American princess: Kick Kennedy's wild and romantic life has been forgotten

Australia Broadcast Center

03-05-2025

Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy was the closest thing America had to a princess.
The fourth of nine children born to the Kennedy political dynasty, her family was synonymous with glamour, wealth, privilege and power.
And while the fearsome patriarch of the clan, Joe Kennedy Sr, made his sons the focus of his ambitions, he always considered Kick to be the star of the family.
"All my ducks are swans, but Kick was especially special,"
he once said.
The problem for Joe Sr was that Kick was as rebellious as she was charming, a free spirit who always put her heart before her family's expectations, her Catholic faith, and her reputation.
She fought her parents for years to be able to marry the love of her life, only to lose him a few months later to a sniper's bullet.
She got a second chance at love with Earl Peter Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, a married Protestant who was famous for his drinking and gambling.
But her parents threatened to disown and disinherit her if she married him.
In 1948, Kick heard that her father was staying at the Ritz in Paris, so she and Lord Fitzwilliam decided to go to France in the hope of convincing him to approve the match.
First though, they nipped down to the French Riviera for a quick holiday.
A 10-seat de Havilland Dove plane was chartered to take them to Cannes, but when the pilot warned that they would need to fly through a massive thunderstorm, Lord Fitzwilliam ignored his pleas to delay the journey.
At the earl's order, the plane took off into the skies over France, and flew straight into the belly of a beast.
What happened in the core of that storm would shatter America's most powerful family, trigger a cover-up, and give rise to the myth of the Kennedy curse.
The magic and brutality of the Kennedy family
No family looms larger in the American consciousness than the Kennedys.
On a windswept cape off Massachusetts, Joe and Rose Kennedy used their considerable wealth — derived from savvy investments and, perhaps, if you believe the rumours, bootlegging alcohol — to build a sprawling compound to raise the next generation of American leaders.
Joseph and Rose Kennedy had nine children, including Kathleen (top right), future president John (top left), future senator and attorney general Bobby (top, centre) and future senator Teddy (on Joe's lap).
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The couple's first child, Joe Jr, was gifted his father's name, and was groomed from birth to be America's first Catholic president.
John, born two years later, was sickly and frail, and therefore something of a disappointment to his father.
And while the boys of the family were expected to be perfect students, athletes and future Democratic politicians, the girls did not escape the prison of Joe Sr's expectations either.
Rosemary, the eldest girl, exhibited some developmental delays, and at Joe Sr's behest, she underwent a lobotomy that left her incapacitated for the remainder of her life.
Rosemary was institutionalised, and while Joe Sr paid for a nurse to take care of her, he never visited his daughter again.
Kick, meanwhile, initially seemed to fit within Joe Sr's mould for a Kennedy woman.
John and Kathleen Kennedy were very close when they were growing up.
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She was a better football player than her brothers. She was lively and charming and witty. She had her pick of suitors among eligible bachelors.
She was also desperate for adventure, and when Joe Sr was appointed as the American ambassador to Great Britain in 1938, Kick was eager to go with him.
In London, the arrival of American quasi-royalty caused a sensation.
Kick was flirtatious, she kicked off her heels to dance, and once threw a bread roll at a guest during a dinner party.
"If someone else had done that, it might have been rude or shocking … but she had this way about her that made it seem an absolute liberation," Lady Jean Ogilvy told author Paula Byrne for her biography, Kick.
Declared the star of the season by a high society magazine, Kick made her debut at Buckingham Palace.
Kick (left) and Rosemary (right) made their debut into London high society at the Queen Charlotte's Ball.
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Soon after she moved to England, Kick met William 'Billy' Cavendish, the Marquess of Hartington and future Duke of Devonshire.
According to Byrne, Billy was one of the country's most eligible bachelors, but he was drawn to Kick, who was richer than all her friends, and cared little for the rules of the British aristocracy.
"Being a duke is something of a joke, isn't it? It's like being a cartoon character, no?" Kick asked Billy.
He immediately fell in love with her.
But Joe Sr and Rose disapproved of the match because the Hartington family were staunch Protestants.
With the couple refusing to give each other up, a battle of wills was brewing between the irrepressible Kick and her fearsome father.
Kick and Billy were forbidden to marry because she was Catholic and he was Protestant.
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However, in 1939, World War II broke out.
Knowing London was going to be bombed, Joe Sr ordered his children to flee for the safety of Hyannis Port.
Kick begrudgingly returned to the US, but she was determined to wait out the war so she could return to her lover and her chosen home.
But WWII held twin tragedies for Kick that would ultimately change the course of her life, and set her on the path to doom.
A wedding and two funerals
Joe Sr hoped to keep his children out of Europe, out of the war, and out of trouble by forcing them all back to Massachusetts.
But by 1941, America was drawn into the conflict, and both Joe Jr and John enlisted.
John was a US naval officer, and in 1943, his boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer.
After it sank, he swam several miles to a nearby island, towing an injured comrade by his life jacket strap, held in his teeth.
The 28-year-old was declared a war hero, and suddenly earned a second look from his father.
"This was the first time John had won such an 'advantage' by such a clear margin, and I dare say it must have rankled Joe Jr,"
Kick was rather aimless at the beginning of the war, going to university for a few years, before dropping out and becoming a newspaper columnist.
The image of Kick riding her bike through London became one of the defining images of WWII.
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By 1943, Joe Sr finally relented and allowed her to return to Britain as a volunteer for the American Red Cross.
She was immediately reunited with Billy, but the couple had to spend months negotiating with their parents to allow them to overcome their religious differences to marry.
Finally, an agreement was reached.
Kick would remain a Catholic and Billy would remain a Protestant, but she had to agree that their children would be raised as members of the Church of England.
The couple was wed in a 10-minute ceremony in a Chelsea registry office. The bride wore a pale pink suit, and the only family member who stood with her that day was her big brother, Joe Jr.
Kathleen and Billy married in 1944, with only Joe Jr (behind Kick) there to represent the Kennedy family.
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Through sheer determination, Kick — now the Marchioness of Hartington — finally had the life she wanted.
But her happiness was short-lived.
Just two months after the wedding, Joe Jr was flying his plane over the English Channel for a top-secret bombing mission against Germany. But the explosives he was carrying detonated prematurely, and Joe Jr was killed instantly.
His father was so shaken by the loss of his golden child that he retired to his room and did not eat or speak for days.
When John heard the news,
The oldest boy of the Kennedy clan, Joe Jr, died during WWII.
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But just a month later, tragedy struck again.
Kick's husband Billy was on a mission to recapture the German-occupied town of Heppen in Belgium when he was shot dead by a sniper.
Now widowed and distant from her family, Kick had never felt so alone, but she decided to throw herself into her work as a Red Cross volunteer.
"One thing you can be sure of," she wrote to a friend, according to Byrne.
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Life holds no fears for someone who has faced love, marriage and death before the age of 25.
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Kick risks it all for a rakish earl
By 1947, Europe had finally emerged from war. Kick, too, was emerging from the fog of grief.
Still young and charming, she caught the eye of Lord Fitzwilliam, and Kick's friends decided that a married, womanising, hard-drinking aristocrat was a fine diversion for the grieving widow.
Kick Kennedy was widowed at the age of 25 when her husband was shot dead by a German sniper.
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But they were horrified when Kick announced that Lord Fitzwilliam was going to leave his wife and marry her.
When Rose found out that her rebellious daughter planned to marry another Protestant, she threatened to cut her off from the family, and forbid her siblings from ever talking to Kick again.
So she decided to ask her father to intervene.
"However much Kick had changed and grown through the years, she had never ceased to believe in the powers of 'Darling Daddy' to make everything right," Leaming wrote.
"She asked the old man if they might come to see him. Her father agreed to have lunch with her and her lover at the Ritz Paris hotel on Saturday."
The great tragedy of Kick's life was that she spent it trying to free herself of a man's expectations so she could finally decide her own destiny.
When she boarded that plane, she hoped this would be the last time she would ever have to beg her father for her freedom.
Instead, she flew to her death.
Witnesses say the plane flew straight into a massive thunderstorm, where it immediately lost radio contact.
After 20 minutes of severe turbulence, they finally broke through the clouds, but the pilot was so disoriented, they discovered that he was accidentally flying them straight into the ground.
Kick, Lord Fitzwilliam, and the two crew members were killed instantly.
Kick and Lord Fitzwilliam died in a plane crash on May 13, 1948.
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When Billy's family heard the news, they quietly approached British tabloid editors and asked that they report Kick had merely hitched a ride on Lord Fitzwilliam's plane, and the pair did not know each other well.
Meanwhile, Joe Sr took care of the US tabloids.
"With John's Washington political career on the rise, the families sprang into action to cover up the scandal," Paula Byrne wrote.
"The New York Daily News, owned by a friend of Joe's, duly reported 'Chance Invite Sends Kennedy Girl to her Death', describing Kick not as Peter's lover, but an 'old friend of both Lady and Lord Fitzwilliam'."
Rose refused to fly to Europe for the funeral, so Joe Sr was left to bury his daughter alone.
She was laid to rest in Chatworth, the lush estate that belonged to the family of her first husband, Billy.
Had fate not torn them apart, it was the property they were set to inherit as the future Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.
The curse of the Kennedys
In June 1963, John — now president of the United States — was in the UK for a diplomatic visit, when he asked for a day off to attend to a personal matter.
He went to Chatworth and laid a small posy of flowers at the grave of his beloved sister, Kick.
Later, he wrote to Billy's family to thank them for accommodating his visit.
"The inscription [on her gravestone] 'Joy she gave — joy she has found' is so appropriate and moving," he wrote.
Just five months later, John was assassinated.
The litany of tragedies that befell the family left some
John and Kick's little brother Bobby was shot dead while campaigning for the presidency in 1968.
Bobby's son Michael died in a skiing accident in 1997, while John's son JFK Jr died in a plane crash in 1999.
A litany of tragedies befell the Kennedy family, including plane crashes, skiing accidents and assassinations.
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The mixture of tragedy and glamour, service and scandal, has always given the Kennedy family near-mythical status in American culture.
But over the years, the ungovernable Kick has largely been forgotten.
Her 37-year-old niece, Kathleen Kennedy, now tries to carry on her memory by adopting her great-aunt's nickname.
"The times she lived in necessitated bravery and a strong ability to carry on in the face of tragedy,"
"Her decisions were informed by her own moral compass, not that of her parents or society.
"I find her story powerful and her spirit inspiring."