Peter Lawford

Born
September 7, 1923 · London, England, UK
Died
December 24, 1984 · Los Angeles, California, USA (liver and kidney disease)
Birth name
Peter Sydney Ernest Aylen
Nickname
- Brother-in-Lawford
Height
5′ 11½″ (1.82 m)

Frequently acted in musicals.
Thick English accent
Frequently worked with fellow members of the Rat Pack (Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr.)

When the Kennedy administration politically alienated Frank Sinatra in 1962 due to the singer's ties with the Mafia, Sinatra blamed Peter and severed their friendship permanently. Peter was supposed to appear in the Rat Pack movie Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Peter was replaced by Bing Crosby. In later years, when Lawford decided to attend Sinatra's Las Vegas performance at Caeser's Palace in an attempt to call a truce, Sinatra reportedly found out about it and refused to go on until after Lawford had been escorted out of the showroom.
(November 25, 1963) In the poignant photograph of John Kennedy Jr. saluting the casket of his assassinated father outside St. Matthews Cathedral (Washington) following funeral mass, Lawford is standing between Ted Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy.
Was the first member of the Rat Pack to pass away. With the death of Joey Bishop in October 2007, no surviving members of the Rat Pack remain.
When he was child he fell through a French door and cut his right arm very badly; consequently, he never regained full use of his right arm and hand. Thus, he was turned down as unfit for military duty and did not serve during World War II.
In his 20s, he worked at a country club. A prestigious member of the club once complained to the management that Lawford was eating lunch and fraternizing with the black employees, and that he should be fired. This member was Joseph P. Kennedy, who years later became his father-in-law!

[on his disillusionment with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he made his first films] Metro was really a star-builder, no doubt about that. You were wrapped in cotton wool. I was encouraged to emulate Robert Taylor, who came to the studio every day of his life in a pinstripe suit and pressed shirt with a pin through the collar. They were very high on pins through the collar.
[on turning down a role opposite Bette Davis] It's a spot I wouldn't have given to my dry cleaner.
[on his character in Good News (1947)] Tommy was exactly what I was not -- a typical American young man. He also was a football captain and I had never played football. He was conceited and a wolf and I swear I was neither.