Drama of the Gifted Peter (Lawford)

While schmoozing at the Book Expo, handing out flyers for BITCH! the play (and for Branden Books, the publisher of Lady Lawford's autobiography), I met a woman who told me that a friend of hers had had an affair with Peter Lawford. "Well, not an affair", she said,"more of a one-night stand". She said she couldn't reveal any details--but that it had been a wild night ("you know how one-night stands are")-- I raised an eyebrow, hoping I looked like I knew.

"You don't have to tell me", I assured her, "but let me tell you about his mother." I've been intimately acquainted with Lady Lawford these past four years; I think I've read everything that has been published about her, most of it uncomplimentary, some of it screamingly funny. I like her. (I have to; I'm playing her.)

I trotted out the titillating stuff: that Lady Lawford pretended to have been married only twice; that two of her husbands committed suicide; that she was disgusted by sex; that she hated the Kennedys; that she dressed Peter as a girl until he was nine or ten or twelve, depending on who you believe--

She gasped. "Well, that explains a lot", she said, "because my friend told me---" and she revealed the sordid details of her friend's one-night-stand with Peter Lawford. And it was reeeeally good gossip, with just enough of the ring of truth. You know what I mean.

Suddenly I felt so guilty, standing in the Javits Center, talking trash about a man I'd never met--a grey-haired dreamboat I had a crush on as a little girl, the "Fella with the Umbrella", that handsome English guy on 60's gameshows, President Kennedy's pal.

Poor Peter Lawford: a beautiful boy born to a wildly narcissistic mother, unsure about his paternity, tossed into stupefyingly adult situations and expected to perform--which he did, all over the world, most notably and successfully in Hollywood. He fit perfectly into the MGM star-making system. Groomed by his mother to be the perfect escort, worthy of royalty--he married into America's first family, forever holding the coat for a starlet or an in-law or a Rat Packer. And he somehow maintained the illusion of savoir-faire and good humor until drugs and alcohol got the best of him.

It's a tricky business, this "as told to" stuff.

There are several fascinating books about Peter Lawford, but by far the best-written, most insightful, is by his son, Christopher Kennedy Lawford. And it's not just about his father--it spans the legacy of the Kennedys and the Lawfords, detailing a chemical predisposition to addiction, and the power of family expectations. It's a story of survival everyone can relate to, SYMPTOMS OF WITHDRAWAL, and it's a hell of a read.

But I beg you---please read it after you see my little play! If you read it before seeing BITCH!, I'm afraid you'll find it almost impossible to laugh.