Scandal that rocked the Kennedys to be made into movie

Mary Jo Kopechne, 28, drowned when a car driven by US Senator Ted Kennedy plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, in July 1969.

Kennedy, who managed to escape the sinking vehicle and swim to safety, fled and did not call police until the next day.

The resulting scandal, which haunted him until his death in 2009, is depicted in the movie Chappaquiddick, which opened in the US on Friday and will hit UK screens later this year.

Mary Jo’s aunt, Georgetta Potoski, now in her late 80s, said she hoped the film would “bring us at least closer to some sort of closure”.

She added: “For 49 years, people have wanted to know what happened and for 49 years she has just been ‘the girl in the car,’ or, as one headline at the time said, ‘Teddy escapes, blonde drowns’.”

Mrs Potoski is also clinging to the hope that the film may prompt someone to come forward with new information.

“At the very least, maybe now Mary Jo will be brought to the forefront and remembered not just for how she died but for who she was.”

She said Mary Jo’s parents, Gwen and Joe Kopechne, both now dead, at first believed every word of Kennedy’s account of the accident.

“They trusted him,” she said. “They loved the Kennedys. But later on they started to question what happened. The longer it went on, more and more inconsistencies were discovered.”

Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a two-month suspended jail sentence. He denied drink-driving and any “immoral conduct” between himself and Mary Jo, one of the so-called Boiler Room Girls who had worked on his brother Robert’s presidential campaign the year before.

The movie has not been welcomed by the Kennedy camp, whose spokesman Bob Shrum said Ted “carried the burden of that tragic accident every single day of his life”.

He added: “There have been more than 20 books and countless articles about it, some attempting to find the truth and others trafficking in conspiracy theories. This movie pretends to do the former. In reality, it does the latter.”

Screenwriter Taylor Allen countered: “Our mission was to honour Mary Jo and to show her legacy as a capable, smart campaign operative.”

Mrs Potoski said: “She wanted to make a difference. She believed in JFK’s idea of ‘Ask what you can do for your country’.”