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Peter Lawford Biography

(1923–1984)

Related Works

Films
1930 Poor Old Bill
1931 A Gentleman of Paris

1938 Lord Jeff
1942 Mrs Miniver
1942 Eagle Squadron
1942 A Yank at Eton
1942 Thunder Birds
1942 Junior Army
1942 Random Harvest
1943 Immortal Sergeant
1943 London Blackout Murders
1943 Assignment in Brittany
1943 The Purple V
1943 The Sky's the Limit
1943 The Man from Down Under
1943 Above Suspicion
1943 Someone to Remember
1943 West Side Kid
1943 Sherlock Holmes Faces Death
1943 Corvette K-225
1943 Paris After Dark
1943 Sahara
1943 Flesh and Fantasy
1943 Girl Crazy
1944 The Adventures of Mark Twain
1944 The White Cliffs of Dover
1944 The Canterville Ghost
1944 Mrs Parkington
1945 The Picture of Dorian Gray
1945 Son of Lassie
1946 Two Sisters from Boston
1946 Cluny Brown
1947 It Happened in Brooklyn
1947 My Brother Talks to Horses
1947 Good News
1948 On an Island with You
1948 Easter Parade
1948 Julia Misbehaves
1949 Little Women
1949 The Red Danube
1950 Please Believe Me
1951 Royal Wedding
1952 Just This Once
1952 Kangaroo
1952 You for Me
1952 The Hour of 13
1953 Rogue's March
1954 It Should Happen to You
1959 Never So Few
1960 Exodus
1960 Ocean's Eleven
1962 Sergeants 3
1962 Advise and Consent
1962 The Longest Day
1964 Dead Ringer
1965 Sylvia
1965 Harlow
1966 The Oscar
1966 A Man Called Adam

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Related People

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View Peter Lawford's family tree at Genealogy.com

Actor, born Peter Sidney Lawford, on September 7, 1923 in London, England.

Best known as the husband of Patricia Kennedy, the sister of president John F. Kennedy; and as a member of the “Rat Pack,” a group of entertainers that included Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop.

Lawford’s father was a knighted World War I veteran who became an actor after he retired. Lawford’s film debut was at age eight in the British film Poor Old Bill (1931) followed by a role in Lord Jeff (1938). Lawford grew to be a handsome and suave young man, who was being groomed for stardom by MGM in the 1940s. Lawford was the first actor to kiss Elizabeth Taylor on camera, and the last to speak to Marilyn Monroe before she died. Lawford also organized the famous 1962 birthday party for John F. Kennedy in Madison Square Garden where Monroe sang “Happy Birthday” to the President.

Although never considered a very important actor, his films included Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), Easter Parade (1948), Little Women (1949), Royal Wedding (1950), It Should Happen to You (1954), Ocean’s Eleven (1960), Pepe (1960), Sergeants Three (1962), The Longest Day (1962), Advise and Consent (1962), Harlow (1965), The April Fools (1969) and Body and Soul (1981).

The debonair Lawford enjoyed a reputation as a jet-setting playboy and was a heavy drinker. In 1954 he married Patricia Kennedy, sister of then-Senator John F. Kennedy. The couple had four children, Chris, Sydney, Victoria, and Robin. The two divorced in 1966 after Lawford admitted having affairs. In 1971 he married Mary Rowan, the daughter of comedian Dan Rowan, but the marriage only lasted eight months. In 1975, he married Deborah Gould, and that marriage lasted only two months. In July 1984, he married Patricia Seaton after a nine-year courtship.

Lawford was part of the famous Hollywood “Rat Pack,” and performed with the group in Las Vegas and in films, including Ocean’s Eleven and Sergeants Three. Lawford and Sinatra had a falling out in 1961 over brother-in-law Robert Kennedy’s objections to Sinatra’s alleged Mafia connections, and the two men never spoke again.

In 1972, Lawford had surgery to remove a pancreatic tumor. By that time, he was in ill health as a result of long-time alcoholism, and he died on December 24, 1984 of cardiac arrest complicated by kidney and liver failure.