Peter Lawford

Typing error

I meant "I've always felt"

Stefanie Powers on Peter Lawford:

His actress friend Stefanie Powers concludes: “He was going downhill rather badly. he was having financial problems, relationship problems. he became so weak and thin. the man who was always cool, never temperamental and had charm, elegance and style beyond belief. And that was what he brought to all his roles.

“He didn’t have a bad spirit. He mostly hurt himself.”

Bette Davis on Peter Lawford:

I liked Peter [Lawford], I felt sorry for him. He aged so quickly. He was no angel, but who is? I was shocked when I read that after he died, his own children, those half-Kennedy children, wouldn't pay a penny toward his funeral! No matter what kind of father he was, that is shocking. If my children ever pulled that on me, I would come back and haunt them! Of course, I've been a very good mother and am not likely to die as broke as poor Peter did.

—Bette Davis

Mother was a cunt.

With that CUNT he had for a mother, what could you expect ?

Drop dead gorgeous and also homosexual!

Sizemeat?

I always found his pairing with Patricia Kennedy to be odd. How did they meet?

It's too bad he allowed himself to be used by the Kennedy family and I suspect he was a weak man.

None of it served him well.

Wasn't there a story that no one wanted to spend money for his funeral / burial?

Findagrave.com has a pretty full biography for him. His subsequent wives were very young.

When he needed money so badly in 1970s, and 1980s, he could have easily written tell all book about the Kennedy family But he didn't.

Liz Taylor helped get him into Betty Ford shortly before he died as a last ditch effort to sober him up.

He sold the story of her stay at Betty Ford to the Enquirer.

When he came home he was still using and drinking. He had become obsessed with vacuuming, however; the Betty Ford clinic makes patients clean their own rooms.

His last wife was dismayed by this since all he would do is snort coke and vacuum all day. She called Betty Ford and told them, “I sent you Peter Lawford and you gave me back a FUCKING MAID THAT GETS HIGH!” I learned that one from the Last Mrs. Lawfords book

[quote] When he came home he was still using and drinking. He had become obsessed with vacuuming

The second I finished reading that sentence I thought of cocaine. I had a friend who was a cocaine addict and all she did was vacuum and actually get down on the floor and pick up imaginary things she thought the vacuum missed

I once spent an evening picking up imagined stray rocks of cocaine. My parents had installed that oatmeal Berber shit. By 5 am I was doing the “shit, that’s wet” song.

And that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Tada.

I had a friend who was a coke addict and his apartment was spotless. Everywhere- closets, under the claw-foot tub. He cleaned my oven for me once. Sparkling.

Didn’t Sinatra treat him like shit? Regardless, I have loved every Peter Lawford movie I’ve ever seen. Not because they or he are good, just because. Maybe it’s his eyebrows.

He's not the only person the Kennedy's drove to drink.

I read somewhere that he used to do coke with his son over a period of days. I did coke with a father and son once and, um, wow.

Alcoholism and substance abuse. Simple. That's what happened. When it does, it overwhelms everything.

When he and Pat were married and living in California, and their kids were still babies, she rented an apartment down the block for the children and their nannies so the smell of shit wouldn't be present in their own home. Whenever someone was complaining about so-and-so being a lousy parents, Pat would laughingly remind the person, "Remember, I'm the one who couldn't stand the smell of her own kids' shit."

He was molested as a child by a female maid or tutor; I can't remember any details. That was certainly unfortunate and probably had a lot to do with his self loathing and self destructiveness. But I don't feel sorry for him. He made his choices in life. And his choice was to be the sleaziest motherfucker imaginable. Bette should have shut her big fat ignorant mouth; his children no doubt had ample reason not to want to shell out money for his funeral expenses. He was a piss poor excuse for a father. He gifted his son with COCAINE for his birthday. The son later went on to become addicted, like dear old Dad. Peter Lawford was a piece of shit. And I HATED him as an actor. He was so smarmy, just a pretty boy (although his appeal totally escaped me) who got a movie contract because of his looks.

His chin dimple was off center.

Tell us all about it, R15!

Other than that R18, what's your opinion of him?

Bette Davis was many things, but "ignorant" was not one of them.

"Bette Davis was many things, but "ignorant" was not one of them."

She had no idea what Peter Lawford's children had to go through, being the offspring of such a dick. She had no business passing judgement on them. Bette Davis didn't even know what was going on in her own family. In an interview she proudly spoke of her parenting skills and of her children she said "I brought them up myself", without any help. She added that, unlike Joan Crawford, she didn't think any of her children would be writing a book about her. Surprise! Her beloved B. D. ("you're the only thing I love!", is what she would tell her daughter, at least according to B. D. ) came out with a very unflattering portrait of her mother in "My Mother's Keeper." I'd say Bette was pretty ignorant when it came to emotional issues.

BD was a bad seed from the start. Bette did nothing but spoil her rotten, and financially support BD and her useless husband for decades. Everybody in Hollywood knew about Lawford and how fucked up he was.

His son Chris was the spitting image of him and sadly they both died young in their early 60s.

I read his son Chris’s book. iirc there was a reasonable non emotional circumstance related reason that the funeral wasn’t paid for by his kids. The son went on to become a sober respected man who educated about addiction using his family as the example.

Didn't Lawford deal drugs on the side? I could've sworn I read somewhere that he provided Judy and Marilyn with drugs whenever they needed a fix.

He pimped for JFK. What a scumbag.

Read Dominick Dunne's book "The Way We Lived Then" for a recount of when they both were reduced to being chair fillers for "A" List parties.

It's excruciating and tough to read but I couldn't stop reading it.

Didn't Lawford's mother write to Louis B Mayer to say that on no accout should MGM hire Peter Lawford as he was a homosexual and mummy's boy and that said mummy depended on said boy and could not allow him time off for acting?

After he was ostracized from the Kennedys, he never recovered and his last 20 years were one long suicide.

God what a massive cunt, R5. I bet his whole "rescue the damsel in distress" thing came from having the narcissistic mother from hell.

Seriously, I want a time machine so I can go back and kick her in the cunt. Fucking nasty bitch.

The book is called Bitch, R32

I always thought it ironic that Ted Kennedy died the same day as Dominic Dunn R29. The last big Fuck You from the Kennedys for A Season in Purgatory.

Why exactly was he famous again? I can only think of 3 movies he was in (Good News, Easter Parade, and a small role in Advise and Consent). Was he famous for anything else? Could he sing?

My grandma loved Peter Lawford and the Kennedys. They were like royalty to her. His Kennedy association is all I know about him. Unless he appeared on Match Game or Hollywood Squares I never saw anything he was in.

R35, The White Cliffs of Dover, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Two Sisters from Boston, It Happened in Brooklyn, On an Island with You, Little Women, etc. These were very popular MGM films ca. 1945-47, and made Peter Lawford a popular leading man for that brief period in time. And, yes, he sang and danced in some of them. Although he wasn't a top box office star, his good looks and British accent made him a movie magazine fan favorite.

He was also in Dead Ringer which starred Bette Davis and co-starred Bette Davis's atrocious wig.

He's on TCM at this moment, starring with June Allyson (who else?) in something called "Good News." They were paired in several movies together, I think. I found them both unbearable.

He looks like he's going to kiss the old hag Bette Davis in that photo at R38. No wonder she defended him.

He played her love interest. Dead Ringer is a scream, totally craptastic. And that wig is the worst wig I've ever seen.

I remember, as a kid, watching him and Phyllis Kirk starring as Nick and Nora Charles in the TV show "The Thin Man".

1957-1959.

Here's the introduction to each episode.

A different intro to "The Thin Man" TV show.

Here's a documentary on Lawford.

Make sure you watch at least up to the 2:20 mark for Lawford's first encounter with the man who would be his (first) father-in-law, the racist Joseph P. Kennedy.

According to the 1984 book Goddess: the Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe, Lawford was into kink - spankings and nipple-biting to the point he bled. Not sure if it's true. Lawford lamented that he didn't go to MM's house the night she died, instead he called her attorney, who called her doctor who said everything was fine.

[quote]the man who would be his (first) father-in-law, the racist Joseph P. Kennedy.

A man who was born in 1888 was racist? You don't say!

Anthony Summers is a tabloid reporter. You can't really take much stock in anything he says. One of his books is "The File on the Tsar" in which he claimed that Tsar Nicholas II and his family were NOT entirely assassinated; only the Tsar and his son were. According to him, Alexandra and her daughters were not killed and Anna Anderson was really Anastasia. Of course their remains were found and DNA testing has proven beyond all doubt that ALL the members of the royal family were killed that night. So I'd say Anthony Summers is pretty much full of shit.

Good News was horrible. They have him singing and dancing - and he can’t really do either. How he became a star is beyond me.

He become a star in the 40s because he was handsome and most of his contemporaries were enlisted (he couldn’t because of some issue with his leg if I remember correctly).

He played Doris Day's boyfriend in her tv series. I think he was supposed to be considered sexy but he looked awful; sagging face, long grey hair, bushy eyebrows. He looked like shit.

Peter was quite homely and his mother was a cunt.

"How he became a star is beyond me."

He was considered eye candy. But I was never impressed by his looks. He was handsome in a puerile way, I suppose.

Even when he was in his 20s he looked middle-aged. But I guess you could say that about a lot of actors back then.

I waver between feeling sorrow and disgust for Lawford. He did have a rotten, abusive childhood. As mentioned above, he was sexually abused as child, something no one should have to suffer. When he suffered a horrible accident, it ruined his chances of entering the British military and having a career as his father had which caused his mother to mock and deride him. His mother was also fond of referring to him as effeminate and a "f*g". Then as an adult, there was his drinking and bisexuality, the latter of which was also supposedly a subject of mockery among those he considered friends including the Rat Pack and the Kennedys (ironic for the latter considering all of their peccadilloes, both Jack and Bobby). Saying all of that however, he also did use many people and wasn't against using those close to him and then alienating them, all of which he did knowingly.

It sound like a really sad life R54.

I remember watching an episode of E! True Hollywood Story on Dorothy Dandridge and being really touched at the end when it was mentioned that Peter Lawford attended Dorothy's funeral and was so distraught he couldn't even speak.

His close friendships with Dorothy and Sammy Davis Jr. made him seem ahead of his time during a time when there were so many racial divisions.

Did he have a cut cock?

I read in some sordid book ( his llast wife's?) that towards the end of his miserable life, he liked having people shit on him. Literally.

R23 , Bette wasn't ignorant on emotional Issues. She had a lazy , narcisstic , fat ass, Satanically possessed piece of shit for a daughter. Whose greed caused her to write a tell all which helped kill her mother .

More thread like this please. I'd love to know more about what was really happening behind the scenes especially at that time, especially in JFK/ Sinatra/ Marilyn Monroe circle..

Nice open face. Handsome guy.

So gorgeous and hot body when young.

In the Paul WIlliams ("Rainbow Connection", "We've Only Just Begun") documentary, Paul talks about how his own drug and alcohol days and his friendship with Peter Lawford, who had a connection in Philadelphia who supplied high quality coke.

Peter's wife was aware of this and was suspicious of his going to Philadelphia for no reason, so when Paul Williams guest hosted the Mike Douglas show, shot in Philadelphia, Peter contacted him and requested to be a guest for that how so that he'd have a good reason to go to there and get good blow.

When he went to the Betty Ford clinic, he paid for a helicopter to drop coke outside of the center, in the desert, for him to retrieve:

[quote]Once safely ensconced in the Ford clinic, at the resort of Rancho Mirage in California, he was happy to play bridge with fellow patients Liz Taylor and Johnny Cash. But in therapy sessions designed to break down his denial, he blithely refused to accept that his chronic drinking had upset anybody.

[quote]Lawford survived the five weeks of the programme without consuming alcohol, but did not stick strictly to the rules. When Patty, his young fourth wife, opened his American Express bills, she discovered that he had been paying for a helicopter to deliver cocaine to him in the desert behind the centre.

[quote]He would stroll into the desert, take some cocaine and then walk back to the clinic. Poor Lawford – he was dead within a year.

Well, R20, this may not be the best place to tell the whole story--but I sucked off each of them in separate rooms. Each time, the other one peaked in the door thinking I was unaware of them standing there. Where can I tell this whole story?

Sizemological details are needed Mary r64!

Dad was more fun, thicker too.

He was a big nothing as an actor and a reprehensible human being. That pretty much sums it up.

The book by Sinatra's valet said that Peter mooched off of Sinatra and never paid for anything, Except his drugs - the only thing that Sinatra would not pay for.

R24 But Ryan Murphy made B.D. the voice of reason even after being abused by her mother in FEUD.

I love the story of Peter Lawford, Robert Walker, and Nancy Davis driving from LA to Phoenix, and Nancy sucking both men's cocks during the trip.

Ryan Murphy portrayed BD as a nasty brat in Feud. Which she was.

There's that old story of how he was supposed to have been the last person Marilyn Monroe spoke to before she died. The story goes like this. She was supposed to go over to his house that evening but didn't show so he called a few times to see what what going on. She spoke in a "slurred" voice. Their last phone conversation ended with Marilyn ominously telling him "say goodbye to Pat, say goodbye to the President and say goodbye to yourself, because you're a nice guy", her voice trailing off. Supposedly he wanted to go over to her house and called his manager saying the both of them should go over there, but the manage adamantly told him not to ("you're the brother-in-law of the President of the United States!") and said her lawyer or doctor should be called instead. Anyway, Marilyn's weird psychiatrist Ralph Greenson eventually went over and found her dead. The whole Peter Lawford "say goodbye" story sounds like a load of bullshit. I think Lawford just wanted people to think he was a "good" guy but in actuality he was a creep who set up sexual trysts with Marilyn and JFK. Lawford was NO "good" guy.

Interesting first generation Dual Ghia convertible on the trailer for the Thin Man movie. In the original series, Nick Charles drove a then new Lincoln Continental.

MM could only have 'committed suicide' if she had given herself a barbiturate enema.

(Which is the only thing that makes sense if you believe the 'official story')

R64, tell it right here! Or on the Brothers Naked thread

I think Good News is delightful: the songs are catchy, the dancing is enthusiastic and every part is well-cast and well-acted. And Lawford is at his height of dreaminess...