Christopher Lawford is the first child of Peter and Pat
Kennedy Lawford and he has
worked extensively in politics, government, and business as
well as
Hollywood. However, before his successes, Lawford battled a
drug and
alcohol addiction for much of his young life. Today, he has
been sober
for more than 18 years is sharing his personal story with
others in
hopes of making a difference.
Lawford has grown up and worked in Hollywood and
Washington for much of his life. His political resume
includes executive staff positions with The Democratic
National Committee, The Community Action for Legal
Services Agency and in the Washington office of
Senator Edward M. Kennedy.
In addition to these executive staff positions, Lawford
held staff
positions on numerous national, state and local political
campaigns.
Lawford focuses a great deal of his public service on
the non-profit sector working for The Joseph P. Kennedy
Jr. Foundation, Special Olympics and The
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University and has held public speaking appearances
throughout the US and the world for non-profit
organizations.
In
addition to his political career, he has spent over fifteen
years in
the film and television business as an actor, lawyer,
executive, and
producer. He began his career in Universal Studios'
Independent Film Acquisition where he was responsible
for the acquisition of American Graffiti,
one of the highest grossing films of the early 70's. He
also worked in
the entertainment law practice of Mitchell, Silverberg and
Knupp.
As an independent producer Lawford arranged financing
for and produced films including Kiss Me Guido,
a 1997 Sundance Film Festival selection and has sold
completed films to
HBO and Encore. For the past two years Mr. Lawford has
traveled
extensively to the Island of Cuba where he has acted
as a
consulting producer to the Film Directorate of The Cuban
Government and
a European film company for a documentary on the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
Lawford's acting credits include the soon to be released
Garry Marshall film "Raising Helen" ,"Terminator 3", "13
Days, "The Sixth Day", "Blankman", "The Doors", "Russia
House" and many others. His credits also include a
three-year tenure on All My Children.
He
is currently working on a book which he hopes will
illuminate the
extraordinary circumstances of his life and bring to others
a cohesive
message of survival, hope and finding one's integrity in a
sea of ego
and depravity. He has recently merged his interest and
experience in
these two worlds by creating weekly segments on political
and social
stories within the entertainment community for CNN's
American Morning and the entertainment news program
Extra.
Lawford
was born on March 29, 1955 in Santa Monica, California,
where he
currently resides with his three children David, Savannah
and Matthew.
Lawford holds a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University, a
Juris Doctor
from Boston College Law School and a Masters Certification
in Clinical
Psychology from Harvard Medical School where he gained an
academic
appointment as a Lecturer on Psychiatry.
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