The Kennedys: After Camelot

Few Hollywood love affairs have lasted as long as the 57- year romance between TV and the Kennedys.

- Aubry D’Arminio

Gorgeous and composed, John F. Kennedy was as telegenic as politicos get—and there’s no doubt that the first televised presidential debate clinched his win over rumpled, ruffled Richard Nixon in 1960.

The famous clan and the small screen have since had ups (First Lady Jackie’s 1962 Tour of the White House special) and downs (the sticky 1979 CBS Q&A that ended Ted Kennedy’s POTUS bid). They’ve also had fiery feuds, like the fuss over 2011’s Katie Holmes–led, dirty laundry-airing miniseries The Kennedys. Even The New York Times ran a front page story in which Kennedy cohorts damned the $25 million event. Its first home, History, pulled the project, allegedly due to heat from the dynasty. Yet the Reelz network, which excels in true crime docs (many Kennedy-centric), doubled its viewership just by picking up the show. The April airing broke ratings records, and Barry Pepper won a Best Actor Emmy for his portrayal of Robert F. Kennedy. “The family always does well for us, no matter the format,” Reelz CEO Stan E. Hubbard says. “People want to know them.”

Now Holmes, Reelz and the producers of that program (including 24 Emmy winner Jon Cassar) are back with The Kennedys: After Camelot, based on biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli’s bestseller. The four-part drama starts where the original stopped, with the 1968 assassination of Bobby in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It trails the clan, particularly Jackie (Holmes, who also directed Episode 3) and Massachusetts Senator Ted (Matthew Perry), throughout the 20th century—ending in 1999, when John F. Kennedy Jr. (Brett Donahue) and wife Carolyn Bessette (Erica Cox) died in a plane crash en route to the brood’s Martha’s Vineyard compound.