The Kennedy Family Album: Personal
Photos of Americas First Family by
Linda Corley
The Other Side Of Camelot
Up until his death in 2004, Bob Davidoff had been the photographer in
residence at the Kennedy’s “Winter White House”—better known as their
Palm Beach home. For almost fifty years, Davidoff chronicled the extended
Kennedy clan on holiday, capturing the youthful JFK and his beautiful
family during their moments of fun and relaxation. The legendary Davidoff
was a fixture in the Kennedy Florida household, and many of his photos
are part of the family’s personal collections. Now, for the first time in book
form, Bob Davidoff’s Kennedy photos of their days in the sun—in Palm
Beach as well as in Hyannis Port, Sun Valley, and other favorite getaway
spots—have been collected in The Kennedy Family Album. Linda Corley,
an Emmy Award-winning writer, provides the anecdotes behind the
pictures and captures many of their unscripted moments, from Jackie
surprising her husband on the tarmac of the Palm Beach airport to Rose

leading a family sing-along. Most of these photos have never been seen by
the general public, making The Kennedy Family Album a truly unique and
unstaged portrait of “America’s royal family.”
Personal Review: The Kennedy Family Album: Personal Photos
of Americas First Family by Linda Corley
Now,wouldn't you have expected this photo collection to be a huge, heavy
coffee table book -- but it is not. Instead, famous photographer Bob
Davidoff's widow, Babe Davidoff, and her family have created an intimate
but powerful 9-inch by 10-inch book that is a delight to both one's lap and
one's eyes. There are 200 photos, 40 of them in full-page color, but it is
the black and white ones that haunt me. Photographer Davidoff's Kennedy
shots are exhilarating and historic. They immediately get under your skin.
And why are you suddenly crying? What was it about Davidoff that made
the Kennedys look like a touching, regular American family? What also
makes this book not a table-breaking coffee table work is the beautiful text
by award-winning Linda Corley. There are 40 pages of her work here,
delicately interspersed with the photos. The interweaving is done so softly
that the writing itself seems like a transparency floating above the pictures.
Or are the levitating words just the spirits of the Kennedy boys? Would
that Corley had written another 150 pages, but then, where would one put
Davidoff's heartwarming and heartwrenching photos? The interior design
work by Lorie Pagnozzi is among the best I have ever seen in a
photography book. And what are my two favorite photos among this feast?
Of course they are in black and white and are smallish, sitting on back-to-
back pages, one showing Ted Kennedy getting ready for a bike ride with
his son, the other portraying Sarge Shriver hugging his son. I could use a
hug like that every day. If you buy this book and let it linger in your lap and
heart every day of your life, you will get lots of hugs, from the Kennedys,
and, yes, from the Davidoff family.
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