Ethel Kennedy passed away last week. The widow of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and the mother of 11 children, she was dedicated to social causes he fought for before his assassination in 1968.

Like many of us who grew up in the ‘60s and in the years since, I shared a fascination with the Kennedy mystique. It’s been glamorous at times but filled with a lot of sorrow and tragedy as well – the so-called Kennedy curse. So was the life of Ethel Kennedy.

I remember the night RFK was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was part of a very dark, tragic year for the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated only two months prior, and Kennedy had just been declared winner of the California Democratic primary. But with Ethel at his side, he was shot while walking through the kitchen area of the Ambassador, and died the next day. 

In 2012, their daughter Rory came to the Sundance Film Festival to premiere a documentary she made for HBO on her mother’s life, simply called “Ethel.” Rory was born six months after her father’s death. Ethel and Rory and other members of the Kennedy family were in Park City. Among the contingent that day as she met with the press was a young singer named Taylor Swift. She was dating a Kennedy cousin at the time, but the focus that sunny morning was clearly on Ethel. The film became Rory’s private look at her mother’s life.

Ethel Kennedy was truly touched by the film, and the hoopla that went into its premiere at Sundance. With Robert Redford and a host of other family members, including RFK Jr. and his wife actress Cheryl Hines, she answered questions about the documentary, one she was somewhat embarrassed about having it made into a film.

She was born into money – a millionaire’s daughter who married the future senator and attorney general in 1950. But it didn’t shield her from heartbreak. Her parents were killed in a plane crash in 1955. Her brother-in-law had been assassinated in Dallas in 1963, and her brother died in a 1966 crash. Her son David Kennedy overdosed, son Michael Kennedy died in a skiing accident and nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. in a plane crash. Another nephew, Michael Skakel, was found guilty of murder before the Connecticut Supreme Court ultimately vacated his conviction. And in 2019, her granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill died of an apparent overdose.

“My mother was always resilient,” Rory told me when we had a private conversation after the press event. “She remained focused on helping others, she never sought pity from anyone else. As she says in my film, ‘Nobody gets a free ride. Everybody faces friends or family who have died. In our family, there is no tolerance for being a victim.’”

Rory learned the value of activism from her mother. Two years later, at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014, she returned with another documentary called “Last Days in Vietnam,” which earned her an Academy Award nomination. 

Following the premiere of “Ethel” at Sundance, Mrs. Kennedy and family went over to Main Street, where I met them as they left a restaurant following lunch. I walked right up to her and introduced myself and told her how much I liked the film. And we spoke for about 15 minutes as if we were old friends. She was benevolent and friendly, especially when she learned I was from California and had worked as a volunteer in my hometown on her husband’s campaign even though I was only 15 and not old enough to vote.

“Good on you for getting involved at a young age,” she said with a smile.

Ethel Kennedy was always involved. She also was active in the Coalition of Gun Control, Special Olympics, and the Earth Conservation Corps. She went to the Obama White House to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom and also met Pope Francis. Her family reported that she was doing fine until suffering a stroke a week before she died. She was 96.

Whether one likes her politics, her left leaning and progressive views, it’s hard not to admire her. Many millions around the world did, and they joined in grieving her passing last week. λ