Joan Bennett Kennedy Biography Wikipedia

Joan Bennett Kennedy Biography

Joan Bennett Kennedy (born September 2, 1936) is an American socialite, writer and former model. She is the former wife of U.S. Senator from Massachusetts Edward “Ted” Moore Kennedy.

Early life, education and career :

She was born Virginia Joan Bennett in Riverdale, a neighborhood of The Bronx borough of New York City, New York, to Henry Wiggin Bennett, Jr. and Virginia Joan (née Stead) Bennett.

She attended Manhattanville College (then a Sacred Heart Academy) in Purchase, New York, which is also the alma mater of her future sisters-in-law Jean Kennedy Smith and Ethel Skakel Kennedy.

As a teenager, she modeled in television advertising.

Marriage and divorce :

In October 1957 at the dedication of a gymnasium in memory of another Kennedy sister Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington — who had died in a plane crash in 1948 — Jean Kennedy introduced Joan to her brother Ted Kennedy, then a student at the University of Virginia School of Law.

They were married on November 29, 1958, in Bronxville, New York. Her brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy, dubbed her “the dish”, because of her good looks and fashionable style.

They had three children: Kara Anne (née Kennedy) Allen (born February 27, 1960, in Bronxville), Edward Moore Kennedy, Jr. (born September 26, 1961), and Patrick Joseph Kennedy (born July 14, 1967).

Two of their children would later develop cancer. Edward Jr. developed bone cancer that resulted in the removal of a portion of a leg in 1973 and Kara was treated for lung cancer in 2003.

After her husband suffered a severe back injury in an airplane crash while campaigning, she assumed the full campaign-appearance schedule for election to his first full term in the U.S. Senate 1964 election. He had won a special election in November 1962 to serve the final two years of his brother, President John F. Kennedy’s senate term.

In July 1969, her husband was involved in a car accident off Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts that killed his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. Although pregnant and confined to bed in the wake of two previous miscarriages, she attended Kopechne’s funeral. Three days later, she stood beside her husband in court when he pled guilty to having left the scene of an accident. She suffered a third miscarriage shortly thereafter.

In early 1978, the couple separated. Shortly thereafter, she gave interviews with People and McCall’s confirming her alcoholism and her work to stay sober.

The couple remained together during his failed 1980 U.S. presidential campaign, announcing plans to divorce in 1981. The divorce was finalized in 1982, one year to the day after filing for divorce.

Later life, career and chronic alcoholism :

As a resident of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Boston, Massachusetts, she has worked with children’s charities, remains an accomplished pianist and has taught children classical music.

In 1992, she published the book The Joy of Classical Music: A Guide for You and Your Family.

After the death of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on May 19, 1994, Ms. Kennedy became one of the four living current or former spouses (along with Sargent Shriver, Victoria Reggie Kennedy (Ted Kennedy’s second wife) and Ethel Skakel Kennedy) of the children of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy.

Her later years have been shaped by chronic alcoholism, which had appeared during her marriage. It escalated with sporadic, uneven sobriety, repeated drunk-driving arrests, court-ordered rehabilitation, and a return to drinking. This ultimately led to kidney damage, with the possibility of dialysis and protracted complications from increasingly strict legal guardianship.

In 2005, she was hospitalized with a concussion and a broken shoulder after being found lying in a Boston street near her home.

In July 2004, her son Edward had been appointed her legal guardian; in 2005 her children were granted temporary guardianship.

At her request in 2005, her second cousin, financial planner Webster E. Janssen of Connecticut, established a trust controlling her estate in violation of her son’s guardianship. Her children later took successful legal action against Janssen, removing him as trustee and later filing a complaint against him with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. She agreed to strict court-ordered guardianship and her estate has since been placed in a new trust overseen by two court-appointed trustees.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent surgery in October 2005.

Apart from a brief relationship shortly after her divorce, she has neither remarried nor pursued another relationship.