Frank & Marilyn by Edward Z. Epstein

Author:Edward Z. Epstein [Epstein, Edward Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637585870
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Published: 2022-10-16T15:01:14+00:00

There was only moderate interest in Hollywood when thirty-three-year-old Patricia Helen “Pat” Kennedy Lawford and her thirty-four-year-old husband, actor Peter Lawford, celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary. The couple were hardly dominant figures on the Beverly Hills social scene—yet—but they would soon figure prominently, and very importantly, in both Frank and Marilyn’s lives.

Pat was the sixth of Rose and Joe Kennedy’s children; she was seven years younger than her brother Jack and one year older than their brother Bobby. She wanted to become a film producer.

Peter Lawford had known Frank from their days as MGM contract players. They shared common interests: they loved women, alcohol, and pranks. Lawford’s love affairs, like Frank’s, ran the gamut. He’d dated Marilyn—there were no sparks—and then, at his peril, Ava, pre- and post-Frank. When Ava and Lawford were seen and photographed out on the town together, Frank, furious, telephoned him and threatened to have his legs broken. Peter got the message; there were no further sightings of Lawford and Ava together.

Peter’s social credentials were impressive. His father had been a knighted soldier, and his uncle had been the first Wimbledon tennis champion. Lawford liked to flaunt his pedigree, a habit that irritated Frank. Marilyn couldn’t have cared less.

But Frank knew that Peter harbored a “secret”: an injury suffered as a teenager that had permanently affected the use of his right lower arm and hand. He concealed the condition masterfully, quite an accomplishment for a professional film actor, since the cold eye of the camera captures every movement and flaw.

Any simmering resentment Frank felt toward Peter, over his having had dates with Ava, disappeared as the Lawfords’ value on the Beverly Hills social circuit escalated dramatically. Eventually, Sinatra and Lawford even went into business together, partnering in a successful restaurant, Puccini, located across the street from the William Morris Agency. It became a hot industry hangout.

Jack Kennedy was well on his way to becoming Hot Topic Number One in Hollywood’s inner sanctums. Since everyone in town had so-called “skeletons” in their closets, the Kennedys were in friendly territory; the family possessed skeletons galore. With Frank, it was his “alleged” Mafia connections. With Marilyn, there were the nude photographs—but were they merely the tip of the iceberg? Even Audrey Hepburn had a skeleton—she’d had to conceal the fact that her father had been a Nazi sympathizer.

Even before he’d been elected a senator, and before he married Jacqueline, Jack had been a regular at Joe Schenck’s Sunday get-togethers. His star-crossed love affair with gorgeous actress Gene Tierney was widely known. “I can’t marry you, Gene,” Kennedy finally told her when she felt that was the next step in their relationship. His excuse: as a Roman Catholic, he could not marry a divorced woman. She was devastated. There were many other affairs. (Fortunately, Ava Gardner wasn’t one of them.)

There was the matter of his bestselling book, Profiles in Courage. Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorensen revealed, years later, that he had actually written most of the book, which took shape in 1954 and ’55, when Kennedy was bedridden, recovering from back surgery.

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