U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the liberal lawmaker from Massachusetts whose lengthy tenure in politics earned him the nickname “The Lion of the Senate,” died late Tuesday night at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts after a lengthy battle with brain cancer. He was 77.

As a member of one of America’s most prominent political families, Kennedy often struggled with his position in the shadow of his older brothers, the late President John F. Kennedy and the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Some considered the younger Kennedy to be a playboy with an affinity for partying and women who relied on his name for success. But after his two brothers were tragically assassinated within five years of each other, the youngest Kennedy took hold of the reigns and became the family’s figurehead.

Kennedy on the campaign trail in 1962.

Commonly known as “Ted,” he represented Massachusetts for over 46 years and was the second most senior member in the Senate. After graduating from both Harvard and the University of Virginia Law School, in addition to completing two years of military service in the U.S. Army, Kennedy jump-started his political career in 1962 when he won a special election for his brother John’s Senate seat in Massachusetts.

Though politics was his family’s trade, Kennedy almost pursued a different career path. In 1955, following a loss to Yale in which Harvard’s lone score came from scrappy senior tight end Ted Kennedy, Green Bay Packers Head Coach Lisle Blackbourn told him, “You have been very highly recommended to us by a number of coaches in your area and also by our talent scouts as a possible Pro Prospect.”

Kennedy declined the offer. He told the coach that while he was flattered, he had plans to “go into another contact sport, politics.”

During his extensive time in Washington, Kennedy championed accessible and affordable health care, education reform, and civil rights, among a host of other legislative victories. The senator served as chairman of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Labor and Human Resource Committee, and was most recently chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. In 1980, he challenged incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination, but soon withdrew after Carter received a sudden jolt in the polls and questions of Kennedy’s character soon came into play.

Such questions related back to the scandals that often marred an otherwise successful politician, most notable among them being Chappaquiddick.

In July of 1969, Kennedy – recently designated as the face of an American political dynasty and a potential presidential candidate in the near future – drove his car off a bridge after a night of partying on Chappaquiddick Island, killing a former female campaign worker for his brother Bobby. Kennedy managed to escape the sinking car, and though he claimed that he tried to rescue the woman multiple times, he failed to report the incident until the next morning when police found the car submerged under water.

This scandal, in addition to the two assassinations of his brothers, had Kennedy questioning whether “some awful curse did actually hang over all the Kennedys,” as he said in a nationwide TV address following the incident.

While some questioned the integrity of such a man, they neglected to consider the immense suffering Kennedy endured and the heavy burden he shouldered. As the only surviving member of arguably the greatest American political dynasty, Kennedy carried the hopes and dreams of millions for a return to Camelot. He played the role of patriarch for his own family, while also doing so for the country at large. Despite his hardships, the senior senator from Massachusetts continued to serve – and serve he did until the day he died. Through deaths and scandals and malignant brain tumors, Kennedy never stopped defending disadvantaged Americans through his legislation and he never stopped serving the people he represented. As he said in 1980 after his failed presidential bid at the Democratic National Convention: “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

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