Vicki Kennedy – More than Just Ted’s Wife

In 1991, Vicki Reggie was a single mother of two children who managed to balance her career as a Washington lawyer specializing in banks and bankruptcy. Soon she learned to balance the politics of being a Kennedy – and the political career of her husband, Ted Kennedy, who died late last night of brain cancer.

According to The USA Today, Ted and Vicki met (very briefly, for a photo op) when she was an intern in his Senate office. Their families had known each other for a long time, and had both politics and scandal in common: her father, Edmund, ran campaigns in Louisiana for all three Kennedy brothers, and was convicted in 1992 of defrauding a failed savings and loan. Vicki’s mother, Doris, cast the only vote for Ted in his failed bid to beat out President Carter in the 1980 Democratic Convention.

After Ted’s divorce from his first wife, Joan, Vicki invited Ted to a 40th anniversary party for her parents, and they started dating soon after. He proposed to her at a performance of her favorite opera, La Boheme, and they were married in 1992. Vicki was much different than Joan in that she was ”able to deal with the social life of politics in a way that made her very effective,” says Darrell West, who has written a biography of Kennedy’s youngest son, Patrick Kennedy. “All the people I know who have met her love her and think she’s been a very constructive force in his life.”

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said that Vicki, who’s now 55, played “the role of the Kennedyesquefigure — young, beautiful, energetic.” But she also helped Ted’s career, including formulating strategy against his Senatorial opponent Mitt Romney in 1994. Basically, the woman did it all.