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Robert F. Kennedy, the 64th United States Attorney General, a U.S. senator from New York, and the brother of United States president John F. Kennedy, has frequently been depicted or referenced in works of popular culture.
Robert Drew's 1963 documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment focused on Governor George Wallace's Stand in the Schoolhouse Door at the University of Alabama.
Documentary filmmaker DA Pennebaker made several films featuring Kennedy. His short film Jingle Bells (1964) follows Kennedy and his children as they celebrate Christmas in New York City with local school children and Sammy Davis Jr. [1] His later film Hickory Hill documents the 1968 Annual Spring Pet Show at Hickory Hill, the Kennedy Virginia estate. [2]
Robert Kennedy Remembered (1968), by Charles Guggenheim, honored Kennedy soon after his death.
In 1970, ABC-TV presented David L. Wolper's film The Unfinished Journey of Robert F. Kennedy, narrated by John Huston. [3]
In 1973, Gérard Alcan directed and produced The Second Gun, a film about Kennedy's murder. [4]
Shane O' Sullivan's 2007 documentary RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy investigates the assassination and conspiracy theories surrounding it.
The documentary film, A Ripple of Hope (2008), retells Kennedy's call for peace during a campaign stop in Indianapolis, on April 4, 1968, the evening of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. [5]
The documentary film, RFK in the Land of Apartheid: A Ripple of Hope (2010), follows his five-day visit to South Africa in June 1966, during which he made his famous Ripple of Hope speech at the University of Cape Town. [6]
The documentary film, Ethel (2012), about the life of Ethel Kennedy, recounts many of the major personal and political events of Kennedy's life, through interviews with family members including Ethel herself, and news footage. [7] [8]
In 2018, Netflix released the 4-part documentary Bobby Kennedy for President that focused on his political rise and brief campaign for president in 1968. [9]
Kennedy's role in the Cuban Missile Crisis has been dramatized by Martin Sheen in the TV play The Missiles of October (1974) and by Steven Culp in Thirteen Days (2000). [10]
He is portrayed by John Shea in the TV miniseries Kennedy (1983). [11]
He is portrayed by Cotter Smith in the television miniseries Blood Feud (1983).
He is portrayed by Brad Davis in the three-part TV mini-series Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985), based on the book by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. [12]
The 1985 film Prince Jack portrays Attorney General Kennedy's (James F. Kelly) efforts to address the Civil rights movement.
He is portrayed by Nicholas Campbell in the television mini-series Hoover vs. The Kennedys (1987).
He was portrayed by Kevin Anderson in Hoffa (1992) [13] [14] and by Željko Ivanek in the HBO film The Rat Pack (1998). [15]
He is played by Linus Roache in the made-for-TV movie RFK (2002), which portrays his life from the time of his brother's assassination to his own death. [16]
The film Bobby (2006) is the story of multiple people's lives leading up to RFK's assassination. The film employs stock footage from his presidential campaign, and he is briefly portrayed by Dave Fraunces. [17]
Barry Pepper won an Emmy for his portrayal of Kennedy in The Kennedys (2011), an 8-part miniseries. [18] [19]
In the biographical movie J. Edgar (2011), RFK is played by Jeffrey Donovan. [20]
He was played by Russell Lucas in Seven Days That Made a President (2013).
Jack Noseworthy plays Robert Kennedy in the 2013 film Killing Kennedy .
He is played by Peter Sarsgaard in the film about Jacqueline Kennedy, Jackie (2016). [21] [22]
He is played by Julian Ovenden in the TV series The Crown in the episode "Dear Mrs Kennedy" (2017).
He is played by Jack Huston in Martin Scorsese's film The Irishman (2019). [23]
The Rolling Stones began recording the song "Sympathy for the Devil" on June 4, 1968. [24] The original lyrics included the line, "I shouted out 'Who killed Kennedy?'", which was changed to, "I shouted out 'Who killed the Kennedys?'" [25]
The 1968 song "Abraham, Martin and John" is a tribute to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy. [26]
The song "Starlight" by Taylor Swift on her 2012 album Red is about the courtship of Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel. [27]
James Ellroy wrote a fictionalized historical version of Robert F. Kennedy in his Underworld USA Trilogy novels. [28] [29] He is an important secondary character, and appears in two of the three novels in the trilogy: American Tabloid (1995) and The Cold Six Thousand (2001).
British playwright Roy Smiles' play about Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign, The Last Pilgrim, was staged in London in 2010. [30] It was shortlisted for Best Play at the Off West End Awards in the UK in 2011. [31]
Robert F. Kennedy is the inspiration behind British theatre maker Russell Lucas's 'The Bobby Kennedy Experience' , directed by Sarah-Louise Young.
Robert Lowell wrote several poems about Kennedy; his elegy for him includes the line, "doom was woven in your nerves". [32]
Hoffa is a 1992 American biographical crime drama film directed by Danny DeVito and written by David Mamet, based on the life of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. Most of the story is told in flashbacks before ending with Hoffa's mysterious disappearance. The story makes no claim to be historically accurate, and in fact is largely fictional. Jack Nicholson plays Hoffa, and DeVito plays Robert Ciaro, an amalgamation of several Hoffa associates over the years. The film features John C. Reilly, Robert Prosky, Kevin Anderson, Armand Assante, and J. T. Walsh in supporting roles. The original music score was composed by David Newman. The film was distributed by 20th Century Fox and released on December 25, 1992.
Ethel Kennedy was an American human rights advocate. She was the wife of U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy, a sister-in-law of U.S. president John F. Kennedy, and a daughter of businessman George Skakel.
Bobby is a 2006 American drama film written and directed by Emilio Estevez, and starring an ensemble cast featuring Harry Belafonte, Joy Bryant, Nick Cannon, Laurence Fishburne, Spencer Garrett, Helen Hunt, Joshua Jackson, Anthony Hopkins, Ashton Kutcher, Shia LaBeouf, Lindsay Lohan, William H. Macy, Demi Moore, Martin Sheen, Christian Slater, Sharon Stone, Freddy Rodriguez, Heather Graham, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Elijah Wood, and Estevez. The screenplay is a fictionalized account of the hours leading up to the June 5, 1968, shooting of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles following his win of the 1968 Democratic presidential primary in California.
The Underworld USA Trilogy is the collective name given to three novels by American crime author James Ellroy: American Tabloid (1995), The Cold Six Thousand (2001), and Blood's a Rover (2009).
RFK is a 2002 American biographical historical drama television film directed by Robert Dornhelm and written by Hank Steinberg. The film stars Linus Roache as Robert F. Kennedy. David Paymer, Martin Donovan, Jacob Vargas, Marnie McPhail, Sergio Di Zio, Sean Sullivan, Ving Rhames and James Cromwell also star. It premiered on the FX Network on August 25, 2002.
The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award was created in 1984 by the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, now known as Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, to honor individuals around the world who have shown great courage and have made a significant contribution to human rights in their country.
The Robert F. Kennedy presidential campaign began on March 16, 1968, when Kennedy, a United States Senator from New York, mounted an unlikely challenge to incumbent Democratic United States President Lyndon B. Johnson. Following an upset in the New Hampshire primary, Johnson announced on March 31 that he would not seek re-election to a second full term. Kennedy still faced two rival candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination: the leading challenger United States Senator Eugene McCarthy and Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey had entered the race after Johnson's withdrawal, but Kennedy and McCarthy remained the main challengers to the policies of the Johnson administration. During the spring of 1968, Kennedy led a leading campaign in presidential primary elections throughout the United States. Kennedy's campaign was especially active in Indiana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, California, and Washington, D.C. After declaring victory in the California primary on June 4, 1968, Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died on June 6, 1968 at Good Samaritan Hospital. Had Kennedy been elected president, he would have been the first brother of a former U.S. president to win the presidency himself.
On April 4, 1968, United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York delivered an improvised speech several hours after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy, who was campaigning to earn the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, made his remarks while in Indianapolis, Indiana, after speaking at two Indiana universities earlier in the day. Before boarding a plane to attend campaign rallies in Indianapolis, he learned that King had been killed in Memphis, Tennessee. Upon arrival, Kennedy was informed that King had died. His own brother, John F. Kennedy had been assassinated on November 22, 1963. Robert F. Kennedy would be also assassinated two months after his speech, while campaigning for presidential nomination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California.
RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy is a 2007 investigative documentary by Irish writer and filmmaker Shane O'Sullivan. The film expands on O'Sullivan's earlier reports for BBC Newsnight and The Guardian and explores conspiracy theories related to the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy on 5 June 1968. The title comes from a page of "free writing" found in assassin Sirhan Sirhan's notebook after the shooting upon which Sirhan had written "R.F.K. must die - RFK must be killed Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated... before June 5 '68."
Frank Ragano was a self-styled "mob lawyer" from Florida, who made his name representing organized crime figures such as Santo Trafficante, Jr. and Carlos Marcello, and also served as lawyer for Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. In his 1994 autobiography Mob Lawyer, Ragano recounted his career in defending members of organized crime, and made the controversial allegation that Florida mob boss Santo Trafficante, Jr. confessed to him shortly before he died in 1987 that he and Carlos Marcello had arranged for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, and pronounced dead the following day.
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan is a Palestinian-Jordanian man who assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy, a younger brother of American president John F. Kennedy and a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 1968 United States presidential election, on June 5, 1968. Kennedy died the next day at the Good Samaritan Hospital of Los Angeles. The circumstances surrounding the attack, which took place five years after John's assassination, have led to numerous conspiracy theories.
Robert Francis Kennedy, also known by his initials RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, he was a prominent member of the Democratic Party and is considered an icon of modern American liberalism.
"On the Mindless Menace of Violence" is a speech given by United States Senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. He delivered it in front of the City Club of Cleveland at the Sheraton-Cleveland Hotel on April 5, 1968, the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. With the speech, Kennedy sought to counter the King-related riots and disorder emerging in various cities, and address what he viewed as the growing problem of violence in American society.
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit human rights advocacy organization. It was named after United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, a few months after his assassination. The organization of leading attorneys, advocates, entrepreneurs and writers is dedicated to a more just and peaceful world, working alongside local activists to ensure lasting positive change in governments and corporations. It also promotes human rights advocacy through its RFK Human Rights Award, and supports investigative journalists and authors through the RFK Book and Journalism Awards. It is based in New York and Washington, D.C. Robert F. Kennedy's daughter, Kerry Kennedy, serves as the organization's President.
Blood Feud is a 1983 American two-part, four-hour made-for-television crime drama film centering on the conflict between Jimmy Hoffa and Robert F. Kennedy in an 11-year span from 1957 until Kennedy's assassination in 1968. The 210-minute film was directed by Mike Newell and written by Robert Boris. It stars Robert Blake as Hoffa and Cotter Smith as Kennedy with Danny Aiello and Brian Dennehy in supporting roles as union associates of Hoffa's.
Ethel is a 2012 documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The subject of the documentary is Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert F. Kennedy. Ethel was scheduled to premiere on HBO later in 2012.
Walter James Sheridan was an investigator for various agencies of the US government. He is best known for his role in the prosecution of Jimmy Hoffa, on which subject he published a book in 1972.
Jackie is a 2016 historical drama film directed by Pablo Larraín and written by Noah Oppenheim. The film stars Natalie Portman as Jacqueline Kennedy. Peter Sarsgaard, Greta Gerwig, Billy Crudup, and John Hurt also star; it was Hurt's final film released in his lifetime before his death in January 2017. It is the first film in Larraín's trilogy of 20th century iconic women, succeeded by Spencer (2021) and Maria (2024). The film follows Kennedy in the days when she was First Lady in the White House and her life immediately following the assassination of her husband, United States President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. It is partly based on Theodore H. White's Life magazine interview with the widow at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in November 1963.
Paul Schrade was an American trade union activist. While vice president of the United Auto Workers, he was shot in the head during the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Schrade believed that while he was shot by Sirhan Sirhan, Kennedy was shot by a second gunman. He spoke in favor of granting Sirhan parole in 2021.
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