Joan Kennedy (1936-2025): The Last of Camelot

SHE MARRIED INTO A DYNASTY, FOUGHT A PUBLIC BATTLE WITH ALCOHOLISM THAT INSPIRED MILLIONS—AND REFUSED TO BE DEFINED BY HER STRUGGLES

- JOHNNY DODD,LIZ McNEIL

A Complex Life Joan with her thenhusband, Ted, in 1962. Below: The couple with kids (from left) Patrick, Kara and Ted Jr. on a family ski trip in Massachusetts in 1975.

For someone who confessed that she never quite fit in with the tight-knit, boisterous Kennedy clan, Joan Kennedy looked right at home at the family’s annual Fourth of July celebration in Hyannis Port, Mass., over the summer. Decked out in a vibrant pink blouse, floral-print pants, a red scarf and black sunglasses, and seated in a wheelchair, Joan—the former wife of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy—was all smiles in a video shot from a rooftop that her niece Kerry Kennedy posted on social media.

AMERICAN ROYALTY 1. "Ted and I are so different," Joan (with JFK and Ted at the couple's 1958 wedding) said prior to their divorce in 1982.