Trivia of Peter Lawford

Trivia of Peter Lawford (7 September 1923 - 24 December 1984)

*Both his parents, Sidney Lawford and Mary Somerville (aka Lady Lawford), appeared as minor players in a few films. Sir Sydney shot his very first movie in a party sequence in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), which co-starred Peter. Unfortunately, that scene was cut from the final print but he went on to appear in a few others. His mother appeared in the film Hong Kong (1952) and in an episode of Peter's television series The Thin Man (1957).

*As a young child, the young Peter injured his arm by in his own words, "attempt to run through a glass door." Lawford's arm was badly injured however, the doctors could save it. The injury was so bad, it was slightly deformed and bothered him throughout life. But such was his luck, the injury kept him off the draft for World War II, which became the biggest boon of his acting career.

*In his 20s, he worked at a country club. A prestigious member of the club once complained to the management that Lawford was eating lunch and fraternizing with the negro employees, and that he should be fired. This member was Joseph P. Kennedy, who years later became his father-in-law.

*When Lawford was signed to MGM, his mother approached studio head, Louis B. Mayer, to pay her a salary as her son's personal assistant. However, Mayer declined. She then claimed that her son was "homosexual" and needed to be "supervised". This damaged the relationship between her and her son.

*Admitted that the most terrifying experience of his career was dancing the jitterbug in the musical The Good News in 1947.

*Despite tantalizing offers from the tabloids, Lawford kept his mouth shut about one thing: the part he played in the events surrounding the 1962 death of Marilyn Monroe, who carried on clandestine affairs with Lawford`s onetime brothers-in-law, Jack and Bobby Kennedy. It was Lawford, who married into the Kennedy family in 1954, who introduced Jack Kennedy to Monroe; it was Lawford who cleaned up the actress` apartment after she apparently killed herself to make sure nothing remained to link her with the Kennedys and result in a politically disastrous scandal.Later, Lawford and other members of Rat Pack banned from Marilyn Monroe's funeral by Joe DiMaggio.

*Lawford worked with Frank Sinatra for the first time in the musical "It happened in Brooklyn" (1947), and in 1959 Sinatra made Lawford part of the Rat Pack, along with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr and Joey Bishop.Among those five Rat Pack members, Lawford the first member who passed away.He died on Christmas Eve, aged 61,from cardiac arrest.