Edward Kennedy - Biography

Last Editor: Blacknbluenick				Edward Kennedy Biography -   Name : Edward Kennedy Birth name : Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy Date of birth : February 22, 1932 Place of birth : Boston, Massachusetts Died on : August 25, 2009 Place of death : Hyannis Port, Massachusetts Nationality : American Height : 6' (1.83 m) Political party : Democratic Spouse : Joan Bennett Kennedy (1958-1982) and then Victoria Reggie Kennedy (1992-present) Children : Kara Anne Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, Jr., Patrick J. Kennedy Residence : Hyannis Port, Massachusetts Profession : Politician, lawyer Religion : Roman Catholic

Edward Kennedy Trivia -

Edward Kennedy has been U.S. Senator from Massachusetts since 1962, first elected to the Senate on 6 November 1962 in a special election. After accidentally driving his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, resulting in the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne, he was convicted of leaving the scene of an accident (18 July 1969). He is uncle of Maria Shriver, and so by marriage of Arnold Schwarzenegger He is brother of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. He is uncle of John Kennedy Jr., Caroline Kennedy, Rory Kennedy, Robert Shriver, Kerry Kennedy, and Christopher Lawford. He is son of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Kennedy. He is brother-in-law of Jacqueline Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy. He is father of Kara Kennedy Allen (born on 27 February 1960), Edward Kennedy Jr. (born on 26 September 1961) and Patrick Kennedy (born on 14 July 1967). He is youngest of nine siblings, and the only male living (as of January 2008). Joe died in a wartime plane crash, and John and Robert were both assassinated. He founded the Committee for a Democratic Majority in 1995 to help elect Democratic candidates. He was portrayed by Kevin Hare in RFK (2002) (TV) and Dylan Price in "A Woman Named Jackie" (1991). He is grandson of Congressman John F. Fitzgerald. He is brother of U.S. Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith. He is uncle of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Joseph Kennedy. He announced his support for Barack Obama in his 2008 presidential campaign (28 January 2008). He resides in Hyannis, Massachusetts. After being hospitalized for a suspected stroke, Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. (May 2008). He had successful surgery at Duke University Medical Center to remove a cancerous brain tumor on June 2, 2008.

Edward Kennedy Detailed Biography -

Edward Kennedy was born on February 22, 1932 in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Fitzgerald. Some of his elder siblings are John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Eunice Shriver. He attended the Fessenden School, and later Milton Academy and entered Harvard College in 1950, where he resided in Winthrop House. He graduated from Harvard in 1956. In 1958, he attended the Hague Academy of International Law. He earned his law degree from the University of Virginia and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1959. Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army for two years and was assigned to the SHAPE headquarters in Paris. Edward Kennedy is the senior United States Senator from Massachusetts and a member of the Democratic Party. In office since November 1962, Kennedy is the second most senior member of the Senate, after President pro tempore of the United States Senate Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Due to his long history of public service, he has become well known by his nickname "The Lion of the Senate". The most prominent living member of the Kennedy family, he is the youngest brother of the late President John F. Kennedy and the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy. Kennedy is also the sole surviving son of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and one of three of their surviving children. John Kennedy was elected President of the United States and vacated his Massachusetts Senate seat in 1960. Edward would not be eligible to fill his brother's vacant Senate seat until February 22, 1962, when he would turn thirty. Therefore the President-elect asked Massachusetts Governor Foster Furcolo to name a Kennedy family's friend Benjamin A. Smith II to fill out John's term (under the authority of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, and state law). This kept the seat open for Edward. In 1962, Kennedy was elected to the Senate from Massachusetts in a special election. He was elected to a full six-year term in 1964 and was reelected in 1970, 1976, 1982, 1988, 1994, 2000 and 2006. Edward Kennedy, who is also known as Ted Kennedy, is the Chairman of the Education, Labor, Senate Health and Pensions Committee. He also serves on the Judiciary Committee, and the Armed Services Committee. He is also a member of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, a founder of the Congressional Friends of Ireland and a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. His brother, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in 1963, the year after Edward was first elected to the Senate. Ted himself did not run for President, but he has endorsed and campaigned for other candidates. Kennedy's home is in Hyannis, Massachusetts, where he lives with his second wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, a Washington lawyer and the daughter of Louisiana judge Edmund Reggie, and her children from a previous marriage, Curran and Caroline. Victoria is president and co-founder of Common Sense about Kids and Guns, an advocacy group that seeks to reduce gun deaths and injuries to children in the United States. Kennedy's first marriage was to Virginia Joan Bennett, whom he met while delivering a speech at Manhattanville College and married on November 29, 1958, in Bronxville, New York. But they divorced in 1982. Seven months after having surgery to clear a blocked left carotid artery, Kennedy was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital from the Kennedy Compound after feeling ill and consulting with his physician, and then was subsequently transferred by helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on May 17, 2008. On May 20, 2008, doctors announced that Kennedy has a malignant glioma, a type of cancerous brain tumor. The treatment for this condition is often surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, but this will depend on the type, location and degree of malignancy. However, on June 2, 2008, Kennedy underwent brain surgery at Duke University Medical Center. He returned to the U.S. Capitol on November 17, 2008. On January 20, 2009, Kennedy suffered a seizure only hours after the Inauguration of Barack Obama. Kennedy was taken out of the presidential luncheon on a stretcher after he had collapsed, and was rushed to a local hospital but after tests had been carried out, doctors believed the collapse was caused by "simple fatigue".