C David Heymann - Telegraph He survived, and went on to produce a clutch of more titillating biographies, among them the bestselling A Woman Named Jackie (1989), about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; RFK (1998), a life of Senator Bobby Kennedy; and Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story (2009), in which Heymann alleged that the former First Lady and her brother-in-law began an affair just months after her husband's assassination. Clemens Claude Oscar Heymann was born in New York City on January 14 1945, into a German-Jewish family. With a view to following his father's trade, Clem took a degree in hotel management at Cornell University in 1966, but realised that his interests were bookish. In 1969 he published a volume of poetry, The Quiet Hours, and to avoid military call-up took a Master's degree in writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He studied for a doctorate in English Literature at the State University of New York, where he became interested in the work of Ezra Pound. Using Freedom of Information legislation, Heymann obtained voluminous and previously classified FBI files on the rabidly pro-Fascist poet's wartime activities. Writing as C David Heymann, he used these as the basis of his 1976 profile of Ezra Pound: The Last Rower - an allusion to Jean Cocteau's description of Pound as "a rower on the river of the dead." He promoted the book in Publishers" Weekly, revealing that he wrote in the nude (barring a pair of socks), with the air-conditioning at full blast while chewing industrial strength (No 56) rubber bands to calm his nerves (he later switched to smoking cigars, on health grounds). Despite such efforts, it became clear that books about dead poets were unlikely to make him rich. "Obviously, I couldn't continue to write literary biography and support a family," he explained in 1989. I don't mean to suggest I write just for money, but a person does have to make a living. His other books included The Georgetown Ladies" Social Club: Power, Passion, and Politics in the Nation's Capital (2003) and American Legacy: The Story of John and Caroline Kennedy (2007). Heymann's first two marriages ended in divorce. With his first wife, Jeanne Lunin, he had a daughter; his second marriage, to Rebecca Coughlan, in 1995, was annulled the following year. He is survived by his third wife, Beatrice Schwartz; by the daughter of his first marriage; and by a son from another relationship. C David Heymann, born January 14 1945, died May 9 2012