Should the lifestory of Ethel Kennedy be given the big silver screen biopic treatment by Hollywood ?

Ethel the documentary films was good but I think dramatised portrayal has merit too.

I would say there should be. She led such an eventful life. I love the book "The Other Mrs. Kennedy". Her young life was just as fascinating - the Skakels were quite the rambunctious family.

r2 Thanks. Would you say the book 'The Other Mrs Kennedy ' should be the basis of what books or a completely new script not based on existing work? I haven't read that book so I don't know how translatable it would be to the screen.

I bet you could use that book as the basis for a screenplay.

I am trying to think who could play Ethel?

Give it to G. Nobody's going to see a turkey like this anyway.

Ooh meow r6 !!😁 I think it could be more popular than you suppose!

I hope you recover from your apparent head injury.

Ethel Kennedy came from a braying clan that made the Kennedys appear to whisper. The entire film would be like Patti LuPone holding the Lloyd Webbers hostage at Christmas.

r8 Sounds like it could very watchable!!

"Ethel, Joan and Jackie" would make a great movie, and I don't mean Mertz, Crawford and Hoffman.

How about Merman, Van Ark, and Curtis?

They already did the miniseries of that book 15 years ago r10.

The Kennedy Women would make a great miniseries.

No, no, no r11! It’s Waters, Fontaine, and Mason!

Or r12 Oscar nominated film like Jackie was about five years ago.?

Ethel lacks an essential glamour that Jackie had in spades.

No one cares about Ethel.

r15 She does lack glamour but is glamour neccesary to a compelling dramatic or interesting story? I'm sure plenty of films that have done well have lacked glamour.

The Skakels are a nutty family. One of my friends went to school in LA with one of Ethel's. nieces- Caroline. I forget the Ethel's brother's name, he's long dead. But once I tagged along to their house in Bel Air, and it was Sunset Blvd. territory. One of the rooms had a hole in the roof, and grass was growing on the floor.

What??!! r17 😲

That's not surprising r17 - the Skakels were slobs. Lots written about them and their Greenwich home life back when Ethel's nephew was being tried for murder. A total mess, inside and out.

r19 Murder?? I remember a rape trial from the early 1990s but not murder but then again I was quite young so

Look up the case of Martha Moxley r20, and the conviction of Michael Skakel for her murder.

In The Other Mrs Kennedy, one of Ethel’s brothers (Jim) moved to Bel Air with his wife to get away from the Skakels.

The wife was a depressive alcoholic who spent her days smoking in a housecoat and the house was a pigsty.

That’s probably the house r17 visited.

Ethel had another relative who was a murderer. Mike Medaille was the son of Ethel’s cousin Betty Skakel Medaille, and he murdered their neighbor, a young boy who was their neighbor in a Brooklyn apartment building

R22, yes- that's who I was speaking of. The mother never left the house, cooked (there were servants) or did much except lay in bed watching TV.

The daughter I knew was funny, but a little off herself. When she bought her own place, she was using a very expensive antique silver bowl as a water dish for her dog. She worked briefly as a costume assistant for the studios. Last I heard, she just waits for that monthly direct deposit from the trust.

Who should play Ethel? Maybe that ugly bitch Stephen Baldwin. They look alike.

r21 Thanks for the pointer 👍

Featuring Christie Metz as “the booger”.

Chrissie, goddammit!

Olivia Colman could play Ethel.

Ethel used to come to the Merchandise Mart and shop whenever she needed furniture. She expected to purchase everything 'at cost' because the Kennedy's owned the Mart.

Chrissy can play the Bel Air mansion.

Oh, that Ethel would never agree to a final script.

Everyone knows she's so picky, picky, picky.

"The big silver screen biopic treatment"?!?!?!? ETHEL?!?!?!!?

r30 Would they need her blessing? If it were made after she died it would beca moot non point.

R22 - Google search doesn't turn up anything on the Mike Medaille story.

It’s in The Other Mrs Kennedy, r33, the author takes with Ethel’s cousin about the murder.

Who could play Andy Williams?

r35 Ryan Gosling?

There's something very squirrel-like about Ethel Kennedy. Who can convey that?

Amy Sedaris as Ethel?

Who’ll play Claudine Longet?

[quote] Olivia Colman could play Ethel.

Quit suggesting roles for that award stealing horse woman Colman. This cunt has robbed American actresses too much.

Possible titles:

PICK OF THE LITTER: THE ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY STORY

LETTING THE CHILDREN RAISE THEMSELVES: THE ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY STORY

RICH, RAWBONED, AND RESENTFUL: THE ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY STORY

THE HAG OF HICKORY HILL: THE ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY STORY

ETHEL, PLAIN AND TALL: THE ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY STORY

WE LIVED IN A ZOO!: THE ETHEL SKAKEL KENNEDY STORY

r41 What about Ethel?

Just ethel on its own.

r42: people would assume that title was about Vivian Vance.

I pick my nose.

Who would pair the name "Ethel" with the surname "Skakel"?

That's beyond hideous.

Knocked Up Yet Again!: The Ethel Skakel Kennedy Story

No. Enough with this family. Multiple movies have been made, there are recent documentaries, some of which are directed by family. It’s time to move on.

Just the small screen for little Ethel.

There should be a Nickelodeon movie about Ethel's life.

Let's see:

1. Born into a wealthy Midwestern family. Raised according to the mores of Catholics of that social milieu and generation...Sacred Heart, Manhattanville, marriage. 2. Marries into wealthy Irish-American, Catholic family. Patriarch of that family has checkered background: survives Stock Market Crash, shady business deals, extramarital affairs (notably Gloria Swanson). Patriarch has ambitions to make oldest son first Irish Catholic POTUS. Ambitions transferred to more intelligent second son, after firstborn son is killed in War. Husband is second fiddle to older brother. He's ambitious. Patriarch gets him job with dubious senator. He's able to extricate himself from that mess. Husband and older brother follow in Patriarch's footsteps when it comes to extramarital affairs. 3. Has large brood of kids. She's a Crazy Catholic. Later in life children have many woes. One (or two?) die in tragic accidents. 4. Brother-in-law and husband assassinated. After first assassination, evidence that husband may have had an affair with grieving widow of brother-in-law. 5. Add into the mix: tragic deaths of parents, one brother, and murder charges against nephew. 6. After husband's death makes herself into this tragic, yet somewhat comedic, figure of a martyr to the Kennedy legacy. Children largely raised by help. Complete religious fanatic and all round oddball.

As a movie, it would need a lot of cuts. Concentrate on one episode of her life (I'd go with the son who died of an overdose and use a lot of flashbacks).

For all the rest, it would have been a great TV mini-series had she died 10 years after her husband.

Lifestory?

Clown Car: The Ethel Kennedy Story

Ethel Kennedy = Octomom + 3 children

Ethel Kennedy + Law Degree = Amy Coney Barrett

Nicole Kidman IS Ethel!

Excellent summary r50. I'd add "Shoplifter" to the final line of #6.

Not only were Ethel's parents both killed in a private plane crash, in 1955 - her brother George Jr was also killed in a small plane crash, on a hunting trip to Idaho in 1966. Just a few months afterwards, his teenage daughter was driving the family convertible when a young child "fell out" of the back fell out and died. Few months after that, his widow Joan choked to death while eating at home in CT. She was pronounced dead at the same hospital where her pre-teen son, Mark, was still recuperating from a serious accidental detonation of experimental explosives he'd been playing with. He would later became a forestry and environmental advocate in Vermont, and died in his mid-fifties there while "working in the woods", leaving behind a large brood of children himself.

I think that there should be a Kennedy- Shriver TV movie or something but I'm pretty sure that Maria Shriver and her brothers would never allow it. There's something about Eunice that was just quite something else and Sargent Shriver was a highly educated and accomplished gentleman who was also handsome. Sargent Shriver is my favorite Kennedy in law but I do also truly respect Joan Kennedy for hanging in there for soo long poor dear. .Ethel's family would make a good movie and then maybe end it with her courtship and marriage to Bobby. I dunno.

Amy Ryan could play Ethel. She has that loud-mouthed shanty Irish (with money, in this case) schtick down pat. And the pinched face.

Ellen Page for Ethel.