American politician, member of a noted family, the fabled Kennedy clan and the youngest member of U.S. Senate. The youngest son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy’s nine children, Ted Kennedy was a privileged child. He had the benefit of a Harvard education that was abruptly interrupted in 1951 when he was suspended for cheating on an exam. Enlisting in the army shortly after, he served in France and Germany and after an honorable discharge, was readmitted to Harvard where he graduated with honors in 1956.
After marrying Joan Bennet in 1958, Kennedy graduated from the University of Virginia Law School the following year and became the assistant to the district attorney of Suffolk County, Massachusetts in 1960. Two years later, at 30 he became the youngest member of the Senate, thus making the record as being the first time an incumbent president had a brother in the Senate. A string of devastating events struck in the ’60s beginning with the assassination of his brother, President John F. Kennedy on 11/22/1963 in Dallas, Texas that sent shock waves around the world. One year later, a plane carrying Kennedy and four others crashed, killing two, and Kennedy suffered a broken back that required a six month hospital rehabilitation. On 6/5/1968, brother Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles.
Kennedy’s political career was called into question in 1969 when he drove his car off a bridge in Chappaquidick, Massachusetts, causing the death of his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker. He waited ten hours to report the accident and many were unconvinced of innocent circumstances surrounding the incident. With his credibility now tarnished, he was voted out of the majority whip post in 1971 and his presidential bid subsequently disappeared for the 1972 election. During this year a biography by Burton Hersh entitled “The Education of Edward Kennedy” was published. After maintaining a low profile for several years he became the Head of the Senate Judiciary in 1979, where he was a strong advocator of tax reform and national health insurance.
In 1980, Kennedy sought the presidential nomination again, but failed to win his bid on the Democratic ticket against the incumbent Jimmy Carter. Seven years later, he was front and center in derailing the nomination of the controversial conservative Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. Two years later, his 23-year marriage to Joan Bennet ended in divorce.
Kennedy was involved in another scandal, albeit indirectly, when his nephew William Kennedy Smith was accused of rape in 1991 while at the Kennedy family mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Testimony regarding Kennedy’s alcohol abuse further stained his reputation.
In 1992 at age 60, Kennedy married a lawyer 21 years his junior, Victoria Reggie, who was the daughter of family friends. After kicking the alcohol habit, Kennedy was elected to his sixth full Senate term in 1994, with his seniority ranking third out of one hundred. He remains to date the Senate’s most steadfast and effective champion of liberal causes.
His older sister Rosemary died at age 86 on January 7, 2005. Born mildly retarded, Rosemary underwent a lobotomy at age 23 and had been institutionalized nearly her entire life.
The Senator’s sister, Patricia Kennedy Lawford, died of pneumonia on September 17, 2006 at her home in Southampton, NY.
After suffering a seizure and receiving a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor, the Senator underwent surgery to remove the growth on June 2, 2008 at Duke Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. He suffered a seizure on January 20, 2009 while attending a luncheon in the US Capitol Building in honor of the newly inaugurated President, Barack Obama. He was rushed to the hospital and released the following day.
The senator received an honorary knighthood from Queen Elizabeth on March 4, 2009.
His sister Eunice Shriver died on August 11, 2009. He died of brain cancer two weeks later on August 25, 2009 at 11:33 PM in Hyannis Port, MA (source for timeof death: news report citing death certificate). He was 77.
His daughter Kara died two years later, on September 16, 2011.
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