Brother-in-Lawford

Have fun tomorrow - use it to throw ideas around, find questions and possible answers and share what you have uncovered of interest or value.

Just to try and redress the balance a little. I might have a go at Joey too when I have a chance.


Peter Lawford

If you’ve ever seen Woody Allen’s film Zelig you may get a flavour of Peter Lawford’s place in history. Zelig, the fictional title character, is a social chameleon who appears alongside a wealth of powerful and celebrated figures through sophisticated (for the time) superimposition.

Lawford was the real thing. Ostensibly an actor, his real talent was for being where it was all happening. Levy’s description (1998, p.72) seems succinctly accurate, outlining Lawford as:

a good all-round B-movie lead, or nice support for an A-production. He’s never make them forget Olivier, but he was a reliable asset for a studio…
…Despite his lack of professional distinction, Peter was a highly sought after invitee, an especially glittering extra in the diadem of Hollywood nightlife.

His pre-Hollywood history is a depressing tale. His conception and birth was scandalous enough: his mother’s husband was not his father, and that honour went to her elderly, married lover General Sydney Lawford. (They later married). His mother made no pretence of affection for her son, and the strained maternal relationship in Ocean’s Eleven may reflect his personally difficult relationship with May Lawford. His childhood was further marred by a sustained period of sexual abuse.

Yet he was also brought up to be the perfect socialite, and this stood him in good stead when the family moved to Los Angeles following an accident which resulted in serious, permanent damage to his arm.

For despite such a troubled upbringing, he was ‘in’ with the most elite ‘in’ crowd the world has ever seen. As one-fifth of the Rat Pack, he was part of a phenomenon that redefined entertainment. Upon marrying Patricia Kennedy, he became part of the most powerful family in the world (earning him the nickname ‘Brother-in-Lawford’, courtesy of Sinatra). He introduced ‘the late’ Marilyn Monroe as she sang Happy Birthday Mr President to JFK, and was rumoured to be one of the last people to see her alive. Just like Zelig, he was always in the picture.

And, just like Zelig, it was always a little odd that he was in the picture. He never quite seemed to fit his surroundings, something marked him out as different.

If we consider his contribution, and relationship, to the Rat Pack, we may be able to draw out some of the differences that marked him out.

The first, of course, was talent. The hub of the Rat Pack were three of the greatest singers and entertainers of all time. Member number 4, Joey Bishop, was a skilful nightclub comic in his own right, but even he had a difficult time establishing his validity to join the others on stage. Where Bishop took the effective route of using his outsider status to comment and puncture proceedings, Lawford tried vainly to occupy the same territory as the others. He would sing a little, dance a little, clown a little, entertain a little, but never as majestically as the big three.

And perhaps it’s unfair to judge him by their standards. After all, he was primarily a screen actor, which doesn’t best equip him to dominate a Las Vegas stage. As an actor, he followed in the mould of very charming, very English performers that Hollywood had such a fondness for, such as Cary Grant and David Niven. Their good looks and suave manners were the key, and despite not having a tenth of their screen presence, Lawford was able to plug the same gap.

Standing in their shadow also required certain stylistic touches. The performances he essayed were predominantly light and comic. Even when drawn into more dramatic productions, he could not (and would rarely be asked) to provide a sense of weight. Perhaps the best approach to estimating his talents would be to imagine him as James Bond. He could certainly provide the sense of stereotypical Englishness, and, like Roger Moore, he would adopt a wry glance at the part, intimating its fantasy elements and overstating the sense of glamour.

Pierce Brosnan also did this, but artfully combined it with the machismo and heroic (but hidden) depth of Sean Connery. Daniel Craig moves into new dimensions of psychological intensity. Timothy Dalton would probably shade Lawford, as, although he didn’t pull it off particularly well he clearly approached it with intelligence and technical skill. Lawford at least had experience as an actor, so despite his shortcomings, he is safe in the knowledge that George Lazenby is worse!

The point is that this was Lawford’s territory as an actor. He could imitate passably well. But he couldn’t innovate, or create. This spills into his role in the Rat Pack. He takes Dean’s laconic comedy or physical buffoonery, or Sammy’s versatility, and re-embodies it in a pale fashion.

This, of course, may augment his value to The Rat Pack: the Rat Pack have their own, in-house, vanity mirror to augment their greatness. His limited talent throws their own into relief. He makes them look good.

The very Englishness that proved his meal ticket as an actor also distances his from full belonging. Frank and Dean might be Italian-American, Sammy might be African-American – but they are American. And that was crucial to their construction. Peter’s only claim to being American was by marriage, and this counted for little. Rather than becoming American by association, his Englishness kept him distant from his wife’s family.

In the age of Hollywood glamour, perhaps his claw hand also didn’t help. True, Sammy was disabled too: but he had bucketloads of talent to back him up. Lawford may have been as eager to please, but he didn’t have the same amount of currency that Sammy had.

The only currency he really had was influence and access to the Kennedys. That’s why Frank invited him, and when that ran out the taxi for Mr Lawford arrived.

But while he was still there, he performed another valuable function. Lawford is the man on the street. He’s not beyond us in talent, in fact in many ways we can feel superior. If part of The Rat Pack’s allure is to make us feel we have been invited to the party, Lawford’s presence demonstrates that it is possible. If he can be there, we all can!

But is this true? Frank never called me up and asked me to join. Neither did the Kennedys. And Marilyn Monroe (had she lived) would have turned me down too. (Well, probably). We may not consider it much use, but Lawford had some talent that set him apart from the rest of us.