Zapruder's granddaughter, Alexandra, said her grandfather 'would have been happy to have never seen [the film] again'

In 1999, the government purchased the tape for $16million plus interest

The younger Zapruder then tried to juggle the demands for public disclosure with his father's wishes 'to do good with it'

The rights to the film were returned to Zapruder's son Henry in 1978

Zapruder sold an original copy of the tape to Life magazine, which published stills from the tape

Alexandra Zapruder was not born when her grandfather trained his home-movie camera on President John F. Kennedy's motorcade rolling through Dallas 53 years ago on Tuesday, but that 26-second film has become a difficult family legacy.

On November 22, 1963, Abraham Zapruder, a devoted supporter of Kennedy and his vision for America, shot a home movie on 8 mm film that became the best-known moving image of the Kennedy assassination.

'Growing up, my parents didn't talk about this because it was grandfather's wish that we approach it with discretion and respect for Kennedy,' Alexandra Zapruder, 46, said in an interview.

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Abraham Zapruder was filming JFK's motorcade on November 22, 1963 when the president was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. Above, a different picture taken from that moment

Abraham Zapruder, right, speaks after filming the Kennedy assassination in 1963

An immigrant Russian Jew who became a successful clothing manufacturer in Dallas, Abraham Zapruder went to Dealey Plaza to film Kennedy's motorcade, his granddaughter said.

He ended up capturing one of the most indelible moments in American history.

Growing up in Washington, D.C., where her father, Henry Zapruder, worked as a government attorney, Alexandra Zapruder, an author and member of the founding staff of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, knew little of the film's back story.

She decided the family's complicated relationship with the film, which has been used in government probes, fueled conspiracy theories and been viewed by billions of people, may make for an interesting book.

Zapruder, who came to Dallas for the anniversary of the assassination to discuss her book on the film, 'Twenty-Six Seconds,' said her family had always been guided by her grandfather's wishes to maintain the integrity of its deeply disturbing contents.

Alexandra Zapruder (pictured) is the granddaughter of Abraham Zapruder. She says if it were up to her grandfather, he 'would have been happy to have never seen [the film] again'

Abraham Zapruder sold an original copy and the rights to Life magazine for $150,000 to help tell the story of that fateful day in Dallas.

Alexandra Zapruder wrote a book about the film, called Twenty-Six Seconds

The magazine published several frames of the film days after the assassination. It did not surface again publicly until a version appeared on Geraldo Rivera's ABC-TV show, 'Good Night America' in 1975.

Abraham Zapruder testified before the U.S government's Warren Commission investigating the assassination. The commission concluded that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, killed the president and wounded Texas Governor John Connally. Zapruder died in 1970.

Film rights returned to the family in 1978 and Zapruder said she watched her father juggle the demands for public disclosure with her grandfather's wishes 'to do good with it,' she said.

In 1999, the government paid the family $16 million plus interest for the original version of the film.