Gene Giannotta
Joseph P. Kennedy
The patriarch of the Kennedy family built his wealth as an investor in stocks and commodities before working in the steel industry, early Hollywood, and as a liquor importer. He was responsible for creating the once-major studio RKO Pictures and owned the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, which remained in family hands until 1998. Joseph Kennedy grew up in a Boston where anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice were commonplace and that drove ambitions both for himself and his family. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would appoint Kennedy U.S. ambassador to Britain in the 1930s, but his isolationist views would doom his tenure. Kennedy’s children, however, would later have outsize influence in American politics for decades to come, most notably his son and 35th president John Fitzgerald.
