SEPTEMBER 8 1975

Jackie was back on center court again. The occasion was the Robert F. Kennedy Pro-Celebrity Tennis Tournament at Forest Hills, where she made a surprise appearance—not so much upstaging such luminaries as Alan King, Burt Bacharach and Buddy Hackett as totally eclipsing them. It was her first public appearance in the U.S. since the death of her Greek billionaire-husband Aristotle Onassis last March. The time had come to put away the widow's weeds. Stepping jauntily—on bone-colored T-strap heels—from a car driven by the tournament chairman, she burbled, "I'm so excited to be here, I wouldn't miss it for the world." (She missed it last year, however.) She was wearing a white silk shirt dress, which some unsparing observers thought a little frumpy, set off with gold earrings and chains and a Cartier Tank watch. Clearly intending to watch and not compete, she did get into a series of hugging matches with various Kennedy children. She joked with Ethel, Bobby's widow, and exchanged long looks with Teddy. Much of the time Jackie was just folks, 13,000 of whom attended the tournament and raised about $200,000 for the underprivileged. She nibbled a hot dog and an ice cream bar. She was seen in conversation with sports-caster Howard Cosell, actually getting a word in. "We talked about whether her children were as athletic as Bobby's, and she decided they weren't," he reported. After she presented a trophy to comedian Bill Cosby, last year's winner, for helping with this year's tournament, he managed to say, "I thought she was beautiful." So what else is new? This one small domestic note: the Kennedy kids call her "Aunt Jackie."