title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire. Adams told the "Times" that he had asked Universal for access to the master tapes for "Reckless" in 2013 while working on a remastered edition of the album, but had been told that the tapes could not be found. Adams eventually located a safety copy of the album to use on the remaster, and was not made aware of the fire until the "Times"' initial report on 1 June. On 15 November 2019, Adams released an EP dedicated to Christmas. The "Christmas EP" contains five tracks, the new track "Joe and Mary" and three previously released tracks: "Christmas Time", "Reggae Christmas" and "Merry Christmas"; and a new interpretation of "Must Be Santa", a 1960s Christmas song, performed in 2009 by Bob Dylan. At the end of November 2019, the album The Christmas Present by the British singer-songwriter Robbie Williams is released, Adams participates in the duet with Williams in the song Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 13 November 2020, Adams was featured on "Stop Crying Your Heart Out" as part of the BBC Radio 2's Allstars' Children in Need charity single. The single debuted at number seven on the Official UK Singles Chart and number one on both the Official UK Singles Sales Chart and the Official UK Singles Download Chart. On 7 December 2020, Adams announced a series of UK concerts following the long hiatus of the "Shine a Light Tour" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the cancellation of a sold out 17-date tour with Bon Jovi in US arenas.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 11 October 2021, Adams released the title track of his 15th studio album, "So Happy It Hurts". The album was released in March 2022. Adams also announced dates for a worldwide tour starting in February 2022.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 17 December 2021, Adams announced the cancellation of all remaining tours and concerts for the year, including his New Year's Eve show in Vancouver, due to both concerns and restrictions due to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 15 February 2022, through his official instagram profile, he announced the publication on his official YouTube channel of new versions of the 16 songs of "" sung by Adams himself, the songs were co-written by Adams and Jim Vallance, after the release of the album recorded by the cast of the musical in the October 2018.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 1 April 2022, Adams released "Classic", an album of reworked and reimagined hits. This was followed on 29 July 2022, with "Classic Pt II".


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams approached Disney in 2009 to see if they would be interested in making the 1990 film into "" for Broadway. But it wasn't until seven years later that he re-approached them and was introduced to producer Paula Wagner who put him together with director Jerry Mitchell. Adams recruited Jim Vallance, and the two of them spent the next two years writing the music and lyrics, and completed the songs in March 2018. The musical made its debut on Broadway in August 2018 and opened in London's West End on 13 February 2020.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Gifted with a powerful hoarse voice, with a particularly recognizable timbre, Bryan Adams began his career in the mid-1970s, taking over from original singer Nick Gilder of Sweeney Todd, when he was a teenager and had a youthful voice very far from the standards he has achieved over the years. With Vallance's help, it wasn't long before Adams established a powerful and distinct sound, compared to that of Joe Elliott, Rod Stewart, Paul Rodgers and Steve Marriott. Adams' voice is often taken as an example of comparing similarities between different singers Rod Stewart, Joe Cocker, Richard Marx and Don Henley. Recognized as one of rock's greatest performers, he is considered among the best live singers.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams has played various styles of rock, from hard rock and arena rock to pop rock and soft rock. During the first few years of his career in the 1970s Adams fronted Canadian glam rock band Sweeney Todd; the band played hard rock as well as glam rock. His early songs were about kids and about the lives of young people, and he is known for his romantic ballads. Adams has never shied away from political or social commentary, especially with songs such as "Native Son" and "Remembrance Day" from the album "Into the Fire", "Don't Drop That Bomb on Me" from "Waking Up the Neighbours," and "Ultimate Love" from "Ultimate". In 1978, after meeting with the drummer and main songwriter Jim Vallance for Canadian rock band Prism under the pseudonym "Rodney Higgs", the initial course was quite difficult. Demos of Adams' early songs were rejected by numerous record companies.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In 1978, the Adams–Vallance duo managed to sign their record deal with A&M Records and released the single "Let Me Take You Dancing". It is notable for being Adams' first solo single and his first-ever release as a solo artist, when he was 19. The genre of the single was disco; the melody, a piano riff inspired by Robbie King, was composed by Vallance on his parents' piano during the Christmas holidays in 1977; Adams, meanwhile, helped turn the riff into a song. In 1982, Vallance and Adams received a call from producer Michael James Jackson to contribute some songs for the next Kiss album. Although Vallance and Adams were not fans of heavy metal, it was a golden opportunity for exposure for their songs by a world-class rock group. In collaboration with Gene Simmons, the track "War Machine" and a rewrite "Rock 'n Roll Hell" were recorded by Kiss for the album "Creatures of the Night". Adams' first solo albums, "Bryan Adams" and "You Want It You Got It", two clear-cut rock and hard rock albums, respectively, indicated the styles that Adams would become famous for. In 1983, with the release of "Cuts Like a Knife", "Reckless" and "Into the Fire", their music was characterized by being hard rock with melodic overtones and powerful ballads (known as power ballads); the production of the first five albums was in cooperation with the American record producer Bob Clearmountain.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In the 1990s, with the release of "Waking Up the Neighbours" in 1991, produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange, they left the hard rock sound and released an album closer to classic rock and roll, taking inspiration from the sounds of bands and artists such as Def Leppard and Foreigner. This album is based on these tones, which brings out a leap in notoriety and also in musical quality to the Canadian rocker, placing itself right in the middle between the sounds of and those of "18 Til 'I Die". Without forgetting that just after "Wakin 'up the Neighbors" will come the best "So Far So Good", assisted by this album, which churns out some of the singles that Adams fans. In 1996, with his album "18 til I Die", Adams and Lange adopted a pop rock sound more in line with the style of the time. Many ballads were included in this work, although it also contained some rock songs such as "18 til I Die" and "The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You". The album sees the collaboration of the American singer and songwriter Gretchen Peters, still active today. In 1998, "On a Day Like Today" was released, co-produced by his compatriot Bob Rock, he opted for a sound oriented to pop rock, heavily influenced by contemporary bands.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Upon their return in 2000 with the album "Room Service", Adams produced the album and co-wrote the songs with various co-writers, the themes of the songs being varied between street life, touring, truth, love and relationships. He again opted for a rock-oriented sound. In 2008, with "11", produced by the same Adams with the collaboration of Mutt lange, he sees the return of his long-time collaborator Jim Vallance after more than 15 years, he has experienced a sound softer, combining songs from soft rock, pop rock and melodic rock. With "Get Up" produced entirely by Jeff Lynne, they continued in the line of rock, with the strong influence of Lynne's fifty-year experience. In 2019, with "Shine a Light", he combined rock with pop rock and R&B.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Among his youthful influences, the musician has often mentioned Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan as well as all the pop and rock heard as a boy on the radio. While making the album cover version "Tracks of My Years", the album was released in 2014, Adams in an interview published by the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail, Adams said the real influences in my life, I would record a lot of hard rock from the 1970s. According to Adams, most of those songs are untouchable.


title: Bryan Adams

text: His main sources of inspiration also include guitarists, besides Blackmore, he was influenced by guitarists such as Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Mick Ronson, Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton and Eddie Van Halen. Other influential and favourite artists were Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Humble Pie, Bob Marley, Bob Seger, Chuck Berry, David Bowie, Jackie Wilson, Joe Cocker, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Leonard Cohen, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, The Beatles, The Who, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones and Van Morrison.


title: Bryan Adams

text: With the mainstream success of "Reckless" in the 1980s, five times multi-platinum "Album of the Year" and in the top 20 in "The Best AOR Albums Of All Time" according to "Kerrang!" Magazine, the true masterpiece of the Canadian rocker according to the Italian magazine "Panorama", and "Waking Up The Neighbors" in the 1990s, having gained worldwide circulation, Adams' impact still persists today. Being one of the most popular rock artists of the 80s and 90s, the merit of having maintained a pure rock at that time as the world went into Hip hop music and Electronic music.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Referred to as the "Groover From Vancouver", he is known for his powerful rock songs and romantic ballads, and his music has appeared in dozens of films both as a singer and as a songwriter and co-writer since the early 1980s, including "Class", "A Night in Heaven", "Real Genius", "Renegades", "Pink Cadillac", "An Innocent Man", "Problem Child 2", "", "The Cutting Edge", "The Three Musketeers", "Don Juan DeMarco", "The Mirror Has Two Faces", "Jack", "Red Corner", "Hope Floats", "", "House of Fools", "Devil's Gate", "Racing Stripes", "Color Me Kubrick", "The Guardian", "Bobby", "Cashback", "Bridge to Terabithia", "Old Dogs", "Jock the Hero Dog" and "".


title: Bryan Adams

text: Most of Adams's philanthropic activity is through The Bryan Adams Foundation, which "aims to improve the quality of people's lives around the world by providing financial grants to support specific projects that are committed to bettering the lives of other people". The foundation is mostly funded by Adams himself.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Since the 1980s, Adams has participated in concerts and other activities to help raise money and awareness for a variety of causes. His first high-profile charity appearance came in 1985 when he opened the US transmission of Live Aid from Philadelphia. In June of the next year, Adams participated in the two-week Amnesty International "A Conspiracy of Hope" tour alongside Sting, U2 and Peter Gabriel. In 1986, Adams performed at The Prince's Trust All-Star Rock Concert in Wembley Arena to celebrate first 10 years of the Trust and again in June 1987 at the 5th Annual Prince's Trust Rock Gala along with Elton John, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and others. The following year on 11 June 1988, Adams performed at the Nelson Mandela birthday party concert at Wembley Stadium. In June 1988, East Berlin experienced a lavish rock'n'roll festival called "Peace Concert": Adams and Joe Cocker played in Weißensee in front of a crowd of over 85,000 people. Only a week later, David Bowie played music in front of the Reichstag building, in front of 60,000 fans. While Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson were in front of the Bundestag, with 40,000 people to attend the concert, Bruce Springsteen performed in front of a crowd of over 160,000 people.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In March 1989, he performed on the Greenpeace album "Rainbow Warriors", which was also released in the Soviet Union on the Melodiya label. According to Greenpeace, worldwide sales raised more than eight million dollars for Greenpeace initiatives. Highlights of the set include "Somebody" by Bryan Adams, a live version of "Pride (In the Name of Love)" by U2 and the hits by The Pretenders, R.E.M., Sting, Grateful Dead, Thompson Twins, Peter Gabriel and Dire Straits.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In July 1989, Adams committed to work on another charity record: the remake of the Deep Purple classic "Smoke on the Water" for "Rock Aid Armenia" to obtain funds for the earthquake that occurred in Armenia at that time. Adams helped commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall when, in 1990, he joined many other guests (including his songwriting partner Michael Kamen) for Roger Waters' massive performance of "The Wall" in Berlin, Germany. He performed the Pink Floyd songs "What Shall We Do Now?" and "Young Lust" during the performance of "The Wall", and then joined Waters, Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, Van Morrison, Paul Carrack and others to perform Waters' "The Tide Is Turning" to close the concert. On 2 March 1993, Adams attended the Rock for the Rainforest, benefit concert hosted by Rainforest Foundation Fund is a charitable foundation founded in 1987 and dedicated to the focus on rainforests and defend rights of the indigenous peoples who live there. hosted by Sting and his wife Trudie Styler. The event, which took place at Carnegie Hall in New York City, was attended by Sting, Tina Turner, James Taylor, George Michael, Tom Jones and Dustin Hoffman. $800,000 was raised for the evening. On 24 April 1993, he participated in the benefit concert Farm Aid at the Jack Trice Stadium in Ames.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 10 December 1997, Adams took part in a concert, "A Gift of Song : A Concert To Benefit The Children Of The World", in celebration of the US Committee for UNICEF 50th Anniversary, held at the Z-100 Jingle Ball Madison Square Garden in New York City.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 29 January 2005, Adams joined the CBC benefit concert in Toronto for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Twenty years after performing at Live Aid in the US, Adams played at Canada's Live 8 show in Barrie, Ontario. Later that year, he performed in Qatar and raised GB£1.5M (US$2,617,000) from the concert. He also auctioned a white Fender Stratocaster guitar signed by many of the world's prominent guitarists. The guitar raised a total of US$3.7 million for charity and thus set a record as the world's costliest guitar. The money went to Qatar's "Reach Out to Asia" campaign to help the underprivileged across the continent. Money raised also went to some of his own projects like rebuilding a school in Thailand and building a new sports center in Sri Lanka, both of which had been devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 25 May 2005, Adams raised £1.3M with cousin Johnny Armitage, from a concert and auction entitled Rock by the River for the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. On 15 May 2006, Adams returned to London to attend the Hope Foundation's event (hosted by designer Bella Freud), helping to raise a portion of the £250,000 to support the Palestinian refugee children. The following June, he offered individuals from the public the chance to bid to sing with him live in concert at three different charity auctions in London. Over £50,000 was raised with money going to the NSPCC, Children in Need, and the University College Hospital. On 28 February 2008, he appeared in One Night Live at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto with Josh Groban, Sarah McLachlan, Jann Arden, and RyanDan in aid of the Sunnybrook Hospital Women and Babies Program.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 29 January 2006, Adams became the first Western artist to perform in Karachi, Pakistan after the September 11th attacks in conjunction with a benefit concert by Shehzad Roy to raise money for underprivileged children to go to school. Some of the proceeds of that concert also went to victims of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 18 October 2007, Adams was billed to perform in Tel Aviv and Jericho as part of the OneVoice Movement concerts, hoping to aid in solving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The peace concert for supporters of a two-state solution to the conflict with Israel was called off because of security concerns.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 13 January 2010, he received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for participating in numerous concerts and charity campaigns.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 13 January 2011, he participated in the Concert for Killing Cancer at the Hammersmith Apollo in London together with the historic rock band The Who, Jeff Beck, Debbie Harry, and Richard Ashcroft. On 22 October 2013, he attended the TJ Martell Foundation's 38th Annual Honors Gala in New York City for Cancer Research. He performed alongside Sting.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 14 September 2014, Adams was the first artist to sing at the Invictus Games organised by Prince Harry in East London. Prince Harry reciprocated by attending Adams's exhibition on Wounded soldiers in London. Interviewed in November 2014 by "KALTBLUT Magazine", he presents his photo book "Wounded: The Legacy of War" then Adams said: "War is not the answer in solving problems. Sometimes, in 2004, George Bush said that "the world without Saddam Hussein's regime is a better and safer place, and as we have seen, nothing could be further from the truth. Millions of displaced people, hundreds of thousands of dead, and countless thousands of injured, physically or mentally. It is an unspeakable disaster, like the war in Afghanistan."


title: Bryan Adams

text: In May 2015, he received the "Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award" in recognition of his social activism and support for various humanitarian causes, presented during Canadian Music Week at the "Canadian Music Industry & Broadcast Awards Gala". In 2016, Adams canceled an 14 April concert at Mississippi Coast Coliseum in Biloxi. From 1 July, the state implemented the law whereby religious groups and private companies can refuse to provide their services to same-sex couples; after the example of Bruce Springsteen, who canceled his show in Greensboro, North Carolina in protest against the law prohibiting anti-discrimination measures against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders in using public restrooms, Adams also followed "the Boss".


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 30 September 2017, Adams, along with Bruce Springsteen, met on stage at the 2017 Invictus Games. The Paralympic Games for Military Veterans, now in its third edition, saw the two artists perform for the closing ceremony at the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. They performed some pieces of their repertoire, to close in duet performing "Cuts Like A Knife" and "Badlands".


title: Bryan Adams

text: In November 2019, Adams gifted Park Walk Primary School in Chelsea, England, with a new playground through his charity "The Bryan Adams Foundation". In previous years, Adams had built a playground for "Ashburnham Community School" in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London with his foundation.


title: Bryan Adams

text: For his Shine a Light world tour in 2019, Adams teamed up with shipping company DHL for an environmental project to plant a tree for every ticket sold during the course of the tour. In April 2020, he participates in the recording of the song "Lean on Me" together with an ad hoc supergroup of Canadian musicians accredited as ArtistsCAN, both in homage to the recent death of Bill Withers and for raise money for the Canadian Red Cross during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In November 2020, he participates with other artists in the song "Stop Crying Your Heart Out", proposed in a cover performed for the charitable cause of Children in Need under the supervision of BBC Radio 2.


title: Bryan Adams

text: During his tours of 1992–1994, Adams successfully campaigned for the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary with Greenpeace Chairman David McTaggart. The two of them distributed over 500,000 postcards at concerts around the world encouraging people to write to politicians of countries blocking the vote, encouraging them to vote "yes" for the creation of the sanctuary at the meetings of the International Whaling Commission. IWC officially created the sanctuary on 26 May 1994.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 10 November 2002, Adams participated in the benefit concert at the Royal Opera House in London for the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. He played "Run to You" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" with Brian May.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams in a 2007 interview for PETA said: "I've been vegetarian for about 17–18 years now, since I was about 28. And of course, my motto has always been If you love animals, don't eat them. I'm opposed to fur and any kind of use of animal products. I don't eat them, and I don't wear them. I'm not for the killing of any creature-whether it be seals, cows, dogs, anything. So anytime it comes to any kind of animal cruelty, I'm totally against it. Being sympathetic to animal rights is just something that came very naturally to me. But the moment I began to understand what was going on with the treatment of animals, it led me more and more in the way of the path I am [on] now, which is a complete vegan."


title: Bryan Adams

text: In April 2019, while off the coast of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Adams physically intervened to protect a whale from being killed when local whalers tried to harpoon it within a conservation zone. He is the president of the "St. Vincent and the Grenadines Environment Fund", a non-profit company registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines to support sustainable initiatives to promote the preservation of the beauty and natural value of the islands.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In May 2020, Adams was criticized for a profane social media post blaming the COVID-19 pandemic on "bat eating". Even though Adams did not single out any particular race in his remarks, online response was immediate and "Bryan Adams racist" began trending on social media. Adams later apologized for the comments stating, "To any and all that took offence...No excuse, I just wanted to have a rant about the horrible animal cruelty in these wet-markets being the possible source of the virus, and promote veganism. I have love for all people and my thoughts are with everyone dealing with this pandemic around the world."


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams also works as a photographer. On 16 September 2015, he was given an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society in London for his work in photography. Adams has been published in British "Vogue", L'uomo "Vogue", American "Vanity Fair", "Harper's Bazaar", British "GQ", "Esquire", "Interview" magazine and "i-D", and shot advertising and PR campaigns for Hugo Boss, Guess Jeans, Sand, Converse, Montblanc, John Richmond, Fred Perry, Escada, Gaastra, Zeiss, Joop, Zeiss AG, Schwarzkopf, Ermenegildo Zegna, AGL shoes, Windsor, Jaguar and OPEL cars.


title: Bryan Adams

text: He won three Lead Awards in Germany for his fashion photography, most recently in October 2015 for his story in Helmut Berger, and previously in June 2012 and again in 2006. He founded the art fashion "Zoo Magazine", based in Berlin, for which he shoots regularly.


title: Bryan Adams

text: His first retrospective book of photos was released by Steidl in October 2012 titled "Exposed". Previous published collaborations include "American Women" (2005), for Calvin Klein in the United States; proceeds from this book went to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City for their breast cancer research programs, and "Made in Canada" (1999) for "Flare Magazine" in Canada; proceeds went to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Both books were dedicated to his friend Donna, who died of the disease.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In 2002, Adams was invited, along with other photographers from the Commonwealth, to photograph Queen Elizabeth II during her Golden Jubilee; one of the photographs from this session was used as a Canadian postage stamp in 2004 and again in 2005 (see Queen Elizabeth II domestic rate stamp (Canada)), another portrait of both Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip is now in the National Portrait Gallery in London.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams supports the "Hear the World" initiative as a photographer in its aim to raise global awareness for the topic of hearing and hearing loss. Adams released a photography book entitled "Wounded – The Legacy of War" (2013) to highlight the human consequences of war.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In the summer of 2021, he shot the 48th edition of Pirelli Calendar in two working days in June in Los Angeles, where most of the cast met, followed by a day of work at Capri at the end of July. The Pirelli 2022 Calendar shot by Adams is called «On the road», portrays talents from the world of music that Adams has brought together in a journey through very different nationalities, musical genres, ages and professional paths. He photographed Iggy Pop, Rita Ora, Cher, Grimes, Normani, Kali Uchis, Jennifer Hudson , Saweetie, St. Vincent and Bohan Phoenix.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams has also photographed many of his colleagues in the music business. Other album covers featuring work by Adams include those for:


title: Bryan Adams

text: Other famous artists that Adams collaborated with photographing them include Hillary Clinton, Ben Kingsley, Katie Couric, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Lindsay Lohan, L'Wren Scott, Julianne Moore, Jerry Hall, Heather Graham, Sean Penn, Wim Wenders, Danny Trejo, Christie Brinkley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Neve Campbell, Renée Zellweger, Monica Bellucci, Eva Riccobono, Elisabetta Canalis, Caterina Murino, Elle Macpherson, Eartha Kitt, Ray Liotta, Cindy Crawford, Tereza Maxová, Alice Sebold, Amber Valletta, Katie Holmes, Kate Moss, Eve Ensler, Helena Bonham Carter, Daphne Guinness, Aline Weber, Lucy Liu, Laetitia Casta, Tilda Swinton, Lauren Hutton, Muhammad Ali, Dustin Hoffman, Ben Kingsley, Lukas Podolski, Natalia Vodianova, Naomi Campbell, Louise Bourgeois, Kate Moss, Nadja Auermann, Michael J. Fox, Mickey Rourke, Judi Dench, Justin Trudeau, Margaret Atwood, Linda Evangelista, Amanda Murphy, Mads Mikkelsen, and many more.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Bryan Adams has been a vegan for 32 years; he quit eating meat and dairy in 1989. He relayed his experiences with his plant-based diet in an interview with "Vegan Life Magazine" in 2016:


title: Bryan Adams

text: For those people who aren't veggie or vegan it was the best gift I could ever give myself to do it. I am turning 57 years old this year and I work hard, I am always on the move but I have tons of energy because I am plant-based. It is absolutely the best thing you could ever do for yourself. It is a great path.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams has never married. In the 1990s, he was in a relationship with Danish model Cecilie Thomsen. Adams and Alicia Grimaldi, his former personal assistant and now trustee and co-founder of his namesake foundation, had their first daughter in April 2011 and their second daughter in February 2013. His parents are British, and one grandmother was born in Malta. Adams has homes in London and Paris.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 30 October 2021, Adams cancelled his participation in a tribute to singer Tina Turner, just before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, after testing positive for COVID-19. On 25 November 2021, Adams tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time, and was placed in a hotel for a two week quarantine in Italy.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams's awards and nominations include 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations and 15 Grammy Award nominations, including a win for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television in 1992. For his songwriting for films, Adams has been nominated for three times for Academy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards. He was nominated for his fifth Golden Globe in 2007 for songwriting for the film "Bobby"; the song was performed by Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige. In 2008, Adams was ranked 38th on the list of all-time top artists in the "Billboard" Hot 100 50th Anniversary Charts.


title: Bryan Adams

text: In 1990, Adams was awarded the Order of British Columbia. On 20 April 1990, Adams was made a Member of the Order of Canada, and on 6 May 1998, was promoted within the order to the rank of Officer of the Order of Canada. He received these awards for his contributions to popular music and philanthropic work via his foundation, which helps improve education for people around the world.


title: Bryan Adams

text: On 1 May 2010, Adams received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for his 30 years of contributions to the arts. On 13 January 2010, he received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for his part in numerous charitable concerts and campaigns during his career.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams has been inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Canada's Walk of Fame, the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, and the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Adams is also a recipient of the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal (2002) and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). In 2015, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Photographic Society (FRPS). In 2023, Adams was nominated for induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Adams' backing band, known as "The Dudes of Leisure" or the "Bryan Adams Band", is the informal name given to the group of musicians who accompany Bryan Adams both in the studio and during live performances. Adams's solo career began in 1979, the band around Adams, who not only takes on singing but also rhythm guitar, is made up of guitarist Keith Scott and drummer Mickey Curry. Bassist Dave Taylor was a permanent member of the band until the late 1990s. Keyboardist Tommy Mandel has been a part since 1981 in the studio and has been playing since the late 1980s.


title: Bryan Adams

text: Other musicians over the band's span have included, U.K. keyboardist "John Hanaha" (1981–1988) and drummers "Jimmy Wesley" (1981–1983), Frankie LaRocka (1983–1985), Pat Steward (1985–1987) and "Danny Cummings" (1996–1998). Following the 1998 departure of Mandel and Taylor, the band from 1999 to 2001 consisted of only Scott on guitar, Curry, and Bryan Adams, who took on bass. Norm Fisher on bass and keyboardist Gary Breit have been in the band since 2002. Since 2016, they have alternated as session musicians and accompanists at bass concerts: Mark Wilson (2016), Richard Jones (2016), Phil Thornalley (2016–2017), and Solomon Walker (2017–present).


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Edward Moore Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States senator from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. A member of the Democratic Party and the prominent political Kennedy family, he was the second most senior member of the Senate when he died. He is ranked fifth in United States history for length of continuous service as a senator. Kennedy was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and U.S. attorney general and U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy. He was the father of Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: After attending Harvard University and earning his law degree from the University of Virginia, Kennedy began his career as an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Kennedy was 30 years old when he first entered the Senate, winning a November 1962 special election in Massachusetts to fill the vacant seat previously held by his brother John, who had taken office as the US president. He was elected to a full six-year term in 1964 and was later re-elected seven more times. The Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 resulted in the death of his automobile passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne. He pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and later received a two-month suspended sentence. The incident and its aftermath hindered his chances of ever becoming president. He ran in 1980 in the Democratic primary campaign for president, but lost to the incumbent president, Jimmy Carter.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy was known for his oratorical skills. His 1968 eulogy for his brother Robert and his 1980 rallying cry for modern American liberalism were among his best-known speeches. He became recognized as "The Lion of the Senate" through his long tenure and influence. Kennedy and his staff wrote more than 300 bills that were enacted into law. Unabashedly liberal, Kennedy championed an interventionist government that emphasized economic and social justice, but he was also known for working with Republicans to find compromises. Kennedy played a major role in passing many laws, including the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the National Cancer Act of 1971, the COBRA health insurance provision, the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Ryan White AIDS Care Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Mental Health Parity Act, the S-CHIP children's health program, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. During the 2000s, he led several unsuccessful immigration reform efforts. Over the course of his Senate career, Kennedy made efforts to enact universal health care, which he called the "cause of my life". By the later years of his life, Kennedy had come to be viewed as a major figure and spokesman for American progressivism.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: On August 25, 2009, Kennedy died of a malignant brain tumor (glioblastoma) at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, at the age of 77. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery near his brothers John and Robert.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy was born on February 22, 1932, at St. Margaret's Hospital in the Dorchester section of Boston, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of the nine children of Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald, members of prominent Irish American families in Boston. They constituted one of the wealthiest families in the nation after their marriage. His eight siblings were Joseph Jr., John, Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, and Jean. His older brother John asked to be the newborn's godfather, a request his parents honored, though they did not agree to his request to name the baby George Washington Kennedy (Ted was born on President George Washington's 200th birthday). They named the boy after their father's assistant.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: As a child, Ted was frequently uprooted by his family's moves among Bronxville, New York; Hyannis Port, Massachusetts; Palm Beach, Florida; and the Court of St. James's, in London, England. His formal education started at Gibbs School in Kensington, London. He had attended ten schools by the age of eleven; these disruptions that interfered with his academic success. He was an altar boy at the St. Joseph's Church and was seven when he received his First Communion from Pope Pius XII in the Vatican. He spent sixth and seventh grades at the Fessenden School, where he was a mediocre student, and eighth grade at Cranwell Preparatory School; both schools located in Massachusetts. He was the youngest child and his parents were affectionate toward him, but they also compared him unfavorably with his older brothers.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Between the ages of eight and sixteen, Ted suffered the traumas of his sister Rosemary's failed lobotomy and the deaths of two siblings: Joseph Jr. in World War II and Kathleen in an airplane crash. Ted's affable maternal grandfather, John F. Fitzgerald, was the Mayor of Boston, a U.S. Congressman, and an early political and personal influence. Ted spent his four high-school years at Milton Academy, a preparatory school in Milton, Massachusetts, where he received B and C grades. In 1950, he finished 36th in a graduating class of 56. He did well at football there, playing on the varsity in his last two years; the school's headmaster later described his play as "absolutely fearless ... he would have tackled an express train to New York if you asked ... he loved contact sports". Kennedy also played on the tennis team and was in the drama, debate, and glee clubs.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Like his father and brothers before him, Ted graduated from Harvard College. In his spring semester, he was assigned to the athlete-oriented Winthrop House, where his brothers had also lived. He was an offensive and defensive end on the freshman football team; his play was characterized by his large size and fearless style. In his first semester, Kennedy and his classmates arranged to copy answers from another student during the final examination for a science class. At the end of his second semester in May 1951, Kennedy was anxious about maintaining his eligibility for athletics for the next year, and he had a classmate take his place at a Spanish exam. The ruse was immediately discovered, and both students were expelled for cheating. In a standard Harvard treatment for serious disciplinary cases, they were told they could apply for readmission within a year or two if they demonstrated good behavior during that time.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In June 1951, Kennedy enlisted in the United States Army and signed up for an optional four-year term that was shortened to the minimum of two years after his father intervened. Following basic training at Fort Dix in New Jersey, he requested assignment to Fort Holabird in Maryland for Army Intelligence training, but was dropped without explanation after a few weeks. He went to Camp Gordon in Georgia for training in the Military Police Corps. In June 1952, Kennedy was assigned to the honor guard at SHAPE headquarters in Paris, France. His father's political connections ensured that he was not deployed to the ongoing Korean War. While stationed in Europe, Kennedy traveled extensively on weekends and climbed the Matterhorn in the Pennine Alps. After 21 months, he was discharged in March 1953 as a private first class.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy re-entered Harvard in the summer of 1953 and improved his study habits. His brother John was a U.S. Senator and the family was attracting more public attention. Ted joined The Owl final club in 1954 and was also chosen for the Hasty Pudding Club and the Pi Eta fraternity. Kennedy was on athletic probation during his sophomore year, and he returned as a second-string two-way end for the Crimson football team during his junior year. He barely missed earning his varsity letter. He received a recruiting feeler from Green Bay Packers head coach Lisle Blackbourn, who asked him about his interest in playing professional football. Kennedy demurred, saying he had plans to attend law school and to "go into another contact sport, politics." In his senior season of 1955, Kennedy started at end for the Harvard football team and worked hard to improve his blocking and tackling to complement his , size. In the season-ending Harvard-Yale game in the snow at the Yale Bowl on November 19 (which Yale won 21–7), Kennedy caught a pass to score Harvard's only touchdown; the team finished the season with a 3–4–1 record. Academically, Kennedy received mediocre grades for his first three years, improved to a B average for his senior year, and finished barely in the top half of his class. Kennedy graduated from Harvard at age 24 in 1956 with an AB in history and government.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Due to his low grades, Kennedy was not accepted by Harvard Law School. He instead followed his brother Bobby and enrolled in the University of Virginia School of Law in 1956. That acceptance was controversial among faculty and alumni, who judged Kennedy's past cheating episodes at Harvard to be incompatible with the University of Virginia's honor code; it took a full faculty vote to admit him. Kennedy also attended The Hague Academy of International Law during one summer. At Virginia, Kennedy felt that he had to study "four times as hard and four times as long" as other students to keep up with them. He received mostly C grades and was in the middle of the class ranking, but won the prestigious William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition. He was elected head of the Student Legal Forum and brought many prominent speakers to the campus via his family connections. While there, his questionable automotive practices were curtailed when he was charged with reckless driving and driving without a license. While attending law school, he was officially named as manager of his brother John's 1958 Senate re-election campaign; Ted's ability to connect with ordinary voters on the street helped bring a record-setting victory margin that gave credibility to John's presidential aspirations. Ted graduated from law school in 1959.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In October 1957 (early in his second year of law school), Kennedy met Joan Bennett at Manhattanville College; they were introduced after a dedication speech for a gymnasium that his family had donated at the campus. Bennett was a senior at Manhattanville and had worked as a model and won beauty contests, but she was unfamiliar with the world of politics. After the couple became engaged, she grew nervous about marrying someone she did not know that well, but Joe Kennedy insisted that the wedding should proceed. The couple was married by Cardinal Francis Spellman on November 29, 1958, at St. Joseph's Church in Bronxville, New York, with the reception being held at the nearby Siwanoy Country Club. Ted and Joan had three children: Kara (1960–2011), Ted Jr. (b. 1961) and Patrick (b. 1967). By the 1970s, the marriage was in trouble due to Ted's infidelity and Joan's growing alcoholism.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1959. In 1960, his brother John announced his candidacy for President of the United States and Ted managed his campaign in the Western states. Ted learned to fly and during the Democratic primary campaign he barnstormed around the western states, meeting with delegates and bonding with them by trying his hand at ski jumping and bronc riding. The seven weeks he spent in Wisconsin helped his brother win the first contested primary of the season there and a similar time spent in Wyoming was rewarded when a unanimous vote from that state's delegates put his brother over the top at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Following his victory in the presidential election, John resigned from his seat as U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, but Ted was not eligible to fill the vacancy until his thirtieth birthday on February 22, 1962. Ted initially wanted to stay out west and do something other than run for office right away; he said, "The disadvantage of my position is being constantly compared with two brothers of such superior ability." Ted's brothers were not in favor of his running immediately, but Ted ultimately coveted the Senate seat as an accomplishment to match his brothers, and their father overruled them. Therefore, John asked Massachusetts Governor Foster Furcolo to name Kennedy family friend Ben Smith as interim senator for John's unexpired term, which he did in December 1960. This kept the seat available for Ted.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Meanwhile, Ted started work in February 1961 as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County, Massachusetts (for which he took a nominal $1 salary), where he first developed a hard-nosed attitude towards crime. He took many overseas trips, billed as fact-finding tours with the goal of improving his foreign policy credentials. On a nine-nation Latin American trip in 1961, FBI reports from the time showed Kennedy meeting with Lauchlin Currie, an alleged former Soviet spy, together with locals in each country whom the reports deemed left-wingers and Communist sympathizers. Reports from the FBI and other sources had Kennedy renting a brothel and opening up bordellos after hours during the tour. The Latin American trip helped to formulate Kennedy's foreign policy views, and in subsequent "Boston Globe" columns he warned that the region might turn to Communism if the U.S. did not reach out to it in a more effective way. Kennedy also began speaking to local political clubs and organizations.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In the 1962 U.S. Senate special election in Massachusetts, Kennedy initially faced a Democratic Party primary challenge from Edward J. McCormack Jr., the state Attorney General. Kennedy's slogan was "He can do more for Massachusetts", the same one John had used in his first campaign for the seat ten years earlier. McCormack had the support of many liberals and intellectuals, who thought Kennedy inexperienced and knew of his suspension from Harvard, a fact which later became public during the race. Kennedy also faced the notion that with one brother President and another U.S. Attorney General, "Don't you think that Teddy is one Kennedy too many?" But Kennedy proved to be an effective street-level campaigner. In a televised debate, McCormack said "The office of United States Senator should be merited, and not inherited," and said that if his opponent's name was Edward Moore, not Edward Moore Kennedy, his candidacy "would be a joke". Voters thought McCormack's performance overbearing, and with the family political machine's finally getting fully behind him, Kennedy won the September 1962 primary by a two-to-one margin. In the November special election, Kennedy defeated Republican George Cabot Lodge II, product of another noted Massachusetts political family, gaining 55 percent of the vote.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy was sworn into the Senate on November 7, 1962. He maintained a deferential attitude towards the older, seniority-laden Southern members when he first entered the Senate, avoiding publicity and focusing on committee work and local issues. Compared to his brothers in office, he lacked John's sophistication and Robert's intense, sometimes grating drive, but was more affable than either of them. He was favored by Senator James Eastland, chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee. Vice President Lyndon Johnson, despite his feuds with John and Robert Kennedy, liked Ted and told close aides that he “had the potential to be the best politician in the whole family.”


title: Ted Kennedy

text: On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was presiding over the Senate—a task given to junior members—when an aide rushed in to tell him that his brother, President Kennedy, had been shot. His brother Robert soon told him that the President was dead. Ted and his sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver immediately flew to the family home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, to give the news to their invalid father, who had been afflicted by a stroke suffered two years earlier.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: On June 19, 1964, Kennedy was a passenger in a private Aero Commander 680 airplane that was flying in bad weather from Washington to Massachusetts. The plane crashed into an apple orchard in the western Massachusetts town of Southampton on the final approach to the Barnes Municipal Airport in Westfield. The pilot and Edward Moss (one of Kennedy's aides) were killed. Kennedy was pulled from the wreckage by fellow Senator Birch Bayh, and spent months in a hospital recovering from a severe back injury, a punctured lung, broken ribs and internal bleeding. He suffered chronic back pain for the rest of his life as a result of the accident. Kennedy took advantage of his long convalescence to meet with academics and study issues more closely, and the hospital experience triggered his lifelong interest in the provision of health care services. His wife Joan did the campaigning for him in the regular 1964 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, and he defeated his Republican opponent by a three-to-one margin.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy was walking with a cane when he returned to the Senate in January 1965. He employed a stronger and more effective legislative staff. He took on President Lyndon B. Johnson and almost succeeded in amending the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to explicitly ban the poll tax at the state and local level (rather than just directing the Attorney General to challenge its constitutionality there), thereby gaining a reputation for legislative skill. He was a leader in pushing through the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which ended a quota system based upon national origin. He also played a role in the creation of the National Teachers Corps.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Following in the Cold Warrior path of his fallen brother, Kennedy initially said he had "no reservations" about the expanding U.S. role in the Vietnam War and acknowledged that it would be a "long and enduring struggle". Kennedy held hearings on the plight of refugees in the conflict, which revealed that the U.S. government had no coherent policy for refugees. Kennedy also tried to reform "unfair" and "inequitable" aspects of the draft. By the time of a January 1968 trip to Vietnam, Kennedy was disillusioned by the lack of U.S. progress, and suggested publicly that the U.S. should tell South Vietnam, "Shape up or we're going to ship out."


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Ted initially advised his brother Robert against challenging the incumbent President Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic nomination in the 1968 presidential election. Once Eugene McCarthy's strong showing in the New Hampshire primary led to Robert's presidential campaign starting in March 1968, Ted recruited political leaders for endorsements to his brother in the western states. Ted was in San Francisco when his brother Robert won the crucial California primary on June 4, 1968, and then after midnight, Robert was shot in Los Angeles and died a day later. Ted Kennedy was devastated by his brother's death, as he was closest to Robert among those in the Kennedy family. Kennedy aide Frank Mankiewicz said of seeing Ted at the hospital where Robert lay mortally wounded: "I have never, ever, nor do I expect ever, to see a face more in grief." At Robert's funeral, Kennedy eulogized his older brother:


title: Ted Kennedy

text: At the chaotic August 1968 Democratic National Convention, Mayor of Chicago Richard J. Daley and some other party factions feared that Hubert Humphrey could not unite the party, and so encouraged Ted Kennedy to make himself available for a draft. The 36-year-old Kennedy was seen as the natural heir to his brothers, and "Draft Ted" movements sprang up from various quarters and among delegates. Thinking that he was only being seen as a stand-in for his brother and that he was not ready for the job himself, and getting an uncertain reaction from McCarthy and a negative one from Southern delegates, Kennedy rejected any move to place his name before the convention as a candidate for the nomination. He also declined consideration for the vice-presidential spot. George McGovern remained the symbolic standard-bearer for Robert's delegates instead.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: After the deaths of his brothers, Kennedy took on the role of a surrogate father for his 13 nephews and nieces. By some reports, he also negotiated the October 1968 marital contract between Jacqueline Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Following Republican Richard Nixon's victory in November, Kennedy was widely assumed to be the front-runner for the 1972 Democratic nomination.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In January 1969, Kennedy defeated Louisiana Senator Russell B. Long by a 31–26 margin to become Senate Majority Whip, the youngest person to attain that position. While this further boosted his presidential image, he also appeared conflicted by the inevitability of having to run for the position; "Few who knew him doubted that in one sense he very much wanted to take that path", "Time" magazine reported, but "he had a fatalistic, almost doomed feeling about the prospect". The reluctance was in part due to the danger; Kennedy reportedly observed, "I know that I'm going to get my ass shot off one day, and I don't want to." Indeed, there were a constant series of death threats made against Kennedy for much of the rest of his career.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: On the night of July 18, 1969, Kennedy was at Chappaquiddick Island on the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard. He was hosting a party for the Boiler Room Girls, a group of young women who had worked on his brother Robert's ill-fated 1968 presidential campaign. Kennedy left the party with one of the women, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Driving a 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88, he attempted to cross the Dike Bridge, which did not have a guardrail at that time. Kennedy lost control of his vehicle and crashed in the Poucha Pond inlet, which was a tidal channel on Chappaquiddick Island. Kennedy escaped from the overturned vehicle, and, by his description, dove below the surface seven or eight times, vainly attempting to reach and rescue Kopechne. Ultimately, he swam to shore and left the scene, with Kopechne still trapped inside the vehicle. Kennedy did not report the accident to authorities until the next morning, by which time Kopechne's body had already been discovered. Kennedy's cousin Joe Gargan later said that both he and Kennedy's friend Paul Markham, both of whom were at the party and came to the scene, had urged Kennedy to report it at the time.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: A week after the incident, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a suspended sentence of two months in jail. That night, he gave a national broadcast in which he said, "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately," but he denied driving under the influence of alcohol and also denied any immoral conduct between him and Kopechne. Kennedy asked the Massachusetts electorate whether he should stay in office or resign; after getting a favorable response in messages sent to him, Kennedy announced on July 30 that he would remain in the Senate and run for re-election the next year.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In January 1970, an inquest into Kopechne's death was held in Edgartown, Massachusetts. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered the inquest to be conducted in secret. The presiding judge, James A. Boyle, concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's story of that night were not true, and that negligent driving "appears to have contributed" to the death of Kopechne. A grand jury on Martha's Vineyard conducted a two-day investigation in April 1970 but issued no indictment, after which Boyle made his inquest report public. Kennedy deemed its conclusions "not justified." Questions about the Chappaquiddick incident generated a large number of articles and books during the following years.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: At the end of 1968, Kennedy had joined the new Committee for National Health Insurance at the invitation of its founder, United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther. In May 1970, Reuther died and Senator Ralph Yarborough, chairman of the full Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee and its Health subcommittee, lost his primary election, propelling Kennedy into a leadership role on the issue of national health insurance. Kennedy introduced a bipartisan bill in August 1970 for single-payer universal national health insurance with no cost sharing, paid for by payroll taxes and general federal revenue.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Despite the Chappaquiddick controversy of the previous year, Kennedy easily won re-election to another term in the Senate in November 1970 with 62 percent of the vote against underfunded Republican candidate Josiah Spaulding, although he received about 500,000 fewer votes than in 1964.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In January 1971, Kennedy lost his position as Senate Majority Whip to Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, 31–24. He would later tell Byrd that the defeat was a blessing, as it allowed him to focus more on issues and committee work, where his best strengths lay and where he could exert influence independently from the Democratic party apparatus. He began a decade as chairman of the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In February 1971, President Nixon proposed health insurance reform—an employer mandate to offer private health insurance if employees volunteered to pay 25 percent of premiums, federalization of Medicaid for the poor with dependent minor children, and support for health maintenance organizations. Hearings on national health insurance were held in 1971, but no bill had the support of House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committee chairmen Representative Wilbur Mills and Senator Russell Long. Kennedy sponsored and helped pass the limited Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973. He also played a leading role, with Senator Jacob Javits, in the creation and passage of the National Cancer Act of 1971.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In October 1971, Kennedy made his first speech about The Troubles in Northern Ireland: he said that "Ulster is becoming Britain's Vietnam", advocating for the withdrawal of British troops from the six northern counties, called for a united Ireland, and declared that Ulster Unionists who could not accept this "should be given a decent opportunity to go back to Britain" (a position he backed away from within a couple of years). Kennedy was sharply criticised by the British and Ulster unionists, and he formed a long political relationship with Social Democratic and Labour Party founder John Hume. In scores of anti-war speeches, Kennedy opposed President Richard Nixon's policy of Vietnamization, calling it "a policy of violence [that] means more and more war". In December 1971, Kennedy strongly criticized the Nixon administration's support for Pakistan and its ignoring of "the brutal and systematic repression of East Bengal by the Pakistani army". He traveled to India and wrote a report on the plight of the 10 million Bengali refugees. In February 1972, Kennedy flew to Bangladesh and delivered a speech at the University of Dhaka, where a killing rampage had begun a year earlier.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: The death of Mary Jo Kopechne in the Chappaquiddick incident had greatly hindered Kennedy's future presidential prospects, and shortly after the incident he declared that he would not be a candidate in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. Nevertheless, polls in 1971 suggested he could win the nomination if he tried, and Kennedy gave some thought to running. In May of that year he decided not to, saying he needed "breathing time" to gain more experience and to take care of the children of his brothers and that in sum, "It feels wrong in my gut." Nevertheless, in November 1971, a Gallup Poll still had him in first place in the Democratic nomination race with 28 percent. George McGovern was close to clinching the Democratic nomination in June 1972, when various anti-McGovern forces tried to get Kennedy to enter the contest at the last minute, but he declined. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, McGovern repeatedly tried to recruit Kennedy as his vice presidential running mate, but Kennedy turned him down. When McGovern's choice of Thomas Eagleton stepped down soon after the convention, McGovern again tried to get Kennedy to take the nod, again without success. McGovern instead chose Kennedy's brother-in-law Sargent Shriver.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In 1973, Kennedy's 12-year-old son Edward Kennedy Jr., was diagnosed with bone cancer; his leg was amputated and he underwent a long, difficult, experimental two-year drug treatment. The case brought international attention among doctors and in the general media, as did the young Kennedy's return to the ski slopes half a year later. Son Patrick was suffering from severe asthma attacks. The pressure of the situation mounted on Joan Kennedy. On several occasions, she entered facilities for treatment of alcoholism and emotional strain. In addition, she was arrested for drunk driving after a traffic accident.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In February 1974, President Nixon proposed more comprehensive health insurance reform—an employer mandate to offer private health insurance if employees volunteered to pay 25 percent of premiums, replacement of Medicaid by state-run health insurance plans available to all with income-based premiums and cost sharing, and replacement of Medicare with a new federal program that eliminated the limit on hospital days, added income-based out-of-pocket limits, and added outpatient prescription drug coverage. In April 1974, Kennedy and Mills introduced a bill for near-universal national health insurance with benefits identical to the expanded Nixon plan—but with mandatory participation by employers and employees through payroll taxes—both plans were criticized by labor, consumer, and senior citizen organizations because of their substantial cost sharing. In August 1974, after Nixon's resignation and President Ford's call for health insurance reform, Mills tried to advance a compromise based on Nixon's plan—but with mandatory participation by employers and employees through premiums to private health insurance companies—but gave up when unable to get more than a 13–12 majority of his committee to support his compromise plan.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Kennedy pushed campaign finance reform; he was a leading force behind passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, which set contribution limits and established public financing for presidential elections. In April 1974, Kennedy travelled to the Soviet Union, where he met with leader Leonid Brezhnev and advocated a full nuclear test ban as well as relaxed emigration, gave a speech at Moscow State University, met with Soviet dissidents, and secured an exit visa for famed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Kennedy's Subcommittee on Refugees and Escapees continued to focus on Vietnam, especially after the Fall of Saigon in 1975.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy had initially opposed busing schoolchildren across racial lines, but grew to support the practice as it became a focal point of civil rights efforts. After federal judge W. Arthur Garrity ordered the Boston School Committee in 1974 to racially integrate Boston's public schools via busing, Kennedy made a surprise appearance at a September 1974 anti-busing rally in City Hall Plaza to express the need for peaceful dialogue and was met with extreme hostility. The predominantly white crowd yelled insults about his children and hurled tomatoes and eggs at him as he retreated into the John F. Kennedy Federal Building and went so far as to push against one of its glass walls and break it.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy was again much talked about as a contender in the 1976 U.S. presidential election, with no strong front-runners among the other possible Democratic candidates. Kennedy's concerns about his family were strong, and Chappaquiddick was still in the news, with "The Boston Globe", "The New York Times Magazine", and "Time" magazine all reassessing the incident and raising doubts about Kennedy's version of events. In September 1974, Kennedy announced that for family reasons he would not run in the 1976 election, declaring that his decision was "firm, final, and unconditional." The eventual Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter, built little by way of a relationship with Kennedy during his primary campaign, the convention, or the general election campaign. Kennedy was up for Senate re-election in 1976. He defeated a primary challenger who was angry at his support for school busing in Boston. Kennedy then won the general election with 69 percent of the vote.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: The Carter administration years were difficult for Kennedy; he had been the most important Democrat in Washington ever since his brother Robert's death, but now Carter was, and Kennedy at first did not have a full committee chairmanship with which to wield influence. Carter in turn sometimes resented Kennedy's status as a political celebrity. Despite generally similar ideologies, their priorities were different. Kennedy expressed to reporters that he was content with his congressional role and viewed presidential ambitions as almost far-fetched.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy and his wife Joan separated in 1977, although they still staged joint appearances at some public events. He held Health and Scientific Research Subcommittee hearings in March 1977 that led to public revelations of extensive scientific misconduct by contract research organizations, including Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories. Kennedy visited China on a goodwill mission in late December 1977, meeting with leader Deng Xiaoping and eventually gaining permission for a number of Mainland Chinese nationals to leave the country; in 1978, he also visited the Soviet Union and Brezhnev and dissidents there again. During the 1970s, Kennedy also showed interest in nuclear disarmament, and as part of his efforts in this field even visited Hiroshima in January 1978 and gave a public speech to that effect at Hiroshima University. He became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1978, by which time he had amassed a wide-ranging Senate staff of a hundred.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: As a candidate, Carter had proposed health care reform that included key features of Kennedy's national health insurance bill, but in December 1977, President Carter told Kennedy his bill must be changed to preserve a large role for private insurance companies, minimize federal spending (precluding payroll tax financing), and be phased-in so as to not interfere with Carter's paramount domestic policy objective—balancing the federal budget. Kennedy and labor compromised and made the requested changes, but broke with Carter in July 1978 when he would not commit to pursuing a single bill with a fixed schedule for phasing-in comprehensive coverage. Frustrated by Carter's budgetary concerns and political caution, in a December 1978 speech on national health insurance at the Democratic midterm convention, Kennedy said regarding liberal goals overall that "sometimes a party must sail against the wind" and in particular should provide health care as "a basic right for all, not just an expensive privilege for the few."


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In May 1979, Kennedy proposed a new bipartisan universal national health insurance bill—choice of competing federally regulated private health insurance plans with no cost sharing financed by income-based premiums via an employer mandate and individual mandate, replacement of Medicaid by government payment of premiums to private insurers, and enhancement of Medicare by adding prescription drug coverage and eliminating premiums and cost sharing. In June 1979, Carter proposed more limited health insurance reform—an employer mandate to provide catastrophic private health insurance plus coverage without cost sharing for pregnant women and infants, federalization of Medicaid with extension to all of the very poor, and enhancement of Medicare by adding catastrophic coverage. Neither plan gained any traction in Congress, and the failure to come to agreement represented the final political breach between the two. (Carter wrote in 1982 that Kennedy's disagreements with Carter's proposed approach "ironically" thwarted Carter's efforts to provide a comprehensive health-care system for the country. In turn, Kennedy wrote in 2009 that his relationship with Carter was "unhealthy" and that "Clearly President Carter was a difficult man to convince – of anything.")


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy finally decided to seek the Democratic nomination in the 1980 presidential election by launching an unusual, insurgent campaign against the incumbent Carter. A midsummer 1978 poll showed that Democrats preferred Kennedy over Carter by a 5-to-3 margin. During spring and summer 1979, as Kennedy deliberated whether to run, Carter was not intimidated despite his 28 percent approval rating, saying publicly: "If Kennedy runs, I'll whip his ass." Carter later asserted that Kennedy's constant criticism of his policies was a strong indicator that Kennedy was planning to run for the presidency. Labor unions urged Kennedy to run, as did some Democratic party officials who feared that Carter's unpopularity could result in heavy losses in the 1980 congressional elections. Kennedy decided to run in August 1979, when polls showed him with a 2-to-1 advantage over Carter; Carter's approval rating slipped to 19 percent. Kennedy formally announced his campaign on November 7, 1979, at Boston's Faneuil Hall. He had already received substantial negative press from a rambling response to the question "Why do you want to be President?" during an interview with Roger Mudd of CBS News broadcast a few days earlier. The Iranian hostage crisis, which began on November 4, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which began on December 27, prompted the electorate to rally around the president and allowed Carter to pursue a Rose Garden strategy of staying at the White House, which kept Kennedy's campaign out of the headlines.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy's campaign staff was disorganized and Kennedy was initially an ineffective campaigner. The Chappaquiddick incident emerged as a more significant issue than the staff had expected, with several newspaper columnists and editorials criticizing Kennedy's answers on the matter. In the January 1980 Iowa caucuses that initiated the primaries season, Carter demolished Kennedy by a 59–31 percent margin. Kennedy's fundraising immediately declined and his campaign had to downsize, but he remained defiant, saying "[Now] we'll see who is going to whip whose what." Nevertheless, Kennedy lost three New England contests. Kennedy did form a more coherent message about why he was running, saying at Georgetown University: "I believe we must not permit the dream of social progress to be shattered by those whose premises have failed." However, concerns over Chappaquiddick and issues related to personal character prevented Kennedy from gaining the support of many people who were disillusioned with Carter. During a St. Patrick's Day Parade in Chicago, Kennedy had to wear a bullet-proof vest due to assassination threats, and hecklers yelled "Where's Mary Jo?" at him. In the key March 18 primary in Illinois, Kennedy failed to gain the support of Catholic voters, and Carter crushed him, winning 155 of 169 delegates.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: With little mathematical hope of winning the nomination and polls showing another likely defeat in the New York primary, Kennedy prepared to withdraw from the race. However, partially due to Jewish voter unhappiness with a U.S. vote at the United Nations against Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Kennedy staged an upset and won the March 25 vote by a 59–41 percent margin. Carter responded with an advertising campaign that attacked Kennedy's character in general without explicitly mentioning Chappaquiddick, but Kennedy still managed a narrow win in the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. Carter won 11 of 12 primaries held in May, while on the June 3 Super Tuesday primaries, Kennedy won California, New Jersey, and three smaller states out of eight contests. Overall, Kennedy had won 10 presidential primaries against Carter, who won 24.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Although Carter now had enough delegates to clinch the nomination, Kennedy carried his campaign on to the 1980 Democratic National Convention in August in New York, hoping to pass a rule there that would free delegates from being bound by primary results and open the convention. This move failed on the first night of the convention, and Kennedy withdrew. On the second night, August 12, Kennedy delivered the most famous speech of his career. Drawing on allusions to and quotes of Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Alfred Lord Tennyson to say that American liberalism was not passé, he concluded with the words:


title: Ted Kennedy

text: The Madison Square Garden audience reacted with wild applause and demonstrations for half an hour. On the final night, Kennedy arrived late after Carter's acceptance speech and while he shook Carter's hand, he failed to raise Carter's arm in the traditional show of party unity. Carter's difficulty in securing the assistance of Kennedy supporters during the election campaign contributed to his November defeat by Ronald Reagan.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: The 1980 election saw the Republicans capture not just the presidency but control of the Senate as well, and Kennedy was in the minority party for the first time in his career. Kennedy did not dwell upon his presidential loss, but instead reaffirmed his public commitment to American liberalism. He chose to become the ranking member of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee rather than of the Judiciary Committee, which he would later say was one of the most important decisions of his career. Kennedy became a committed champion of women's issues, and established relationships with select Republican senators to block Reagan's actions and preserve and improve the Voting Rights Act, funding for AIDS treatment, and equal funding for women's sports under Title IX. To combat being in the minority, he worked long hours and devised a series of hearings-like public forums to which he could invite experts and discuss topics important to him. Kennedy could not hope to stop all of Reagan's reshapings of government, but was often nearly the sole effective Democrat battling him.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In January 1981, Ted and Joan Kennedy announced they were getting a divorce. The proceedings were generally amicable, and she received a reported $4 million settlement when the divorce was granted in 1982. Later that year, Kennedy created the Friends of Ireland organization with Senator Daniel Moynihan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill to support initiatives for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy easily defeated Republican businessman Ray Shamie to win re-election in 1982. Senate leaders granted him a seat on the Armed Services Committee, while allowing him to keep his other major seats despite the traditional limit of two such seats. Kennedy became very visible in opposing aspects of the foreign policy of the Reagan administration, including U.S. intervention in the Salvadoran Civil War and U.S. support for the Contras in Nicaragua, and in opposing Reagan-supported weapons systems, including the B-1 bomber, the MX missile, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Kennedy became the Senate's leading advocate for a nuclear freeze and was a critic of Reagan's confrontational policies toward the Soviet Union.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: A 1983 KGB memo indicates that Kennedy engaged in back-channel communication with the Soviet Union. According to a May 14, 1983, memorandum from KGB chairman Viktor Chebrikov to general secretary Yuri Andropov, former U.S. Senator John Tunney—a friend and former college roommate of Kennedy's—visited Moscow that month and conveyed a message from Kennedy to Andropov. The memo indicates that the stated purpose of the communication was to "'root out the threat of nuclear war', 'improve Soviet-American relations' and 'define the safety of the world'". Chebrikov wrote that Kennedy was "'very troubled by the current state of Soviet-American relations'" and believed that the "'only real threats to Reagan [were] problems of war and peace and Soviet-American relations'". Chebrikov added that those issues, "'according to the senator, will without a doubt become the most important of the [1984] election campaign'". Kennedy reportedly offered to visit Moscow "'to arm Soviet officials with explanations regarding problems of nuclear disarmament so they may be better prepared and more convincing during appearances in the USA'" and to set up U.S. television appearances for Andropov.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Chebrikov also noted "a little-hidden secret that [Kennedy] intended to run for president in 1988 and that the Democratic Party 'may officially turn to him to lead the fight against the Republicans' in 1984 — turning the proposal from one purely about international cooperation to one tinged with personal political aspiration." Andropov was unimpressed by Kennedy's overtures. After the Chebrikov memo was unearthed, both Tunney and a Kennedy spokesperson denied that it was true. Former Reagan administration negotiator Max Kampelman has asserted that Kennedy did engage in back-channel communications with the Soviet Union, but added that he "'learned that the senator never acted or received information without informing the appropriate United States agency or official'". Kenneth Adelman, a deputy ambassador to the United Nations under Reagan, has asserted that the Reagan administration knew of back-channel communications between various senators and the Soviet Union and were unconcerned about the practice.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy's staff drew up detailed plans for a candidacy in the 1984 presidential election that he considered, but with his family opposed and his realization that the Senate was a fully satisfying career, in late 1982 he decided not to run. Kennedy campaigned hard for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale and defended vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro from criticism over being a pro-choice Catholic, but Reagan was re-elected in a landslide.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy staged a tiring, dangerous, and high-profile trip to South Africa in January 1985. He defied both the apartheid government's wishes and militant leftist AZAPO demonstrators by spending a night in the Soweto home of Bishop Desmond Tutu and also visited Winnie Mandela, wife of imprisoned black leader Nelson Mandela. Upon returning, Kennedy became a leader in the push for economic sanctions against South Africa; collaborating with Senator Lowell Weicker, he secured Senate passage, and the overriding of Reagan's veto, of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986. Despite their many political differences, Kennedy and Reagan had a good personal relationship, and with the administration's approval Kennedy traveled to the Soviet Union in 1986 to act as a go-between in arms control negotiations with reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The discussions were productive, and Kennedy also helped gain the release of a number of Soviet Jewish refuseniks, including Anatoly Shcharansky.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Although Kennedy was an accomplished legislator, his personal life was troubled during this time. His weight fluctuated wildly, he drank heavily at times – although not when it would interfere with his Senate duties – and his cheeks became blotchy. Kennedy later acknowledged, "I went through a lot of difficult times over a period in my life where [drinking] may have been somewhat of a factor or force." He chased women frequently, and also was in a series of more serious romantic relationships but did not want to commit to anything long-term. He often caroused with fellow Senator Chris Dodd; twice in 1985 they were in drunken incidents in Washington restaurants, with one involving unwelcome physical contact with a waitress, who claimed the pair sexually assaulted her. In 1987, Kennedy and a young female lobbyist were surprised in the back room of a restaurant in a state of partial undress. Female Senate staffers from the late 1980s and early 1990s recalled that Kennedy was on an informal list of male Senators who were known for harassing women regularly, such as while alone in elevators.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: After again considering a candidacy for the 1988 presidential election, in December 1985 Kennedy publicly cut short any talk that he might run. This decision was influenced by his personal difficulties, family concerns, and content with remaining in the Senate. He added: "I know this decision means I may never be president. But the pursuit of the presidency is not my life. Public service is." Kennedy used his legislative skills to achieve passage of the COBRA Act, which extended employer-based health benefits after leaving a job. Following the 1986 congressional elections, the Democrats regained control of the Senate, and Kennedy became chair of the Labor and Public Welfare Committee. By now Kennedy had become what colleague, future Vice President and President, Joe Biden, termed "the best strategist in the Senate," who always knew when best to move legislation. Kennedy continued his close working relationship with ranking Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, and they were close allies on many health-related measures.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: One of Kennedy's biggest battles in the Senate came with Reagan's July 1987 nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kennedy saw a possible Bork appointment as leading to a dismantling of civil rights law that he had helped put into place, and feared Bork's originalist judicial philosophy. Kennedy's staff had researched Bork's writings and record, and within an hour of the nomination – which was initially expected to succeed – Kennedy went on the Senate floor to announce his opposition:


title: Ted Kennedy

text: The incendiary rhetoric of what became known as the "Robert Bork's America" speech enraged Bork supporters, who considered it slanderous, and worried some Democrats as well. Bork responded, "There was not a line in that speech that was accurate." In 1988, an analysis published in the "Western Political Quarterly" of "amicus curiae" briefs filed by U.S. Solicitors General during the Warren and Burger Courts found that during Bork's tenure in the position during the Nixon and Ford Administrations (1973–1977), Bork took liberal positions in the aggregate as often as Thurgood Marshall did during the Johnson Administration (1965–1967) and more often than Wade H. McCree did during the Carter Administration (1977–1981), in part because Bork filed briefs in favor of the litigates in civil rights cases 75 percent of the time (contradicting a previous review of his civil rights record published in 1983).


title: Ted Kennedy

text: However, the Reagan administration was unprepared for the assault, and the speech froze some Democrats from supporting the nomination and gave Kennedy and other Bork opponents time to prepare the case against him. When the September 1987 Judiciary Committee hearings began, Kennedy challenged Bork forcefully on civil rights, privacy, women's rights, and other issues. Bork's own demeanor hurt him, and the nomination was defeated both in committee and the full Senate. The tone of the Bork battle changed the way Washington worked – with controversial nominees or candidates now experiencing all-out war waged against them – and the ramifications of it were still being felt decades later.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: During the 1988 presidential election, Kennedy supported the eventual Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, from the start of the campaign. In the fall, Dukakis lost to George H. W. Bush, but Kennedy won re-election to the Senate over Republican Joseph D. Malone in the easiest race of his career. Kennedy remained a powerful force in the Senate. In 1988 Kennedy co-sponsored an amendment to the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibits discrimination in the rental, sale, marketing, and financing of the nation's housing; the amendment strengthened the ability of the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to enforce the Act and expanded the protected classes to include disabled persons and families with children. After prolonged negotiations during 1989 with Bush chief of staff John H. Sununu and Attorney General Richard Thornburgh to secure Bush's approval, he directed passage of the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. Kennedy had personal interest in the bill due to his sister Rosemary's condition and his son's lost leg, and he considered its enactment one of the most important successes of his career. In the late 1980s Kennedy and Hatch staged a prolonged battle against Senator Jesse Helms to provide funding to combat the AIDS epidemic and provide treatment for low-income people affected; this would culminate in passage of the Ryan White Care Act. In late November 1989, Kennedy traveled to see first-hand the newly fallen Berlin Wall; he spoke at John-F.-Kennedy-Platz, site of the famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech in 1963, and said "Emotionally, I just wish my brother could have seen it."


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy's personal life came to dominate his image. In 1989, paparazzi stalked him on a vacation in Europe and photographed him having sex on a motorboat. In February 1990, Michael Kelly published his long, thorough profile "Ted Kennedy on the Rocks" in "GQ" magazine. It captured Kennedy as "an aging Irish boyo clutching a bottle and diddling a blonde," portrayed him as an out-of-control Regency rake, and brought his behavior to the forefront of public attention. Kennedy's brother-in-law, Stephen Edward Smith, died from cancer in August 1990; Smith was a close family member and troubleshooter, and his death left Kennedy emotionally bereft. Kennedy pushed on, but even his legislative successes, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which expanded employee rights in discrimination cases, came at the cost of being criticized for compromising with Republicans and Southern Democrats.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: On Easter weekend 1991, Kennedy was at a get-together at the family's Palm Beach, Florida, estate. After reminiscing about his brother-in-law, Kennedy was restless and maudlin when he left for a late-night visit to a local bar. He got his son Patrick and nephew William Kennedy Smith to accompany him. Patrick Kennedy and Smith returned with women they met there, Michelle Cassone and Patricia Bowman. Cassone said that Ted Kennedy subsequently walked in on her and Patrick, who was dressed only in a nightshirt and had a weird look on his face. Smith and Bowman went out on the beach, where they had sex that he said was consensual but she said was rape. The local police made a delayed investigation; Kennedy sources were soon feeding the press with negative information about Bowman's background, and several mainstream newspapers broke an unwritten rule by publishing her name. The case quickly became a media frenzy. While not directly implicated in the case, Kennedy became the frequent butt of jokes on "The Tonight Show" and other late-night television programs. "Time" magazine said Kennedy was being perceived as a "Palm Beach boozer, lout and tabloid grotesque" while "Newsweek" said Kennedy was "the living symbol of the family flaws".


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Bork and Clarence Thomas were the two most contentious Supreme Court nominations in United States history. When the Thomas hearings began in September 1991, Kennedy pressed Thomas on his unwillingness to express an opinion about "Roe v. Wade", but the nomination appeared headed for success. When Anita Hill brought the sexual harassment charges against Thomas the following month, the nomination battle dominated public discourse. Kennedy was hamstrung by his past reputation and the ongoing developments in the William Kennedy Smith case. He said almost nothing until the third day of the Thomas–Hill hearings, and when he did it was criticized by Hill supporters for being too little, too late.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Biographer Adam Clymer rated Kennedy's silence during the Thomas hearings as the worst moment of his Senate career. Writer Anna Quindlen said "[Kennedy] let us down because he had to; he was muzzled by the facts of his life". On the day before the full Senate vote, Kennedy gave an impassioned speech against Thomas, declaring that the treatment of Hill had been "shameful" and that "[t]o give the benefit of the doubt to Judge Thomas is to say that Judge Thomas is more important than the Supreme Court." He then voted against the nomination. Thomas was confirmed by a 52–48 vote, one of the narrowest margins ever for a successful nomination.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Due to the Palm Beach media attention and the Thomas hearings, Kennedy's public image suffered. A Gallup Poll gave Kennedy a very low 22 percent national approval rating. A "Boston Herald"/WCVB-TV poll found that 62 percent of Massachusetts citizens thought Kennedy should not run for re-election, by a 2-to-1 margin thought Kennedy had misled authorities in the Palm Beach investigation, and had Kennedy losing a hypothetical Senate race to Governor William Weld by 25 points. Meanwhile, at a June 17, 1991, dinner party, Kennedy saw Victoria Anne Reggie, a Washington lawyer at Keck, Mahin & Cate, a divorced mother of two, and the daughter of an old Kennedy family ally, Louisiana judge Edmund Reggie. They began dating and by September were in a serious relationship. In a late October speech at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Kennedy sought to begin a political recovery, saying: "I am painfully aware that the criticism directed at me in recent months involves far more than disagreements with my positions ... [It] involves the disappointment of friends and many others who rely on me to fight the good fight. To them I say, I recognize my own shortcomings – the faults in the conduct of my private life. I realize that I alone am responsible for them, and I am the one who must confront them." In December 1991, the William Kennedy Smith rape trial was held; it was nationally televised and the most watched until the O. J. Simpson murder case three years later. Kennedy's testimony at the trial seemed relaxed, confident, and forthcoming, and helped convince the public that his involvement had been peripheral and unintended. Smith was acquitted.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy and Reggie continued their relationship, and he was devoted to her two children, Curran and Caroline, who had the same name as his niece. They became engaged in March 1992, and were married in a civil ceremony by Judge A. David Mazzone on July 3, 1992, at Kennedy's home in McLean, Virginia. She would gain credit with stabilizing his personal life and helping him resume a productive career in the Senate.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy had no further presidential ambitions. Despite having initially backed former fellow Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas in the 1992 Democratic presidential primaries, Kennedy formed a good relationship with Democratic President Bill Clinton upon the latter taking office in 1993. Kennedy floor-managed successful passage of Clinton's National and Community Service Trust Act of 1993 that created the AmeriCorps program, and despite reservations supported the president on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). On the issue Kennedy cared most about, national health insurance, he supported but was not much involved in formation of the Clinton health care plan, which was run by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and others. It failed badly and damaged the prospects for such legislation for years to come. In 1994, Kennedy's strong recommendation of his former Judiciary Committee staffer Stephen Breyer played a role in Clinton appointing Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court. During 1994 Kennedy became the first senator with a home page on the World Wide Web; the product of an effort with the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, it helped counter the image of Kennedy as old and out of touch.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Massachusetts, Kennedy faced his first serious challenger, the young, telegenic, and very well-funded Mitt Romney. Romney ran as a successful entrepreneur and Washington outsider with a strong family image and moderate stands on social issues, while Kennedy was saddled not only with his recent past but the 25th anniversary of Chappaquiddick and his first wife Joan seeking a renegotiated divorce settlement. By mid-September 1994, polls showed the race to be even. Kennedy's campaign ran short on money, and belying his image as endlessly wealthy, he was forced to take out a second mortgage on his Virginia home. Kennedy responded with a series of attack ads, which focused both on Romney's shifting political views and on the treatment of workers at a paper products plant owned by Romney's Bain Capital. Kennedy's new wife Vicki proved to be a strong asset in campaigning. Kennedy and Romney held a widely watched late October debate without a clear winner, but by then Kennedy had pulled ahead in polls and stayed ahead afterward. In the November election, despite a very bad outcome for the Democratic Party nationally, Kennedy won re-election by a 58 percent to 41 percent margin, the closest re-election race of his career.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy's mother Rose died in January 1995 at the age of 104. From then on, Kennedy intensified the practice of his Catholic faith, often attending Mass several times a week.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy's role as a liberal lion in the Senate came to the fore in 1995, when the Republican Revolution took control and legislation intending to fulfill the Contract with America was coming from Newt Gingrich's House of Representatives. Many Democrats in the Senate and the country overall felt depressed but Kennedy rallied forces to combat the Republicans. By the beginning of 1996, the Republicans had overreached; most of the Contract had failed to pass the Senate and the Democrats could once again move forward with legislation, almost all of it coming out of Kennedy's staff.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: In 1996, Kennedy secured an increase in the minimum wage, which was one of his favorite issues; there would not be another increase for ten years. Following the failure of the Clinton health care plan, Kennedy went against his past strategy and sought incremental measures instead. Kennedy worked with Republican Senator Nancy Kassebaum to create and pass the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1996, which set new marks for portability of insurance and confidentiality of records. The same year, Kennedy's Mental Health Parity Act forced insurance companies to treat mental health payments the same as others with respect to limits reached. In 1997, Kennedy was the prime mover behind the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which used increased tobacco taxes to fund the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded health insurance coverage for children in the U.S. since Medicaid began in the 1960s. Senator Hatch and Hillary Clinton also played major roles in SCHIP passing.


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy was a stalwart backer of President Clinton during the 1998 Lewinsky scandal, often trying to cheer up the president when he was gloomiest and getting him to add past Kennedy staffer Greg Craig to his defense team, which helped improve the president's fortunes. In the trial after the 1999 impeachment of Bill Clinton, Kennedy voted to acquit Clinton on both charges, saying "Republicans in the House of Representatives, in their partisan vendetta against the President, have wielded the impeachment power in precisely the way the framers rejected, recklessly and without regard for the Constitution or the will of the American people."


title: Ted Kennedy

text: On July 16, 1999, Kennedy's nephew John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed when his Piper Saratoga light aircraft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. John Jr.'s wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, were also killed in the accident. Ted was the family patriarch, and he and President Clinton consoled his extended family at the public memorial service. He paraphrased William Butler Yeats by saying of his nephew: "We dared to think, in that other Irish phrase, that this John Kennedy would live to comb gray hair, with his beloved Carolyn by his side. But like his father, he had every gift but length of years." Ted now served as a role model for Maria Shriver, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joseph Patrick Kennedy II, and other family members. "The Boston Globe" wrote of the changed role: "It underscored the evolution that surprised so many people who knew the Kennedys: Teddy, the baby of the family, who had grown into a man who could sometimes be dissolute and reckless, had become the steady, indispensable patriarch, the one the family turned to in good times and bad."


title: Ted Kennedy

text: Kennedy had an easy time with his re-election to the Senate in 2000, as Republican lawyer and entrepreneur Jack E. Robinson III was sufficiently damaged by his past personal record that Republican state party officials refused to endorse him. Kennedy got 73 percent of the general election vote, with Robinson splitting the rest with Libertarian Carla Howell. During the long, disputed post-presidential election battle in Florida in 2000, Kennedy supported Vice President Al Gore's legal actions. After the bitter contest was over, many Democrats in Congress did not want to work with incoming President George W. Bush. Kennedy, however, saw Bush as genuinely interested in a major overhaul of elementary and secondary education, Bush saw Kennedy as a potential major ally in the Senate, and the two partnered together on the legislation. Kennedy accepted provisions governing mandatory student testing and teacher accountability that other Democrats and the National Education Association did not like, in return for increased funding levels for education. The No Child Left Behind Act was passed by Congress in May and June 2001 and signed into law by Bush in January 2002. Kennedy soon became disenchanted with the implementation of the act, however, saying for 2003 that it was $9 billion short of the $29 billion authorized. Kennedy said, "The tragedy is that these long overdue reforms are finally in place, but the funds are not," and accused Bush of not living up to his personal word on the matter. Other Democrats concluded that Kennedy's penchant for cross-party deals had gotten the better of him. The White House defended its spending levels given the context of two wars going on.