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IN THE White House she was an icon of style, the elegant embodiment of American aristocracy. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy, who died 20 years ago this month, was presented to the world by her husband’s slick PR team as a blue-blood who traced her lineage back to 16th-century French nobility.

But a shocking new biography reveals that the girl who grew up to be queen of President John F Kennedy’s fabled Camelot was not what she appeared.

Jackie’s ancestors were peasants and her father was a bisexual alcoholic gambler who drank himself to an early grave, claims the book Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life Beyond Her Wildest Dreams, by Danforth Prince and Darwin Porter.

Before reigning over the White House Jackie had spent her youth auditioning a succession of America’s wealthiest eligible bachelors in a mercenary search for a rich husband, ultimately losing her virginity in a lift caught between floors.

“Jackie’s aristocratic heritage was total fantasy in the same way that Jackie created the myth of Camelot at the White House,” says Porter. “It never existed.

“She wasn’t happy in her marriage to Jack Kennedy and before he became president she wanted a divorce. Jack’s father Joe Kennedy offered her $1million to stay knowing that a divorce would destroy Jack’s political future.”

Jackie was born in 1929 to Wall Street broker John Bouvier III, known to his friends and foes as “Black Jack” because of his dark complexion, destructive gambling addiction and his black heart.

“He was a hedonist, a rogue, a gambler, a scoundrel, a rascal, a libertine and a heartbreaker,” says Porter. “He led a dissolute life which featured promiscuous sex and reckless spending.”

He married wealthy heiress Janet Lee who claimed to be descended from the prestigious American “Lees of Maryland” but Porter reveals: “Actually she was descended from Irish immigrants who had fled the potato famine.”

Jackie grew up on the 14-acre estate of her grandfather Major Bouvier who built an English manor house to embody his family’s supposedly noble history. “They wanted it to appear that they had breeding, power and money for centuries but their genealogy was invented,” says Porter.

“The Major traced his family back to French aristocracy but they were actually cabinet makers, maids, ironmongers, tailors, shopkeepers, tavern owners, farmers and chimney sweeps. He even created a fake coat of arms.”

Jackie’s parents divorced when she was only 11 and while her mother remarried wealthy investment banker Hugh Auchincloss, her father Black Jack descended into debauchery. “That’s what Jackie grew up expecting of a man,” says Porter. “So when she married JFK’s infidelities didn’t seem unusual.”

When Black Jack first met his prospective son-in-law in 1953, despite his own invented nobility he looked down on the former Irish bootlegger turned US senator’s son calling Kennedy a “goddamn Mick”.

Black Jack’s many lovers included songwriter Cole Porter who claimed that “one night Black Jack and JFK got really drunk and arranged for a showgirl hooker to visit. Both of them seduced this girl in the same bed.”

Black Jack died of liver cancer in 1957. At his funeral Jackie’s cousin Edie Beale recalled: “She didn’t shed a tear.” Black Jack had been ostracised by Jackie when she came out as debutante of the year in 1947 at 18 and she set about finding a suitable husband, racing through America’s most eligible wealthy young men.

She charmed her way into European high society and family connections got her invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace. Expressing her honour at meeting Winston Churchill he flirtatiously replied: “If only I were 40 years younger I might honour you in another way.”

She studied in France, romancing students, ski instructors, intellectuals and Parisian high society. During a party at Lady Astor’s stately home Cliveden in Buckinghamshire she disappeared into a bedroom with Hollywood legend Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

Though Jackie claimed to have been Kennedy’s virgin bride she was deflowered years earlier by French novelist’s son John Marquand Jr in a stalled lift. “She was so hot to trot she couldn’t wait until I got inside my apartment,” revealed Marquand who deliberately stopped the lift between floors. “I figured I’d better go for it before she changed her mind.”

Her long-time friend novelist Truman Capote said: “Virginity was something Jackie wanted to get rid of as soon as possible.”

When Jackie returned to the US her mother “slapped her on both cheeks” demanding that she end the affair because Marquand’s family was “poor as church mice”, claims the book.

Jackie was introduced at a dinner party to John F Kennedy, a US senator from one of America’s richest families. “Jack was a skirt chaser and I knew that if he wanted to become president he’d have to find the perfect wife,” said JFK’s friend Charles Bartlett, who played Cupid.

But that night Jackie drove home with her boyfriend stockbroker John Husted. They then became engaged over her mother’s objections that his banking family didn’t have enough money to treat her royally.

Husted recalled passionate love-making sessions unaware that Jackie was cheating on him with Kennedy. After dinner with Husted one night Jackie gave him a tame kiss on the cheek and slipped her engagement ring into his coat pocket.

Yet it had not been love at first sight for Jackie or JFK. They met three times before he began showing a romantic interest. Taking her yachting she was unimpressed to see him in a swimsuit, recording in her diary: “He has a funny body, skinny with toothpick legs.”

Despite her concerns about Kennedy’s notorious womanising they were engaged in June 1953 and wed three months later.

On their honeymoon night in New York Jackie donned a see-through negligee but waited in bed for an hour and a half while Kennedy made phone calls. When he finally came to bed Kennedy complained of his bad back, made brief love, rolled over and fell asleep. The marriage went downhill from there.

Kennedy was infamous for his affairs with lovers including Marilyn Monroe and Marlene Dietrich and they had only been married months when Jackie walked in on JFK receiving the sort of favour from a secretary that Monica Lewinsky later reserved for President Clinton. “You must have known when you married me I can never be faithful,” Kennedy pleaded. “I can’t help myself. It’s a compulsion.”

Following two miscarriages, plunging into depression with “the world’s worst husband” Jackie was sent to Valleyhead Psychiatric Clinic in Massachusetts where she received electro-shock therapy she called “the nightmare ride of my life”.

Talked out of divorce Jackie returned to her marriage finding solace in her own infidelities with actor William Holden and Fiat car boss Gianni Agnelli.

After JFK’s assassination in 1963 her lovers included Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra and her two brothers-in-law Robert Kennedy and Peter Lawford, the book claims.

“She wasn’t happy at all married to JFK,” says Porter. “She agreed to stay married as long as Jack’s affairs stayed private but he was constantly humiliating her. Their happy marriage like Jackie’s ancestry and the modern-day Camelot was a myth.”