'The Kennedys': Conservative's Dropped Miniseries Included Joe Sr. And JFK's Womanizing

'The Kennedys' -- the eight part miniseries about the legendary family recently dropped by The History Channel -- does not make the political dynasty seem very presidential.

Created by noted conservative Joel Surnow, the creator of the terrorism-themed action series '24,' the mini-series was dropped by The History Channel, and subsequently rejected by cable outfits such as Starz and Showtime, under pressure from the actual Kennedy family.

The Daily Beast obtained the script of the first episode, uncovering some reasons why the family would want what they called a skewed version of events to be kept off television.

In one scene, during World War II, the Daily Beast found:

Wilkinson's Joe Sr. fondles his secretary in his office at the ambassador's residence in London in 1938. As he dictates a note to the president, Joe "fondles her breasts" and "nuzzles her neck." When sons Joe Jr. and Jack enter his office, Joe Sr. continues his fondling as his sons look on, "amused." The note he's dictating? It suggests that in order to keep the peace in Europe, certain concessions be made to Hitler.

Then, it's the future President's turn:

Brothers Jack and Bobby engage in banter about horniness after their father has begun to apply pressure on Jack to marry in 1951. "What do you do when you're horny?" asks Jack. "I mean, how can you stand the boredom?" When Bobby replies that he loves Ethel (who has just jumped into the pool during a party in McLean, at which she released live frogs), Jack says, "I love lobster, but not every night. If I don't have some strange ass every couple of days, I get migraines."

There's also accusations of buying elections, buying Jackie Kennedy's loyalty and many more lurid affairs.

The films, which star Greg Kinnear as President Kennedy, Barry Pepper as Robert Kennedy, Katie Holmes as Jackie Kennedy and Tom Wilkinson as Joe Kennedy, Sr., have been slammed by both family members and people close to the family. Ted Sorensen, a famous aide to the President, claimed that it had fabricated scenes, and liberal filmmaker Robert Greenwald collected signatures against the airing of the film.

For all the details, click over to The Daily Beast.

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Comments

[miesque]

06:16 AM on 02/25/2011

Oh I'm so shocked to discover that Jack Kennedy was a womanizer. Wanna bet the guy that produced the series is one too. That's the way Republicans work isn't it? Wasn't it Newt Gingrich who visited his second wife while she was in the hospital fighting cancer, to tell her that he was dumping her for his mistress. Oh, and by the way, at the same time, he was slinging mud at Clinton for his affair with Monica. Oh please, this is trash, nothing but pure trash. I'm sure every Tea Bagger in the country will watch every minute of it, then go back to watching Dancing With The Stars and WWE Smackdown!

[Dorothy Smith]

06:50 PM on 02/04/2011

And I believe every word of it!
still, in spite of Old Joe, the boys did some good things. Today Joe would be incarcerated for his financial doings?JFK?ronnie regan-flawed, made by media $$$$$from special interest groups. Media "afraid" to tell the truth.

[rjaxone]

11:32 PM on 01/17/2011

JFK a womanizer! Comon.. he was no more of a womanizer than the Sultan of Zanzibar...

[MissAustenRegrets]

05:09 PM on 01/17/2011

Let's get rid of this useless word, "actual," as in this sentence fragment: "under pressure from the actual Kennedy family." Now try it this way, "under pressure from the Kennedy family." Much better, yes.

[JPettus]

04:59 PM on 01/17/2011

Why not? We can also dig up all the old dirt on old Prescott Bush and go into his Hitler sympathies, his actual participation (though tangential) of a plot to assassinate FDR, his Robber Baron deals and how he essentially made the Bush family the people they are today. We can broadcast them both side by side during sweeps week!

[HappyBalance]

12:02 PM on 01/17/2011

A conservative hit piece nothing more, nothing less.

[Buckeye54]

11:08 AM on 01/17/2011

I can see this being shown on Fox News....but they'd bill it as a documentary!

[buddy boy]

10:31 AM on 01/17/2011

Hopefully someone will pick it up. So what if they had a little testosterone. Makes the story more interesting. Sort of makes them normal rather than God like.

[Pennsylvanianne]

07:04 PM on 01/16/2011

The scenes described sound completely fictitious, so the History Channel was right to drop this. It sounds like a really trashy take on what the Kennedys were rumored to be like, rather than anything historical. There is so much documentation -- film, newspapers, books -- on the Kennedys already, why make stuff up? Could it be the producer or director was conservative and wanted to smash these liberal icons?

[JPettus]

05:00 PM on 01/17/2011

Correct on both cases.

[ghostpigeon]

01:03 AM on 01/18/2011

I totally agree with history channel dumping this one and would support any other channel that does too. The problem isn't in portraying the Kennedy's as womanizers, there is lots of documentation on that subject, but of making up "historical" conversations that we can't verify at all. Joe Sr. was a fascist supporter, but the way they portray it trivializes that fact and buries in under voyeuristic and salacious content. BTW, just because we have lots of biographies on the Kennedy family doesn't mean we have the truth. Historians edit and rearrange history all the time to fit "acceptable" visions of American history. We hadn't heard much about Smedley Butler 20 years ago and still haven't heard all that much. You can blame the culture of the national security state for that.

[Richard Blaine]

04:27 PM on 01/16/2011

Obviously this will end up on Fox News (sic), whose viewers WANT to be lied to (and are rarely disappointed).

[Surfcity5153]

01:42 PM on 01/16/2011

It's perfectly fine to make a movie about George Bush and a mini series about Pres Reagan and air all their laundry, but how dare they make a movie about the most corrupt and womenizing family in the history of American Politics!

[No Good Names Left]

05:36 AM on 01/17/2011

I sure don't remember these Reagen and Bush miniseries shows.

There was a comedy show called "that's my bush" but it wasn't political at all and after 911 they stopped doing it for some knee-jerk reason.

[Pennsylvanianne]

05:07 PM on 01/17/2011

The Reagan mini series also was dropped when someone (Nancy Reagan and conservatives, I think) protested, though it later found a home on a cable channel where I think no one watched it. I heard nothing about a Bush movie, so I have no idea what you are writing about there. If it isn't historical, it shouldn't be on the History Channel. Some of the scenes sound completely made up. That's not what the History Channel is supposed to be about.

[norwouldi]

08:26 AM on 01/16/2011

Having just read the Daily Beast description of the outline for the series and its foundation, this would appear to be nothing more than a flagrant "Daily Enquirer" series that the History Channel wanted in order to "up" its ratings. Make it smoldering! Make it sexy! Make it insinuating! It really trips me out that this series is nothing more than dreck, but I am not surprised at this nowadays. Lousy script as well as outline with a milque toast cast (with the exception of Wilkenson and Kinnear). If I want to see clever and better written innuendo, then I will watch a Marx Brothers movie. And be more entertained. The History Channel appears to be now turning the bend into itself without direction (and no class whatsoever) on this assignment.

[FTracy3]

10:41 PM on 01/15/2011

How dare a miniseries make up stuff like JFK's womanizing!

[mike dougles]

09:40 PM on 01/15/2011

I still dont get it. We know the Kennedys cheated on their wives.
We know Joe sr. thought we should just play ball with Hitler.
We know JFK was on a yacht with a girlfriend when Jackie was giving brith.
We know they wire tapped MLK, and blackmailed him.
We know about Teddy and Mary Jo.
We now know about about JFK;s drug use in office.
We know it all, so lets air the movie already.

[Puzzlr]

07:34 AM on 01/16/2011

Don't forget how they made their money!

[Lucy1886]

02:33 PM on 01/16/2011

There is a lot to criticize about some in the Kennedy family. But that doesn't mean that the film is accurate. I'm sure there is a lot to criticize about you or someone you care about, but there are limits. I opposed G W Bush, but that doesn't mean I'd support a film posing as history that portrayed him as a child molester.

[ummm]

09:34 PM on 01/15/2011

what a terrible (excerpt) script! yeah, films are raunchy but doing the "2011 Crude" on a 1960's American icon political family theme makes it seem silly

[TaurusRose]

02:15 PM on 01/27/2011

ummm... you nailed it