Trivia

He was the son of one of the founders of Raytheon Company. In 1950, he began interviewing Kalahari Desert bushmen in Africa with a 16mm camera, the start of a 50-year relationship. He lobbied the Namibian government to improve conditions for the bushmen.

John Kennedy Marshall was the son of Lawrence Kennedy Marshall (1889-1980), a graduate of MIT and soldier in the First World War in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and of Lorna Jean McLean Marshall (1898-2002), an author and anthropologist specializing in the Bushmen of Africa. He had a sister, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (born 1931), also an author and anthropologist. With his wife, Alexandra Eliot Marshall, Ph.D., he had a daughter, Sonya, and two stepsons, Frederick and Christopher Eliot.

Earned an M.A. in anthropology from Harvard University.