Durie Malcolm Appleton, who denied rumors of secret marriage to JFK, 91
La N
Durie Malcolm Appleton, who denied rumors of secret marriage to JFK, dies.
By WILLIAM KELLY
Daily News Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Durie Malcolm Appleton, 91, died Monday, March 17, 2008, at her home in Palm
Beach.
A longtime town resident, she was most recently married to the late Francis
Henry Appleton, a philanthropist who died in 1996.
Mrs. Appleton was born Dec. 30, 1916, in New York, N.Y., to the late
Frederick Kerr and Isabel Cooper Kerr, according to the funeral home. She
took the name Malcolm from her stepfather.
Mrs. Appleton is known to have been married four times. But she was perhaps
best known for rumors of a secret marriage to John F. Kennedy - an
allegation she reportedly denied and often refused to publicly discuss. A
brief marriage was alleged to have occurred between the two at some point
between 1938 and 1947, before Kennedy's marriage to Jacqueline Bouvier.
While she was a young woman, Durie Malcolm's family vacationed at their Palm
Beach estate, right across the street from the Kennedy property.
John F. Kennedy's father, Joe Kennedy Sr., allegedly had the records of his
son's marriage to Durie Malcolm destroyed.
Rumors of the secret marriage surfaced while Kennedy was in the White House.
His administration denied the reports, which were discarded by the
mainstream media.
Before she was married to Mr. Appleton, she was married to and divorced from
Firmin Desloge IV, F. John Bersbach and Tommy Shevlin, a deep-sea fisherman
and big-game hunter.
Mrs. Appleton was a member of the board of trustees of the Preservation
Foundation of Palm Beach from 1995 through 2003.
She is survived by a daughter, Durie Desloge Bullough, of London.
Quattlebaum Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
There will not be any local services.
The body will be cremated, the funeral home said.