Joan Kennedy, Former Senator’s Wife, Dead at 89

Joan Kennedy, the first wife of the late Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy whose life was marred by family hardships and personal struggles, died Wednesday at the age of 89.

Born Joan Bennett in Manhattan, she became a classically trained pianist and attended Manhattanville College, where she befriended Kennedy’s sister, Jean. That connection led to her meeting the future senator and subsequently marrying him in 1958. After Ted Kennedy graduated from law school and passed the bar, he pitched in on the campaign trail for his brother John’s presidential run in 1960. After the birth of her first child Kara, Joan Kennedy joined her husband. After John Kennedy was elected president, Ted Kennedy ran for his brother’s vacated senatorial seat. He and his first wife had two other children — Edward Jr. and Patrick. But Joan Kennedy never adjusted to the constraints of being a political wife in what was then the country’s most powerful family.

During their marriage, President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, Joan Kennedy had a stillborn baby in 1964, Ted Kennedy was badly injured in a private plane crash that same year and four years later his brother Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated. In 1969, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, Mass., and managed to swim to safety, but his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, a campaign worker, drowned. Ted Kennedy later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident. His two-month jail sentence was later suspended.

Three weeks after that fatal incident, the musically inclined Joan Kennedy, who periodically performed publicly, read “Peter and the Wolf” with conductor Arthur Fiedler at Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s summer home in Massachusetts. But her appearance was fleeting, as she planned to return to Washington, D.C., “to be with Ted,” she told WWD at that time.

As Joan and Ted Kennedy’s marriage faltered, she struggled with alcoholism. She was arrested for driving under the influence in 1974, and moved to a Beacon Street apartment in Boston from the Beltway in 1977 and sought treatment, while pursuing a graduate degree. Despite that, Joan Kennedy supported her husband’s presidential run in 1980. The former model touted her first lady qualities in comparison to Rosalynn Carter’s during an interview with WWD weeks before the crucial California primary, “I’m a very sophisticated lady. I just have so much more going for me. And I can make so many more contributions,” she said.

Joan Kennedy cited meeting Russian President Leonid Brezhnev, and leaders of China as some of her upsides. “I’ve done all these things Mrs. Carter hasn’t.”

One point of differentiation was how she chaffed at the idea of advising her husband about drafting presidential policy, as Carter already had at that point. As WWD stated in 1980, the blond-haired Joan Kennedy was often portrayed as the “troubled victim of a tragedy-ridden political dynasty, a vulnerable, wide-eyed innocent who never seemed to know when to keep her mouth shut.”

After Ted Kennedy lost the presidential race against Jimmy Carter, he and his wife announced their plans to divorce in 1981. It became official two years later. In 1984, Joan Kennedy received an honorary degree from Manhattanville College for her “quiet courage” and ability to prevail “against circumstances to emerge victor rather than victim.” In 1992, she published a book “The Joys of Classical Music.”

She struggled with sobriety and mental health issues during her lifetime. She was among the first women of her generation to acknowledge those challenges publicly. Her three children, who survive her, filed a petition to take over her affairs in 2004. Her son Patrick, a former congressman, told an ABC affiliate, “Besides being a loving mother, talented musician and instrumental partner to my father as he launched his successful political career, Mom was a powerful example to millions of people with mental health conditions.”

During the 1960s and ’70s, the Kennedy family’s fashion choices — primarily Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ — could sway American fashion, but other members of the clan, including Joan Kennedy, had their moments too. Many recognized Joan Kennedy for her no-makeup, sporty appeal, and sometimes daring skirt lengths. In 1971, Joan and Ted Kennedy hosted 120 or so guests at their McLean, Va., home for the conductor Rafael Kubelík and the visiting Boston Symphony Orchestra. Joan Kennedy opted for pink, aqua and gold harlequin boucle HotPants and tunic. She told WWD at that time, “I just wouldn’t give up my miniskirts,” pulling back her tunic to reveal scanty HotPants, a bare stomach and a rhinestone brooch pinned to the right hip. Joan Kennedy explained that the creation “was one of those minidresses that caused such a scandal at the White House, I had my ‘little dressmaker’ whip into HotPants by splitting the skirt.”

In 1969, she caused a stir by turning up at a 1969 reception that was hosted by President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat at the White House wearing a sleeveless silver, six-inches-above-the-knee minidress versus the more standard attire of a long gown.

In Hollywood, her DIY look was dubbed “Washington-Boston” HotPants, because in Hollywood women’s stomachs would be completely uncovered, Joan Kennedy said at that time.

She also was among the first to discover Calvin Klein, having bought a black coat with a dirndl effect in 1968 at Bonwit Teller in Boston. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Joan Kennedy’s fashion choices weren’t the only things that the public kept an eye on. When the girlish Kennedy changed her long brassy blond hair for a more toned-down shoulder-length bob, thanks to Dan Hopkins in 1972, it was news. Her interest in music prompted her to enroll in the Berkshire Music School — and to live in a little cabin in the woods — in the summer of 1977. “Hyannis is nice, but there’s no culture there,” she told WWD. “I do love New England. I can move more freely here.”