Ethel Kennedy Invited Me to Spend the Weekend

If only one of her sons had been Superman

Ethel Kennedy at the Georgetown University Hospital where her daughter Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy was born December 12, 1968, six months after her father was assassinated, Don Gangloff, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

As a young entertainment journalist in New York City circa 1980, I was a rather spoiled creature invited everywhere. Broadway openings, Studio 54 parties, movie premieres, restaurant events. Even Night of 100 Stars at Radio City, where every then-living Hollywood legend took the stage, from silent star Lillian Gish, to Lauren Bacall, Pearl Bailey, James Cagney, Princess Grace, Paul Newman, Ginger Rogers, Elizabeth Taylor, and those Davises: Sammy Jr. and Bette.

I wasn’t handsomely paid for my lightweight reportage, but life was the proverbial bowl of cherries.

I met many luminaries, and even had a couple of encounters with Ethel Kennedy, the widow of the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who sadly departed the earth today.

At that time, there were some memorable parties benefitting the Special Olympics, the organization sponsoring athletes with intellectual disabilities that had been founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968.

Of course, with the late president’s sister as the founder, these events tended to be Kennedy-heavy, and sometimes linked to big tentpole movie premieres.

I particularly remember attending a couple featuring the first exhilarating Christopher Reeve…