A LIFE OF COMMITMENT

T ED KENNEDY came from a family that seemed to have it all - wealth, power, prestige - but was never able to escape the dark shadow of tragedy.

Two of his brothers were murdered; another died in war. One nephew was killed in a plane crash, another died of a drug overdose and yet another was killed in a skiing accident.

And now the last of the doomed sons of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy is gone. Edward Moore Kennedy died Tuesday night of the brain cancer he had fought for 15 months. He was 77.

His death was announced in a brief statement by his family at his home in Cape Cod, Mass.

"We've lost the irreplaceable center of our family and joyous light in our lives," the statement read, "but the inspiration of his faith, optimism and perseverance will live in our hearts forever.

"We thank everyone who gave him care and support over this last year, and everyone who stood with him for so many years in his tireless march for progress toward justice, fairness and opportunity for all."

Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer after suffering a seizure on May 17, 2008. He underwent brain surgery on June 2 of that year and began chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Even after his diagnosis, Ted Kennedy soldiered on, continuing to fight for some of the causes he had championed as the Senate's leading liberal voice for more than 40 years.

In March he returned to the Senate to vote for a bill that he had sponsored to expand AmeriCorps and other government-backed service programs to help the nation's poor.

Joined by his son U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, D-R.I., Kennedy received an emotional standing ovation after his vote.

That same month, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and on April 7, he threw out the first pitch at the Boston Red Sox's season opener against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Despite their flaws, the Kennedys came as close to being America's royal family as any before them.

The murders of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 by deranged assassins stunned the nation. In many respects, their deaths shattered the myth of American innocence.

Most Americans were enraptured by the energetic Kennedys, all with the trademark toothy smiles, playing touch football on the lawns of the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port, Mass., then going off to change the world.

And when they fell, the nation mourned.

Americans loved John's wife, the elegant Jacqueline Bouvier, and fell hard for Caroline and John-John, so brave at their father's funeral.

There really was a bright and shining moment called Camelot.

America mourned again when John F. Kennedy Jr., the "John-John" famously photographed saluting at his father's funeral, was killed in a plane crash with his wife, Carolyn Bessette, on July 16, 1999.

And then two of Robert's sons died. David Anthony Kennedy, who never got over his father's murder, died of a drug overdose in 1984, and Michael LeMoyne Kennedy was killed in a skiing accident in 1997.

Ted Kennedy himself was nearly a victim of the "Kennedy Curse" when he was critically injured in a plane crash in 1964 that claimed the life of the pilot and one of his aides and left him hospitalized for weeks with a back injury, a punctured lung, broken ribs and internal bleeding.

Even the Kennedy women were star-crossed. Kathleen Agnes died in a plane crash in 1948, and Rosemary, the victim of an unnecessary lobotomy at age 23, was left mentally incapacitated until her death in 2005.

But through it all, Ted, who was pretty much forced to give up the idea that he could follow John to the White House, became the consummate political mover and shaker, able to work with friends and foes alike to get passed legislation that he believed would benefit the nation.

On July 9, 2008, Ted brought tears to the eyes of his colleagues when he made a surprise return to the Senate to cast a vote to break a Republican filibuster of an important Medicare bill.

Although it turned out that his vote wasn't needed, he said in a statement, "I return to the Senate today to keep a promise to our senior citizens - and that's to protect Medicare."

Then, on Aug. 25, during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Kennedy overcame what must have been excruciating pain from kidney stones - unrelated to his cancer - to fly to Denver to deliver a scheduled speech.

He told the delegates that nothing could have prevented his being there. "For me, this is a season of hope," he said, "new hope for justice and fair prosperity for the many, and not just for the few - new hope."

He also vowed to return to the Senate in January, when the Obama administration would take over - "when we begin the great test."

But on Jan. 20, he suffered a seizure during a luncheon after the inauguration of Barack Obama as president. He spent the night at Washington Hospital Center and was released the next day, saying he felt fine.

A doctor attributed the incident to fatigue.

Ted Kennedy was forever shadowed by the doubts about what happened on July 18, 1969, at Chappaquiddick when a young woman campaign aide drowned in a car he was driving that plunged off a bridge into a channel.

Kennedy managed to escape the car, leaving his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, in the submerged vehicle.

He later said that he had tried several times to rescue her, then walked away. The overturned car was spotted the next day by two fishermen who called police. Kennedy never reported the accident and went to the police only after the body was discovered.

The haunting question that was never answered was: If Kennedy had reported the accident immediately, could Mary Jo have been saved? A rescue worker said that she had found an air bubble in the car and might have lived long enough to be rescued.

Whatever the case, the incident helped doom any ambitions that Kennedy might have had to follow brother John to the White House, although he entered primaries in 1980 against President Jimmy Carter and came up short.

However, the people of Massachusetts never gave up on him. He won a special election in 1962 to fill the Senate seat vacated by brother John in 1960, when John left to assume the presidency.

Ted was re-elected eight times, the last in 2006 for a term that would have ended on Jan. 6, 2013.

He was chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; served on the Judiciary Committee, on which he was chairman of the immigration subcommittee; and was a member of the Armed Services Committee, serving as chairman of the seapower subcommittee.

He was a member of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and a founder of the Congressional Friends of Ireland. He was also a trustee of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

Through his long Senate career, Ted Kennedy never shed his liberal principles, but he was great at forging interparty coalitions and keeping them together. Some of the major legislation he worked on concerned health care, civil rights, welfare, housing, education and foreign affairs.

In 1973, after the Watergate scandal that sank Richard Nixon, Kennedy co-sponsored the first bipartisan campaign-finance bill. It set new contributions limits and a public-financing provision for presidential elections.

He was instrumental in enacting the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and other health-care initiatives.

He was a champion of minimum-wage increases, pushing the most recent effort to raise the minimum from $5.15 to $7.25 by next year.

He was a key Senate backer of Title IX, a 1972 amendment requiring colleges and universities to provide equal funding for men's and women's athletics.

The list goes on and on.

He opposed the war in Iraq and fought against continued spending for it, and, despite being a Roman Catholic, was a staunch pro-choice advocate in the abortion controversy. He supported same-sex marriage.

He backed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In a chamber where politics and egos often trump the public good, Kennedy seemed sincerely to want legislation that would benefit ordinary people and was willing to go to any lengths to get it.

Sen. John McCain, at the time the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, said after Kennedy's diagnosis that the Massachusetts senator was "the single most effective member of the Senate if you want to get results."

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, called him "one of the most important figures to ever serve in this body in our history, and Republican senators recognize that as well."

Fellow Democrat Christopher Dodd, of Connecticut, said, "Teddy's been one of those people who just transcends politics."

In 2006, Time magazine selected Kennedy as one of "America's 10 best senators." The magazine noted that he had "amassed a titanic record of legislation affecting the lives of virtually every man, woman and child in this country."

Kennedy joined then-President George W. Bush in supporting the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

There was no doubt that Kennedy's absence left a gaping hole in the United States Senate, one not likely to be filled in anyone's lifetime.

Ted Kennedy was born the youngest of nine children of Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. and the former Rose Fitzgerald, daughter of the legendary mayor of Boston, John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald.

His father made a fortune in several enterprises, including the stock market, the liquor industry and Hollywood movie studios, and was U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom at the start of World War II. He died in 1969.

His ambition was that his oldest son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., would be president of the United States. But Joe was killed in a plane crash in 1944 in World War II. The elder Kennedy then directed his ambitions on his second son, John F. Kennedy.

He endured John's assassination, and lived long enough to see Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, his seventh-born child, who was seeking the presidential nomination, shot to death in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968. The elder Kennedy died 17 months later.

Ted was left as the last surviving Kennedy son. Was the White House his destiny? It can be assumed that the thought at least crossed his mind.

Kennedy entered Harvard in 1950, and in May the following year was expelled for cheating on a Spanish test.

He enlisted in the Army and served two years at SHAPE headquarters in Paris. He returned to Harvard and graduated in 1956.

He was a standout football player, and in the 1955 Harvard-Yale game, which Yale won, 21-7, Kennedy caught Harvard's only touchdown pass.

He attended The Hague Academy of International Law, and received his law degree from the University of Virginia. He was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1959.

He got his first taste of politics while in law school, managing brother John's 1958 Senate re-election campaign.

Ted married Virginia Joan Bennett in 1958. They divorced in 1982. He married Victoria Reggie, a divorced Washington lawyer, daughter of Louisiana Judge Edmund Reggie, and co-founder and president of Common Sense About Kids and Guns, in July 1992.

He and Virginia had three children, Kara Anne, Edward Moore Jr. and Patrick Joseph. Victoria Kennedy has two children from a previous marriage, Curran and Caroline.

Supporters urged Kennedy to run for president in 1972 and 1976, but he rejected the idea. Then, in 1980, he launched a campaign to unseat Jimmy Carter, an unpopular president before the Iran hostage crisis in 1979 gave him a boost in the polls.

Kennedy won 10 presidential primaries, including Pennsylvania's, against Carter's 24. Kennedy was hurt by the rambling response he made to a question from CBS News' Roger Mudd: "Why do you want to be president?"

It also didn't help that opponents played Simon & Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" to remind voters of Chappaquiddick.

He bowed out of the race, but gave a rousing speech before the 1980 Democratic National Convention in New York that was hailed as one of his greatest.

He supported fellow Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry for president in 2004, and campaigned hard for him. After Kerry lost narrowly to George W. Bush, Kennedy said that he would support Kerry again if he chose to run in 2008. Absent that, he gave his backing to Barack Obama.

Kennedy will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery Saturday after a Funeral Mass in Boston. He will lie in repose at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, in Boston, before the funeral.