A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy

A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy
Collingwood and Kennedy during their tour
Genre	Documentary/Special
Written by	Jacqueline Kennedy
Directed by	Franklin J. Schaffner
Starring	Jacqueline Kennedy Charles Collingwood John F. Kennedy
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	1
Production
Producer(s)	Perry Wolff
Release
Original network	CBS, NBC, ABC
Original release	February 14, 1962 (CBS and NBC), February 18, 1962 (ABC)

External video

The Red Room

Jackie's White House Tour, CBS, a 4 minute 47 second clip

50th Anniversary of the White House Tour with Jacqueline Kennedy, JFK Library, 1:19:43, a half-hour clip starts at 4:01

A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy was a television special featuring the First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Kennedy on a tour of the recently renovated White House. It was broadcast on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1962, on both CBS and NBC, and broadcast four days later on ABC. The program was the first ever First Lady televised tour of the White House, and has since been considered the first prime-time documentary specifically designed to appeal to a female audience.

The film showed Kennedy on a tour of the house with the CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood. The filmed tour was the first glimpse the American public had had of the $2 million restoration of the White House that Kennedy had helped direct in the first year of her husband's presidency.

The program was viewed by 80 million viewers, and globally syndicated to 50 countries including Russia and China.

Kennedy's notes for the televised tour were among her personal papers that were publicly released by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in 2012. The papers showed that Kennedy made sure that the names of individual donors who had contributed to the costs of the renovation were included in the script.

Kennedy had been the First Lady of the United States since her husband's inauguration in January 1961 and had engaged in a well publicized restoration and redecoration of the president's official residence, the White House, in the first year of her husband's presidency. Kennedy had been approached by various television networks to broadcast the restored White House and it was subsequently agreed that the three major American networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) would jointly fund and broadcast the resultant documentary. The finished documentary was produced by Perry Wolff and directed by the feature film director Franklin J. Schaffner. Cutaway segments for the film were shot in advance and Kennedy's parts were taped in an eight-hour recording session. Nine short tons (8.2 t) of equipment were required for the film, placed in the White House by 54 technicians.