes posing for the cameras, other times dodging them.

In some ways she's a biographer's dream: a well-documented life from birth because of her parents' prominence in New York society and a guaranteed audience that has publishers ordering large first runs with confidence.

But she can be a difficult study. Jackie was guarded about personal matters - her father's bad-boy behavior that led to divorce, her husband Jack's similar nature, the pain of losing two babies - and the Kennedy clan remains protective of her image and her privacy even six years after her death, allowing writers access to the presidential library archives but not granting interviews themselves.

``There is never going to be an authorized biography,'' writer Sarah Bradford recently told USA Today in an article about her own new work, ``America's Queen.'' That book certainly wouldn't be the sanctioned one, if for no other reason than Bradford's assertion that Jackie had an affair with her married brother-in-law Bobby after John F. Kennedy's assassination, a claim fellow Jackie biographer Donald Spoto calls ``undemonstrable rubbish.''

Network miniseries executives have loved the Kennedy mystique for decades and have not shied away from dramatizing important moments out of thin air to make a biographical program more compelling. Jackie has played a major role in several of them, including the 1981 Jaclyn Smith movie ``Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy'' and Anthony Quinn's 1988 project ``Onassis: The Richest Man in the World,'' and she's sure to be front and center in NBC's ``Jackie, Ethel and Joan: Women of Camelot'' in February and Fox's ``Prince Charming: The John F. Kennedy Jr. Story,'' due sometime next year.

The latest to hit the air is tonight's CBS miniseries, ``Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis,'' based on Spoto's book ``Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life.''

Joanne Whalley stars as the former debutante who became a Washington newspaper photographer, bride of a senator, mother, first lady, jet setter and book editor.

Whalley is a busy actress, but she still is best known as the woman who dared to step into Vivien Leigh's dainty slippers for ``Scarlett,'' the 1994 miniseries sequel to ``Gone With the Wind.'' Between Scarlett and Jackie, she may be developing a reputation for taking roles that attract criticism before she even draws breath in the character.

Whalley confesses she hesitated to accept the part of Jackie. ``I thought, 'Oh man, I can't. I managed to sneak away with Scarlett, how am I going to - and why are they asking me?' '' she recalled.

``First is the not understanding, then is the fear, then you think, 'You know what? How fabulous to be in Jackie Kennedy's shoes for a little while.' Once you get over the fear, you think, 'I'd be honored to do this and so what if nobody likes it. At least I'm going to try.' ''

Whalley says she and Tim Matheson (as JFK) sometimes found the notion of playing these historic figures preposterous.

``I'll never forget for the first time being dressed for the inauguration and hearing them play 'Hail to the Chief' - the first time, we both fell over laughing,'' she said, laughing hard again at the memory. ``It was so funny, because sometimes what happens is you're so immersed in it and then something will break it for a second and you think, 'What am I doing?' ''

That scene exemplifies the high-profile Jackie - the often reluctant piece of public property who set fashion trends and charmed national leaders. Spoto says the Doubleday editor he met in 1991 while finishing his Marlene Dietrich biography was surprisingly down to earth.

``I was fascinated at how different she was from the public perception,'' he said, recalling that she put out her hand, smiled and introduced herself by name (``as if I needed to be told this'').

``Here was a woman of keen intelligence, absolutely grounded, without a drop of star affectation. You didn't have the impression at all that you were talking to the most photographed and arguably the most famous American woman of the 20th century. This was just a wonderful lady who loved talking about good books.''

Asked for her opinion about the world's ongoing appetite for Jackie stories, Whalley, a native of northern England born in 1964, joins others in likening her role in history to Princess Diana's. In some ways, Jackie has been perceived as the consort who became more popular and beloved than her born-and-bred-royal husband and in-laws.

``I think the American public is fascinated with her because, as the title of the book says, she was the closest thing this country has had to a queen,'' said Frank McGuire, a Kennedy biographer and White House reporter during his administration.

``But if you compare her to Princess Diana, she would not have come up looking very royal at all. To my knowledge Jackie never visited a disaster scene or a children's hospital during her years in the White House,'' he said, citing the restoration of the executive mansion as her sole accomplishment.

``All the Kennedy loyalists would swear Jackie was absolutely the greatest, and when it comes down to it, it was what she looked like,'' McGuire added.

``Whatever our fascination is with her, I wish there were more substance to justify it.''

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Swept away

November is TV sweeps month - which can only mean an abundance of specials including the CBS miniseries `Jackie Bouvier Kennedy Onassis'

(2) President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jackie Kennedy.