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Father of JFK recalled as Hollywood mogul
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Hollywood Years details the
remarkable career of the father of
President John F. Kennedy. The book
is published by Knopf.
by Thomas Gladysz
Today, Joseph P. Kennedy (1888 - 1969) is largely remembered as a WWII-era political figure and as the father of three famous sons, President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert and Ted Kennedy. In the 1920’s, however, the patriarch of the Kennedy clan was something else all together. He was a prominent and at times ruthless businessman who helped shape the movie industry we know today.
Kennedy’s remarkable story is told in an equally remarkable new book by Cari Beauchamp, a noted film historian. In Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years (Knopf), Beauchamp writes about the senior Kennedy at a time when he was acclaimed “the coming Napoleon” of the movie business.
Beauchamp will discuss her new book at three events in the San Francisco Bay Area. Beauchamp will be at Book Passage in Corte Madera on Wednesday, April 15 at 7:00 p.m., at Le Petit Trianon Theatre in San Jose on Thursday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m., and at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on Friday, April 17 at noon. The last two events are ticketed. For details, see the links above.
Groundbreaking in its scope, thoroughly researched, and well written - Joseph P. Kennedy Presents details one man’s near reign over Hollywood. Between 1926 and 1930, Kennedy ran three movie studios simultaneously, helped in the industry’s transition from silent films to talking pictures - and made the fortune that became the foundation of his family’s political empire.
More than 100 films were released under the banner "Joseph P. Kennedy Presents." In her book, Beauchamp writes about the movies Kennedy produced, the stars he helped make, the studios he razed and those he reorganized, and about the careers that were ruined (among them those of the cowboy star Fred Thomson and the director Erich von Stroheim).
And then there was his legendary affair with actress Gloria Swanson – then the “reigning Queen of Hollywood.” They met in 1927, and for a few years were (along with publisher William Randolph Hearst and actress Marion Davies) one the most prominent unmarried couple in the country – unmarried to each other, that is. Their affair began with Kennedy taking over Swanson’s personal and professional life, and ended with his first failure and her career on the brink of ruin.
Swanson’s own daughter commented, “Cari Beauchamp has dug deep into my mother’s files and records and emerged to finally tell the true story of Gloria Swanson’s relationship with Joe Kennedy. No one else has ever been as honest or as thorough.” That’s recommendation enough.
Anyone interested in the Kennedy family or film history should take in one of Beauchamp’s upcoming events. She is an entertaining and informative speaker. Beauchamp is also the author of two earlier books, Hollywood on the Rivera: the Inside Story of the Cannes Festival, and the groundbreaking Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood. The later is a classic of film history, and belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in early Hollywood. Beauchamp, as well, edited two other recommended works, Anita Loos Rediscovered and Adventures of a Hollywood Secretary.
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