Tell me about Peter Lawford (2024)

Inspired by comments in the “Dean Martin Was so Slimy” thread, Peter Lawford sounds like a beautiful mess:

[quote]Wasn't there some story of Peter Lawford’s mother visiting LB Mayer's office when Peter was a teenager and warning LB that Peter might have homosexual tendencies? Rumors of Peter's bisexuality continued all his life. It was said he and Dominick Dunne were part of a gay surfers' cabal in Malibu in the 1950s.

[quote]Peter Lawford's fetish was S&M according to his last live in girlfriend. She said he had to be whipped and humiliated. His mother seemed to take sadist delight in humiliating him and I never read why she did that. He had no self esteem because of her. I think the bitch was demonic.

[quote]After Christopher was born, Peter complained to his wife Pat that the baby cried too much, slept irregularly and made the house and his clothes smell like shit. He convinced Pat to have their first born child live with a nanny in an apartment down the street. BTW, Christopher was born on the same day as Joey Luft and in the same hospital.

[quote]Peter Lawford would watch his own son fuck prostitutes. Yes. He actually did that.

[quote]Peter dated Dorothy Dandridge but had to keep it under wraps because of people's views on mixed marriages. Understandable. I read that he was heartbroken when she died. He was one of her pallbearers. I don't know why he went off the rails like he did. He really turned into a dirtball in his later years; his toupee in the 70s was so awful, looking like a mogwai on his head.

Peter Lawford never got over being held responsible by Frank Sinatra for JFK changing his plans to stay in Sinatra’s specially-built guest quarters at his house in Palm Springs for a weekend in March 1962 and switching to stay at Bing Crosby’s house in Ranch Mirage instead. Banishment from the Rat Pack swiftly followed.

Kennedy had to change plans because of rumors about Sinatra and the mafia.

He’s the only one who faced consequences for the JFK/Marilyn/RFK affairs.

Pat and Peter’s marriage fell apart after Marilyn’s death. Pat had become very close to Marilyn in the last year of her life and she blamed her death on him. RFK hated Peter; the only people in the family who liked him were Jack and Jackie.

After the divorce, Jackie went to Hawaii with her kids to see her (secret) boyfriend, John Warnecke. She found out Peter was going their with a couple of the Lawford kids at the same time and they agreed to share a house; this infuriated Pat.

At Sydney Lawford’s wedding in 1983, Jackie switched the place cards so Peter sat next to her, not Pat. This also pissed Pat off.

Pat’s. friends were instructed to never bring up Jackie in her presence as a result.

In the 80s, when he went to Betty Ford, he had to write a letter to make amends to someone he hurt and he picked JFK. Odd because at that point he had run off all of his friends and family, except for Liz Taylor, his fellow patient at Betty Ford. Peter sold the story of Liz’s admittance to Betty Ford to the Enquirer.

His stay at Betty Ford didn’t work; the only thing he learned while there was how to use a vacuum cleaner. When he returned home in 1984 he’d spend his days snorting coke and vacuuming. His wife called the Betty Ford Clinic and told them “I sent you Peter Lawford and you sent me back a fucking maid that gets high.”

He lived in WeHo in his last years-first at the Sierra Towers, before being evicted, then in a small apartment off Santa Monica and Crescent Heights.

[quote]He was very, very good in Advise & Consent.

But we all know who the breakout star of Advise and Consent was.

Peter Lawford had a paralysis in his right hand and it was a claw.

Next time you see him watch how he always hides it or is carrying something over it - or sometimes even has a cigarette or pen in it......but he is THE CLAW!

r17, though I've always heard that about Peter's hand and I know it's a fact, It's simply impossible to see the defect in films or photos, including the photo at your link of him with a water hose in which both of his hands are entirely exposed and look totally normal.

Or was the defect that he couldn't move his fingers out of a claw-like position and thus always looked more normal with his hand grasping something (in this case, the hose)?

From Wiki:

"At the age of 14, Lawford severely injured his right arm in an accident when it went through a glass door.[11] Irreversible nerve damage severely compromised the use of his forearm and hand,[12] which he later learned to conceal.[13] The injury was judged to be serious enough to prevent his entry into the armed forces, which his parents had planned.[14] Instead, Lawford pursued a career as an actor, a decision that resulted in one of his aunts refusing to leave him her considerable fortune, as she had originally planned.[15]"

[quote]there could be a thread on that subject. I’d add Bobby Darren.

Bobby DARIN or James DARREN?

[quote]His stay at Betty Ford didn’t work; the only thing he learned while there was how to use a vacuum cleaner. When he returned home in 1984 he’d spend his days snorting coke and vacuuming. His wife called the Betty Ford Clinic and told them “I sent you Peter Lawford and you sent me back a fucking maid that gets high.”

I’m laughing too hard at this.

[quote] for the era he had a damn impressive body

That was when muscles were long not bulky (unless you worked as a field hand).

[quote] To him it was purely a physical release and due to his rejection from Lana Turner in his early days at MGM, it made it difficult for him to give himself emotionally again. Peter’s painful breakup with Lana Turner changed the way he treated women. After that he started to just drop women when he was finished with them, he could be heartless - it was Lana that tought him that.

Of course it was a woman’s fault that he treated women badly!

[quote] Peter didn’t like kids, and even stayed at a different home to Pat when she was pregnant with their first child Chris and remained an absentia father for the rest of his life

It was his mother’s fault!

[quote] Frank ostracised Peter in 1951 after he was seen out with Ava, however, the immediate factor behind their reconciliation in 1959 had little to do with either friendship or Peter’s impressive connections to the Democratic party.

[quote] It was his presidential connection that made him an honourary member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack,

[quote] The fact that Peter was in part recruited for his Kennedy connection

Ok...so it wasn’t Peter’s impressive connection to the Democratic Party that made him a member of the Rat Pack. It was Peter’s impressive connection to the head of the Democratic Party that made him an honorary member of the Rat Pack

[quote] Peter became JFK’s family connection to a darker side of the underworld businessman, prostitutes and showgirls ...... Peter helped JFK find many of the women he had affairs with many of those affairs operated out of his own home in Santa Monica, previously owned by Louis B.Mayer. Peter liked the home, but bought it mainly out of spite and to annoy Mayer. His neighbour, Peter Dye, called Peter’s Santa Monica beach house a whore house. Lawford is quoted as saying that he was Sinatra’s pimp and that Sinatra was JFK’s.

[quote] Peter was broken by the Kennedys, his spirit crushed and his morality twisted

Really? The guy who got showgirls & prostitutes for JFK, the guy who ran a whorehouse out of his place in Santa Monica, the guy who got poppers for his friends, the guy who said he was Sinatra’s pimp ..... *he* was broken & morally twisted by the “Kennedy’s”? Because JFK made Peter tell Frank Sinatra that JFK was going to stay at Bing Crosby’s house & not at Sinatra’s house? That broke Peter Lawford’s pimping, drugging, prostituting spirit?

[quote] Sinatra had already begun to set up against him and felt his physical safety threatened by the mobs fury against the Kennedys and the Rat Pack.

The mob was going to kill Peter Lawford because he was JFK’s brother in law? The mob was infuriated with the Rat Pack? Wtf?

[quote] . Peter spent the rest of his life haunted by the knowledge that a large portion of the blame for her death was his. He had bought Marilyn Monroe into the sexually charged, politically dangerous vortex of the Kennedys, a world she was not able to cope with emotionally.

Really? Marilyn Monroe had no drug use before she met the Kennedys? She was not “unable to cope emotionally” on all the films she almost got fired from for her erratic drugging & drinking? It was the Kennedys who made her drink & drug?

[quote] Pat and Peter divorced after Peter admitted having affairs.... He found out who his friends were and was extremely unpopular in Hollywood as he burned bridges while JFK was President by adopting superior attitude.

Gee, he had friends after acting superior, burning bridges & repeatedly cheating on his wife?

Why, this Peter Lawford character sounds like an absolute angel to me. It’s obvious he was tragically treated by every single human being he ever came into contact with since birth & that’s why he was a drunken, drug addled dick who took his son to the Playboy mansion so,Peter could watch him fuck whores.

[quote] The Kennedys helped in so many ways to bring about his demise. The divorce from Pat saw Peter turn to booze, and after an appointment at the doctors he was told that if continued drinking, he would die. On the way home from the doctors, Peter called into a local bar and downed numerous martinis.

Lawford’s wife divorced him for fooling around with prostitutes and then the dr told him not to drink or he’d die & then he went to a bar & drank.

Those damned Kennedys!

[quote] Within a few years of the divorce Peter had everything ripped from underneath him. His friendship with Sinatra and his sense of belonging to the Rat Pack was gone, Marilyn, close friend Judy Garland, JFK and RFK were all dead - everything he had was slipping away. If there was a glimmer of hope that Lawford could recapture the kind of power by association he had enjoyed when JFK was President, it had been buried with RFK.

So the assassination of the Kennedys ruined Peter Lawford because he was no longer connected to political power....i guess that’s how “the Kennedys helped in so many ways to bring about Peter’s demise.” By dying.

[quote] He was hated by the Kennedys after attending RFK's funeral with Milton Ebbins (his personal manager and best friend) and a girl he’d picked up at a bar in a black mini skirt when the invitation was only for himself. The Kennedys felt that he disgraced RFK's memory and he was on the outer after that. He truly thought the Kennedys were good for him – as they reunited him with Sinatra, he was popular in Hollywood, his career was on track – but in reality they wrecked his life

They wrecked his life by holding a funeral for a murdered relative at which he showed up with a hooker. Those bastards!

I just learned he was on an episode of Bewitched.

Aside from “Advise & Consent,” are any of his movies worth watching?

Peter Lawford was dashing and debonair. He had quite a long career and continued to work in movies and television. He may not have been the top box office draw, but money is money, and he did what he could to earn a living. As a younger contemporary of the Rat Pack, Shirley MacLaine liked Peter. She was friends with them all.

My family were huge Sinatra fans so I always have trouble criticizing Frank. However, Sinatra treated Peter unfairly during the JFK/Palm Springs fiasco. RFK advised his brother not to stay at Sinatra's place due to alleged Mafia connections. It wasn't Lawford's fault even though Peter was married to a Kennedy. Sinatra should have understood.

R31 He was the most charming and attractive back in '47

All downhill åter that

[quote] except for Liz Taylor, his fellow patient at Betty Ford. Peter sold the story of Liz’s admittance to Betty Ford to the Enquirer.

This. If this is accurate, it's incredibly shitty of him. Shockingly so.

Chances are good that Liz's rehab might have become news anyway, but for an old MGM friend/colleague AND fellow addict to turn on her--what a dick move on Lawford's part.

Peter starred in a late 1950s TV series of THE THIN MAN as Nick Charles with former MGM costar Phyllis Kirk as wife Nora. The action was contemporary and set in Los Angeles, where IIRC the Charleses lived a carefree life in a hip beach community (not unlike Peter himself).

I loved that show (it was actually my first introduction to the characters) but haven't watched it since I was a kid. It probably doesn't hold up very well now.

It was Michael Kennedy, RFK and Ethel’s son, that married Frank Gifford’s daughter.

They broke up when she discovered he was fucking their teenaged babysitter. It went on for three years and started when she was 14.

At the same time, his brother Joe Kennedy II was running for Governor in Massachusetts while also trying to strong arm his ex wife into annulling their marriage.

JFK Jr called the two of them “poster boys for bad behavior” in George.

Shortly after that article hit the stands Michael Kennedy died when he skied headfirst into a tree.

At the funeral Kathie Lee Gifford (who was mired in a child labor scandal over her clothing line and dealing with the fallout of Frank’s Florida affair that was caught on camera by the Enquirer) tried to make the funeral all about her and how horrible the media is.

[quote]His wife called the Betty Ford Clinic and told them “I sent you Peter Lawford and you sent me back a fucking maid that gets high.”

Thanks for the laugh, R13!

[quote]Does anyone really know?

If it were true, Lawford would have sold the story. An addict will sell anything to get his hands on cash.

[quote]Aside from “Advise & Consent,” are any of his movies worth watching?

"Little Women" (the June Allyson/Liz Taylor version)

[quote]Aside from “Advise & Consent,” are any of his movies worth watching?

You bitches are slipping.

His eyebrows were out of control.

They were endearing in the 40s but they grew into monstrous hairy caterpillars in the 60s.

Why wasn't he told?

Lawford had a helicopter land right off the grounds of Betty Ford to deliver his cocaine. He'd run out and meet it and pay for the coke with his AmEx.

If that's not sad enough, it's sadder that he conned his friend Liz Taylor into thinking he was "supporting her" at Betty Ford, when he was really there to sell stories about her (as referenced above). Liz was very serious at the time about getting sober; Betty Ford staff should've kicked Lawford out for the stunts he pulled there.

Yes, R69. he was 'spectacularly' handsome in that film. But he was too slender and lightweight to star in a serious movie.

He wasn't as masculine as Maureen in this one.

GOOD NEWS even provides a lovely locker room scene for Peter Lawford where he's seen undressed after a college football game. And MGM allowed his beautiful hairy body to remain unshaved.

Lawford is one of the narrators of THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT (sadly, looking his early 1970s' faux-hippie silliest) and his presentation of some of the youthful musical moments of Elizabeth Taylor, June Allyson and Jane Powell are very sweet. And he's very self-deprecating about his own musical talents, or lack thereof.

Coincidentally, yesterday on TCM I caught Lawford in the George Cukor film IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU, where he plays a suave NY ad exec opposite Judy Holliday. It's mid-1950s but he's still very hot and sexy, even in black & white. He had amazing hair and skin back then that just glowed on film.

Nevertheless, he's outshone by the very cute and youthful Jack Lemmon, who was making his film debut, as a rival and eventual winner, for Judy's love.

Actually the tv series version of The Thin Man was set in New York City. They may have spent some time at a beach house in the second season, hard to remember.

It lasted for two seasons, and was rerun Monday-Friday at 4 p.m. in the afternoon on NBC for a year or so after that.

Phyllis Kirk had had polio as a child so she had some difficulty walking - Peter was not amused and refused to do kissing scenes with her because he didn't like her. They very rarely even embraced even though they were supposed to be a loving man and wife.

[quote]And he's very self-deprecating about his own musical talents, or lack thereof.

I'm astonished MGM didn't dub him in the musical number at R57: his voice is pretty bad. (It's not much of a song, either, but Judy delivers the charm and expertise.)

My favorite thing is the beige umbrella that appears to be about 8 feet wide.

Yes, I'm surprised that Lawford's singing is never brought up in all those Hollywood stories of musical dubbing in films over the years. Surely, MGM didn't think his voice was so distinctive that it couldn't be matched by a better singer? He's charming and handsome enough in GOOD NEWS to almost get away with it.

Apparently, Comden & Green wrote the song "The French Lesson" in GOOD NEWS because they knew Peter was fluent in French. While his French is impeccable, his singing remains flat.

I remember reading that the Hoover had the FBI bug Monroe's phone and/or house to get blackmail material on the Kennedy brothers, whom he despised.

I also read a book by someone who visited JFK while he was in a hotel in NYC (I think the Pierre) and they saw two men chloroform Monroe and take her lifeless body down to a car because JFK had no more use for her and she was getting on his nerves.

Sargent Shriner was really the only monogamous man in that family, which is why the other Kennedy men didn’t care for him.

If JFK had lived I wonder if Jackie would have eventually divorced him, he really humiliated her with the affairs at times.

Is that date right in that video at r89? If so, Pat was very pregnant at the time and gave birth in July to their last child , Robin.

Speaking of Robin-I’ve always been curious about her. She never married , and Christopher Lawford implies in his book that spent most of her adulthood taking care of their drunk mother.

[quote]My favorite thing is the beige umbrella that appears to be about 8 feet wide.

In the scene they took it off the cart of a street vendor, that's why it's big.

[quote]Martha Raye’s solo spot is a rendition of ‘Takin’ a Chance on Love’, which she sings and dances with some of the programme’s chorus boys. This is followed by Lawford’s scene in which he is attended to by his Butler and mini-skirted maids. The bare set is dressed with furniture while Lawford sings ‘It’s So Nice to Have a Man Around the House’. By this point in his career Lawford had become much more louche in style than he was during his MGM era – the influence of his association with the Rat Pack, no doubt. Lawford’s lady guest as announced by the butler is Judy Garland and in this sketch she seems every bit as resistant to Lawford’s charms as Hannah Brown was to Johnny in Easter Parade! Judy sings ‘I’m Old Fashioned’, but by the end of the song, Lawford has sneaked off to bed “feeling queasy” and is replaced by the butler.

I need to find video of this.

[quote]Is that date right in that video at [R89]?

Yes, I believe that is the date it was filmed.

R91 she might be family.

Peter Lawford was really handsome and he seemed to be one for a good time. Did he have any tendencies toward our direction I do so wonder?

Peter Lawford was molested by one of his nannies. When he was an adult, he tried to play the molestation off as though it was a right of passage, but his nanny was obviously a sick piece of crap. Poor man. Between his mother and his nanny I'm really not surprised he took to drugs and drink. That man was as gorgeous as he was self destructive.

I spent a whole summer as a sickly teenager reading unauthorized Kennedy tomes and such for whatever reason. Obviously I should have been practicing my grammar for English, right? I did find a nice picture of the poor dear taking a bit of a shirtless jog on the beach for everyone, though.

r101, stinky linky.

And I wanted to see it!

[quote]I spent a whole summer as a sickly teenager reading unauthorized Kennedy tomes

They are called books, bitch.

Mean, self-involved drunk who continuously punched above his weight who impregnated a Kennedy offspring and made out very well for all of it.

Apologies if said above as I'm a latecomer He was, allegedly, a recipient of an L.A. to AZ shared car ride with another actor. Nancy eagerly serviced both under view, per Kitty Kelly's Nancy bio.

[quote]Did he have any tendencies toward our direction I do so wonder?

I thought Maureen O'Hara said in her autobiography (or somewhere) that Lawford and Richard Boone visited a male brothel during the filming of Kangaroo (1952), and liked young guys. But then R106 thinks I have dementia so I could be mistaken.

You are not mistaken, R111, I found the part of the book you’re referring to:

[quote]The press sure gave it to them when they caught Lawford and Boone in a brothel full of beautiful boys. The press couldn't wait to break the story. I got a panicked late-night call from the publicity head of 20th Century-Fox Australia, Sydney Albright, saying, "Maureen, you've got to help us kill this story! The people and the press here love you, and if you don't, it will kill the picture."

[quote]The next morning I went to a secret meeting with the press that had been hastily arranged by the studio. I told them, "Listen, this is the first Hollywood movie ever to be made in Australia. It is very important. If you break this story, you're not just going to hurt Peter Lawford and Richard Boone, you're going to hurt me, the whole cast and crew, your own country and the people of Australia, because the studio will shut down this picture. Australia will suffer much more than those two will.

R112 The publicity described Maureen as 'spirited'; her co-stars described her as 'assertive'; her rivals described her as 'pushy'.

She certainly dominated over skinny Peter Lawford.

LOVE the Maureen O'Hara story! I wonder if it was actually a big brothel with both female and male prostitutes in different rooms? Could there be such a place?

Richard Boone was a HUGE TV star with Have Gun, Will Travel, his character Paladin one of the very first "anti-heroes" in serial TV. He always wore black, which was quite a change for a Western hero in film or TV in the late 1950s. IIRC he was a gun for hire and thus morally ambiguous. Totally forgotten today.

[quote]LOVE the Maureen O'Hara story! I wonder if it was actually a big brothel with both female and male prostitutes in different rooms? Could there be such a place?

What's your point? She said it was a brothel of beautiful boys.

I loved Palladin in Have Gun Will Travel! He was like a Travis Mcgee character on horseback, living the connoisseur life in San Francisco when he was not working.

Richard Boone was a great character actor. He's another who died too soon, of cancer.

Cocaine, R107. Dominick Dunne talks about his and Lawford's adventures in the snow. Among them...

"Peter and Liz were lifelong friends. Dominick Dunne told me that in 1973, he, Liz, Peter, Roddy McDowall, the director George Cukor and others flew by helicopter from Los Angeles to Disneyland. Inside the park, they were able to escape crowds of people gawking at them by going inside rides like Pirates of the Caribbean. That's when it got interesting, Dunne recalled. "Elizabeth had a bottle of Jack Daniels, and Peter had something, and everybody got the bottles going. Then a bit of coke was going around and you'd hear sniffing. Everybody was just screaming with laughter. It was one of the maddest moments I ever saw in my life. And then the boat came out into the sunlight again. Everybody tried to compose themselves, and Liz waved regally to the crowds as they cheered her." James Spada, Lawford biographer.

"Peter and Liz were lifelong friends."

Oh, then, he's definitely Gay.

Richard Boone had big dick face.

Just saying.

You've got to check out 1948's On An Island With You, an Esther Williams splash-fest.

In one Technicolor scene Ricardo Montalban and Peter Lawford wrestle underwater in skimpy swim trunks. Homo-eroticism at its very best - very intentional.

From r113...

"I don't know if these two actually did partake in the gay brothel (or if they ever found entertainment on their own time), but I can say that throughout Kangaroo, Boone can scarcely keep his eyes or his hands off of Lawford. They have more chemistry together than the supposed lovebirds Lawford and O'Hara. It must be said, though, that O'Hara refers to Boone as a Broadway "hoofer" when, in fact, Boone was a dramatic actor in things like Medea and The Man and never a musical on The Great White Way. Both men were married for most of their lives, Boone three times and Lawford four, not that this means anything in the final analysis."

"I think Peter Lawford co-starred with Doris Day in a TV show in the 1970s."

I think she played one of her boyfriends on "The Doris Day Show." I wonder why he was picked for the role; he had that awful mop of gray hair and those bushy grey eyebrows.

[quote] bushy grey eyebrows.

They were ridiculous

Pat Lawford placed second in the “worst Kennedy mother” contest, after Ethel.

When Robin Lawford was a few weeks old she was admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery (I think it was related to her breathing). Instead of being at their newborn daughter’s bedside , Pat and Peter flew to the South of France, where they were vacationing with friends on a yacht.

In 1970, weary of all the tragedies that had befallen the family over the past few years, Pat went to Paris for an extended period with her daughters and left Chris to his own devices.

I think Pat had some issues with mental health and confidence in addition to alcoholism. In The Kennedy Woman (which despite the terrible writing style of the author is a great source on the family history), it’s noted that Pat wouldn’t visit her mother at the Hyannis Port house for a period of time because she didn’t get along with Rose’s cook.

MM had a history of taking too much medication, she was an addict, she'd wake up and take more. She'd been rescued from a similar overdose a few weeks before at the Cal Neva Lodge in Lake Tahoe. She was in fine spirits that night when talking to Joe DiMaggio Jr. She made a few more calls sounding increasingly slurry. If Lawford can be believed (?) she called him to say goodbye, but he just called her attorney who called her agent who called Mrs. Murray (psychiatric nurse) who said she was fine...

Those grandkids are gorgeous!

[Quote]it’s noted that Pat wouldn’t visit her mother at the Hyannis Port house for a period of time because she didn’t get along with Rose’s cook.

Blaming the cook is such a load of shit. Rose was the most fecund and least interested in a Catholic swarm of children. She regularly took off on European shopping trips after she successfully whelped and did her Catholic duty. Other wifely or motherly duties didn't include the nursery or her children's well-being or development.

Rose Kennedy was a truly awful person like her husband.

Didn't Lawford murder Marilyn on Bobby's instructions? A couple of weeks before her death, she'd called the White House and managed to get Jackie on the phone. Marilyn told Jackie that she was screwing her husband, he was going to marry her and she'd be First Lady. After that, Bobby decided Marilyn was too dangerous. The media refused to discuss all Jack's other mistressses but Marilyn was too famous for them to ignore. She could have brought the whole Kennedy family down.

Bobby Kennedy, by the way, only turned into a paragon of virtue after JFK's death. Before that he was Jack and his father's enforcer - totally devoid of ethics where his family's quest for power was concerned.

^ Apparently most of JFK's "affairs" were just occasional hook-ups. There's an old rumor that the only time Angie Dickinson relented and spoke of her "affair" with JFK she said, "What do you want me to say? It was the best 20 seconds of my life, ok?"

So much for the Kennedy mystique, Madonna practically confirms the selfish Kennedy technique when describing sex with JFK Jr. she said, "It was like having sex with an 11 year old" and I believe her, like father, like son

" If you lined each one of them (dicks) end to end, you still wouldn't have a decent cock. "

I see that the old Irish curse was alive and well within the Kennedy clan

I finally read the 2010 Peter Lawford thread, here are some highlights:

[quote]Blind item from "Crazy Days and Nights"

[quote]Four people involved in this. #1 and #2 were actors who made their fame in films, but both got their only real serious award nomination for television. Any movie lover will know who #2 is. #1, maybe not. #3 was an actress but gave it up when she married #1. Eventually she married #2 as well although the marriage to #2 was as a cover for #2 being gay. The twist to this story involves #4. #4 was an actor who also married into a really wild family. Everyone will know #4. #4 also tended to go both ways as well which must have made it fun when prior to #4's marriage, #1,#2,#3 and #4 used to periodically share one bed.

[quote]#1 - Kennan Wynn, #2 - Van Johnson, #3 - Evie Wynn, #4 - Peter Lawford

More from 2010:

[quote]Actor Peter Lawford was married to one of the Kennedy sisters but before the marriage, he only had eyes for Dorothy Dandridge, some say, she was the true love of his life. One evening, they almost went public with their relationship up until the last minute when they decided-it would be a bad career move for both of them. They arrived at a Cole Porter party separately.

[quote]When Dorothy walked in, every man in the room (including Richard Burton and William Holden) couldn’t keep their eyes off her. Peter Lawford found her irresistible. Lawford was far more taken with her than she was with him. He even told her, he loved her. At Dandridge’s funeral, Lawford was so devastated by grief; he was unable to deliver the eulogy.

[quote]Pat made the sign of the cross each time before she engaged in intercourse with Peter Lawford.

...

[quote]Peter Lawford brought a prostitute as his date to RFK’s funeral.

...

[quote]Hugh Hefner, feeling sorry for Peter, let him stay for free in a small guest cottage on the grounds of Hef’s Playboy Mansion during the 1970s. While visiting Hef with a "female companion" at the height of his Jello Puddin' Pop fame, Bill Cosby described Peter as "pathetic" within earshot of Christopher Lawford.

[quote]During sex he liked to get his nipples bitten until they bled.

....

[quote]In his later years, Peter Lawford could not achieve orgasm without getting his nipples lacerated with razor blades.

....

[quote]In 1961 Peter Lawford was a frequent and accomplished guest on the game show PASSWORD, Lawford was the all-time champion at the "lightning round", prompting 10 out of 10 correct guesses in only 16 seconds.

[quote]I remember a story told on the Bio channel's special on the Rat Pack. Apparently, by the time he was a teenager, Peter Lawford's parents had lost most of their money, and had moved to Florida, where he had to get a job. He worked at a country club in Palm Beach.

[quote]One day, a club members saw him eating lunch with a group of black co-workers and angrily complained to the manager that it looked bad for the club for a white boy to be seen hanging out with "coloreds" and Lawford was quickly reprimended.

[quote]The club member was his future father in law, Joseph P. Kennedy.

[quote]I don't think Pat was a lesbian. I think Eunice was- Ethel too.

[quote]Like R52 said, Pat was a party girl and was drawn to Hollywood. I think her marriage to Lawford and her subsequent life in California were attempts to find her own identity outside of the Kennedy family.

[quote]She was thirty when she married and no doubt was feeling a lot of pressure for being unmarried at a time when women were meant to marry and have babies.

[quote]Joe hated Lawford, a Protestant actor, and sent Pat on a trip around the world to get him out of her system. It didn’t work.

[quote]Lady May Lawford "had once informed Louis B. Mayer that she should be placed on his MGM payroll to 'supervise' her 'homosexual' son."

[quote]”1960," by David Pietrusza, p. 243.

[quote]He was such a great friend to Elizabeth that he introduced her to his druggie buddie the used car salesman Henry Winberg or something like that. They were all zoned out on pills and alcohol most of the time. Then Elizabeth decided to get "engaged" to Henry. It was a complete screwed up mess. Peter was trouble.

....

[quote]Didn't he introduce Elizabeth to the used car salesman because she was fucking his son and wanted her to move along?

[quote]I'm sorry but all the gossip I ever heard about him was that he was deeply in the closet. Peter was gay. He used to go down to the beach and pick up guys when he was a young man and a very hot commodity with the studio. He had assignations in the middle of the afternoon with lots of young attractive beach bums.

....

[quote]Were Peter and Dominick Dunne lovers in the late 50s/early 60s? Is that mentioned in any of the books? I know they were Malibu neighbors back then. And their kids were about the same ages.

....

[quote]He posed nude for VIVA magazine before he died. Anyone got the pics?

[quote]he wanted Hugh Grant for Peter Lawson.

They're making a movie about Helen's illegitimate son?

Usually, ladies on top, R175. They did most of the work.

He liked to have it on with Fiddle and Faddle (two WH secretaries who couldn't take dictation but loved to take dick) in the White House pool.

Aquatherapy, I guess.

I agree R177. He had fat cheeks like Colton.

He was bad influence on America— the voters started to expect presidents to look and behave like movie stars instead of crusty old politicians .

Not really, R179

Dave Powers was his pimp. Marlene Dietrich was one of his many, many amours.

He was getting laid on a yacht in the Mediterranean when Jackie first miscarried in 1956 and wouldn't come home until has father forced him.

Jackie found another woman's bra in a pillowcase in their bedroom.

His father was a whoremaster and he learned it all from him.

JFK = Sexpig.

It's time for him to be cancelled!

Covered up? Until the 1964 election. And he'd still have beaten Barry Goldwater.

I know a bit about his health. After winning in 1964 he'd likely be dead by the midterms.

If somebody's husband didn't shoot him first.

[quote] If you've never seed Dead Ringer it's a craptastic hoot. Bette Davis (wearing the ugliest wig that has ever been captured on film) plays twins, one good and one bad. The bad one kills the good one and assumes her identity,

Actually, the good one kills the bad one (which then makes her a murderer, so they're both bad).

"I always felt JFK's sex life was greatly exaggerated."

I don't think it was. He fucked anything that moved. And women always wanted to fuck him because he was from a rich, prominent family. And of course what woman would turn down the President of the United States? Well, there is one I know of. Sophia Loren wouldn't fuck him. God knows he was not her type.

An aging Marlene Dietrich fucked him. She too would fuck anything that moved. Her daughter Maria tells this story. Dietrich and Riva's husband were staying in the same hotel. One day she comes in after a tryst with Kennedy; she sees him, and shoves a pair of panties in his face exclaiming "Here! Smell! It is him! He was wonderful!" Riva's husband decided to move to another hotel.

The picture of JFK Jr. at R86 reminds me how freakishly handsome he was. I've never seen a bad picture of him.

If he'd lived, he could have been a senator or even president based just on his looks and name recognition. He looked like Hollywood's idea of a president.

"Let's talk about Peter or close the thread."

What else is there to say about him? He was a train wreck personality and a mediocre actor. That sums him up.

Peter had a torrid affair with Lee Remick while making the TV movie The Farmer’s Daughter in 1962. They were not discreet.

Hedda Hopper found out about it and put a blind item in her column about the affair, referring to Pat Lawford as “His Million Dollar Baby.”

Shortly after that appeared, Lee introduced herself at a party to Pat—“hello Pat, I’m Lee Remick.” To which Pat replied, “and I’m the Million Dollar Baby.”

Coincidentally, I just came across MGM's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY now on TCM starring Hurd Hatfield as a man who is supposed to be inordinately beautiful and eternally youthful. Hatfield is neither of those things and it's a puzzlement why he was cast when they have the young and absolutely gorgeous Peter Lawford in a supporting role.

It's undeniable that when Lawford was young (he was 22 when this film was shot in 1945), he was one of the handsomest men who ever appeared in Hollywood films.

R191 Are you suggesting that Lawford should have been cast as Dorian?

Hatfield was certainly as expressionless as a Sphinx but I think only Tyrone Power could have done the role.

[quote]He was bad influence on America— the voters started to expect presidents to look and behave like movie stars instead of crusty old politicians .

Which is why the next two presidents were the Adonises LBJ and Nixon.

I readily believe that Lawford was an ass, however, it's still so easy to have real pity for him after reading "The Way We Lived Then" by Dominick Dunne.

Dunne describes, how, when both, after some success such as it was, were at the bottom of the Hollywood hierarchy, they would be invited to "A" List parties alright, but not because they were wanted, but because of a a last minute cancellation by an "A" Lister and the hosts needed the chair filled.

Then as soon as the other invited guests saw who they were seated next to, either Lawford or Dunne, those guests quickly made a brief, polite stab at small-talk and then as soon as possible, moved away from them.

True, the world is full of actual, cruel, situations far, far exceeding Dunne's description of being a seat filler at a Hollywood party, but Dunne was such a good writer that, I'll admit it, he wrung my heart when I read his words about him and Lawford.

Yes, r204, and, to Dunne's credit, he forthrightly describes his devastation, and his shallowness, in "TWWLT".

I recommend that book. It captures a time in the Hollywood 60s and 70 s, at least Dunne's experience of it, that I found fascinating.

[quote] Tell me about Peter Lawford

He’s dead.

[quote]If I'm not mistaken, in Dead Wringer, with Bette Davis, the good sister kills the evil sister and assumes her identity, not the other way around. Her being the good one is why we care about what is happening to her throughout the rest of the film.

This was borrowed for "Die, Mommie, Die!"

The sister with no talent killed the sister in show biz with talent.

One of my favorite scenes is when she hands her the gin and tonic full of barbiturates to kill her and: (1) all the pills are very visible; and (2) the sister died instantly.

Tennessee Williams on Bette Davis:

[quote]She was out of her element on [Night of the] Iguana. If she had ever truly had a command of her talent on the stage, she had lost it by that time. There was ever any doubt that she could command a sound stage, but she seemed lost working on a play; she seemed small, lost. Of course this made her terribly angry, so most of what we saw was the virago, railing about the set and the costumes and the audiences: She both wanted for them to love her and want to see her, but would then chastise them for being stupid fans who weren't there to appreciate my play. Davis also could not help perpetually thinking of her investment in the play: At Warner Bros., she would always begin, she could work for four to six weeks, and at the conclusion of that time, she would have a Jezebel or a Dark Victory or The Letter to show for it: a completed project, featuring her, ready to sell, ready for applause. On a play, you put in two, three months, and all you have is the same play, but you are, one hopes, perfecting the performances, helping your fellow players perfect their own performances. This was insufficient to Miss Davis.

Bette Davis was very prophetic about the future of Broadway and films:

[quote]This project you're on--finding Tennessee's women and talking to them is good, but it's sad. All of those women you've mentioned--there will never be a list of names like that again. Good luck to the person who dreams of a life in the theatre in another ten or twenty years. Who will they write to for help? Who will they wait in line to see? Who will they conjure in thought to create a character? It's very sad, I tell you. It's over. I really think it's over. I honestly think that we will no longer go to theatres to see films--they'll be shown entirely on televisions now: on cable or video recorders. This is horrible, I think. I think films should be seen on a big screen with an audience, and I think you should get together and get dressed and sit with that group and give a damn about what happens. I think you should go to the theatre to see great plays about great ideas, cast with people you want to look at for two hours, creating characters who are interesting and larger than life.

R232 Yes she was totally right. People now think they have had a deep, mature, artistic experience when they go to The Lion KIng.

R231 That's a shame, but then Margaret Leighton could not command the screen like Bette Davis or have legions of adoring fans for her screen work.

I can't tell you how many new words I've learned over the years on DL. "Virago" from Williams' comment is the most obscure and my favorite.

[Quote]A domineering, violent, or bad-tempered woman.

R242/R243 Don't believe it: someone already did.

Two weeks ago.

Frank Sinatra showed up on TV in a Nehru jacket and sang Aquarius with the Fifth Dimension.

Lots of performers from that generation had a huge shock in the late 60s when a new generation took over pop culture. They were desperate to stay relevant and be seen as cool by "the kids" so they went on tv and totally embarrassed themselves by dressing like and singing songs of the younger generation. It was painful to watch.

r245, well, Sinatra sure has the nerve, if that's true.

Here, Sinatra needed the great 5th Dimension more than they needed him. Sinatra wasn't slumming it with them, they were with him.

And I write this as a huge, albeit, guilty fan of Sinatra. He truly was despicable person, but damn, I love his sound and skill at story-telling. I listen to Sinatra all the time.

I dreamed about Peter Lawford's mother last night.

She was announcing she was returning to spend her final years in England (and then secretly talked about having two lines of her thick eyebrows being trimmed off).

By 1968, the only member of the Rat Pack who was still friendly with Peter Lawford was Sammy Davis Jr. They shot a film in London, directed by future SUPERMAN director Richard Donner titled 'Salt and Pepper' playing club owners who were also private eyes. The sequel to the film was shot a few years later and directed by Jerry Lewis titled 'One More Time'

Here's the opening:

@r252, "Lucille Ball did a special where she went to London and got "mod,"

Hey, I was always down with all the kids, with their hair and their clothes...

Even Bette Davis got in on the act in "Bunny O'Hare," one of the worst movies ever made. She played a woman who "disguises" herself as a hippie.

Yes, Bette Davis as a hippie.

[quote] but was aghast that her other daughter Kathleen was going to marry a Protestant man

Peter Fitzwilliam was divorced. That was Rose Kennedy's objection.

Here is the trailer to 'One More Time' starring Sammy Davis Jr, and Peter Lawford (and directed by Jerry Lewis).

Worst. Film. Ever. Made.

[quote]Worst. Film. Ever. Made.

Ahem...

"[R255] Judy looks like an organ grinder's monkey. "

She looks like a bell hop

I'm praying that Nicole Kidman does Lucille Ball Doing London.

"Nic" is now the right age. And is appropriately grotesque.

[quote]Sammy Davis Jr was born in 1925 so he wasn't exactly an old man in the 60s. He had a #11 hit with I've Gotta Be Me in '68 and a #1 in 1971 with Candy Man.

He was in his 40s mid-sixties, a decade when 30 was regarded as old.

He was also associated with a prior time. Yes, he had talent but he was corny AF.

He tried to look "with it" with his love beads and Nehru jackets but they just made him look silly.

[quote]He was in his 40s mid-sixties, a decade when 30 was regarded as old.

Yeah, that's sort of a cliche but not actually true. Older culture and newer culture existed side by side in the 60s and often overlapped. Top grossing movies of 1968 and 1969, for instance. Yours, Mine And Ours (Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and Van Johnson), The Odd Couple (Lemmon and Matthau), True Grit (John Wayne) , and Cactus Flower (Ingrid Bergamn, Matthau, Goldie Hawn), and Hello Dolly coexisted with Easy Rider, Midnight Cowboy, and Butch Cassidy.

R281 That's because older people didn't go away. Sammy was playing to older audiences -- and kids who didn't know better.

Even today, there is schmaltzy Hallmark entertainment and rap stars talking about their wet pussies. But not to the same audience most of the time.

R280 Poor Diana.

Of course, now she would be the dated one trying to act young.

[quote]He was also associated with a prior time. Yes, he had talent but he was corny AF.

He was on an episode of I Dream of Jeannie. What did people think of that show during it’s original run?

[quote]Not a very big package...

Which one?