Early life and education
Born Kara Anne Kennedy to Virginia Joan (née Bennett) Kennedy and Edward Moore Kennedy, Sr. in Bronxville, New York, her siblings are Edward Moore Kennedy, Jr. (born 1961), and Patrick Joseph Kennedy II (born 1967). She attended Trinity College (Hartford, Connecticut) and graduated from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
Career
Kennedy was a producer for VSA arts, formerly known as Very Special Arts, a non-profit organization founded by her aunt Jean Kennedy Smith that supports arts opportunities for the disabled. Kennedy was on the National Advisory Board of the National Organization on fetal alcohol syndrome. She was also a director emerita and a national trustee of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides financial support, staffing, and creative resources for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, the presidential library and museum of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts.
Kennedy was previously a producer for the television program Evening Magazine at station WBZ-TV in Boston.
Personal life
In September 1990, Kennedy and Michael Allen, a professional sailor, were married at the Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Massachusetts, a frequent site of Kennedy family events. When she married, Kennedy dropped her middle name "Anne" and replaced it with her maiden name "Kennedy" as her new middle name. They had two children: Grace Kennedy Allen (born September 19, 1994, in Washington, D.C.) and Max Greathouse Allen (born December 20, 1996, in Rockville, Maryland). The couple later divorced.
In 2002, at age 42, Kennedy was diagnosed with lung cancer. Initially told the disease was inoperable, she found — with her father's help — a surgeon at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who was willing to remove part of her right lung in an effort to save her life. The operation was successful, and she resumed an active life that included regular running and swimming.
On August 12, 2009, Kennedy accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama on behalf of her father at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Her father died thirteen days later; he had been diagnosed with brain cancer in May 2008.
Death
On September 16, 2011, Kennedy suffered a heart attack and died in a Washington health club after her daily workout. She was 51.
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