Peter Lawford

Geboren am
7. September 1923 · London, England, Vereinigtes Königreich
Verstorben
24. Dezember 1984 · Los Angeles, Kalifornien, USA (liver and kidney disease)
Geburtsname
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen
Spitzname
- Brother-in-Lawford
Größe
1,82 m

Frequently acted in musicals.
Thick English accent
Frequently worked with fellow members of the Rat Pack (Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr.)

When the Kennedy administration politically alienated Frank Sinatra in 1962 due to the singer's ties with the Mafia, Sinatra blamed Peter and severed their friendship permanently. Peter was supposed to appear in the Rat Pack movie Sieben gegen Chicago (1964). Peter was replaced by Bing Crosby. In later years, when Lawford decided to attend Sinatra's Las Vegas performance at Caeser's Palace in an attempt to call a truce, Sinatra reportedly found out about it and refused to go on until after Lawford had been escorted out of the showroom.
(November 25, 1963) In the poignant photograph of John Kennedy Jr. saluting the casket of his assassinated father outside St. Matthews Cathedral (Washington) following funeral mass, Lawford is standing between Ted Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
Was the first member of the Rat Pack to pass away. With the death of Joey Bishop in October 2007, no surviving members of the Rat Pack remain.
In his 20s, he worked at a country club. A prestigious member of the club once complained to the management that Lawford was eating lunch and fraternizing with the black employees, and that he should be fired. This member was Joseph P. Kennedy, who years later became his father-in-law!
His production company, Chrislaw, was named after his son Christopher Lawford. Among other projects, the company produced young Patty Duke's highly successful sitcom.

[on his disillusionment with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he made his first films] Metro was really a star-builder, no doubt about that. You were wrapped in cotton wool. I was encouraged to emulate Robert Taylor, who came to the studio every day of his life in a pinstripe suit and pressed shirt with a pin through the collar. They were very high on pins through the collar.
[on turning down a role opposite Bette Davis] It's a spot I wouldn't have given to my dry cleaner.
[on his character in Good News (1947)] Tommy was exactly what I was not -- a typical American young man. He also was a football captain and I had never played football. He was conceited and a wolf and I swear I was neither.