Chris Lawford obit

Christopher Lawford, JFK nephew and actor, has died at age 63

He was not on the list.

Actor and sobriety campaigner Christopher Lawford, son of Peter Lawford, nephew of President Kennedy and member of the sprawling Kennedy clan, has died at age 63.

The news was posted by his cousin, human-rights activist Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy, on Twitter.

It was confirmed by Max Burns, a spokesman for the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights advocacy group in Washington, which Kerry Kennedy leads.

Another cousin, former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, told the Associated Press that Lawford died of a heart attack on Tuesday in Vancouver, Canada.

"We mourn the loss of my cousin Christopher Lawford, Rest in Peace," Kennedy tweeted, with pictures of a busload of Kennedys at the 2004 Democratic Convention and Lawford with one of his three children, son David.

Patrick Kennedy credited Lawford with helping to rescue him from his own problems with substance abuse.

"He was the absolute cornerstone to my sobriety, along with my wife," Patrick Kennedy said Wednesday. "He was the one who walked me through all the difficult days of that early period."

Lawford was the first child of Patricia Kennedy Lawford, sister to JFK and RFK, and Peter Lawford, the British-born actor and member of Frank Sinatra's 1960s-era "Rat Pack" gang of cool-entertainer pals. Lawford's father died in 1984; his mother in 2006.

Lawford was married three times and is survived by three children from his first marriage and his third wife, Mercedes Miller, a yoga teacher, whom he married in 2014.

Christopher Kennedy Lawford, who strongly resembled his father, was born in Santa Monica, Calif., in 1955, the only son of his parents' four children.

He was an actor with a long list of credits but may be best known for roles on soaps "General Hospital" and "All My Children" and a role in one of the "Terminator" movies starring his cousin-in-law, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He also was a writer, having authored a best-selling memoir in 2005, "Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption," about his near-fatal addiction to alcohol, opioids and heroin and how he got sober.

He also published another book in 2009, "Moments of Clarity: Voices from the Front Lines of Addiction and Recovery," a collection of essays by various celebrities about their struggles with substance abuse.

As a political activist Lawford worked on multiple Kennedy political campaigns, including those of his uncle, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.

A graduate of Tufts University in Massachusetts and Boston College Law School, he received a master's in clinical psychology from Harvard University where he gained an academic appointment as a lecturer in psychiatry.

Lawford battled a drug-addiction problem from the late 1970s until the early 1980s, becoming addicted to heroin. In 1980, he was arrested in Aspen, Colo., for impersonating a doctor in order to get prescription medication. The charges were later dropped when Lawford completed his probation.

He was inspired to kick his drug habit after April 1984 when his cousin David, another son of Robert F. Kennedy, died of a drug overdose. Later, Lawford helped set up a clinic to treat opioid dependency in Boston.