With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

History channel's Kennedy miniseries has been cast

History channel has finally cast its controversial eight-hour Kennedy miniseries.

Greg Kinnear will play President John F. Kennedy; Katie Holmes has been cast as first lady Jacqueline Kennedy; Barry Pepper is portraying Attorney General Robert Kennedy; and Tom Wilkinson has been cast as family patriarch Joe Kennedy Sr.

The basic cable network caused a storm back in December when it announced its first stab at a scripted miniseries, mostly because the Kennedy project hails from Joel Surnow -- an outspoken conservative who hobnobs with Rush Limbaugh, blah, blah, blah. You may know Surnow as the creator of the Fox series "24," which made headlines a while back for all those creative torture scenes. The miniseries's screenwriter, Stephen Kronish, says he's a liberal Democrat.

When the project came to light, a variety of historians who'd read an early version of the script reacted with varying degrees of knicker-knottedness, and a petition was making the rounds for people to sign, vowing not to watch the "right-wing character assassination masquerading as 'history.' " The critics said the script contained factual errors -- and, of course, that scene in which the president tells his brother Bobby that if he doesn't have sex with unfamiliar women "every couple of days I get migraines."
Read entire article at WaPo