In the research actor Robert Knepper did for his role as Robert F. Kennedy in the NBC miniseries Jackie, Ethel, Joan: The Women of Camelot, he read again and again that “Kennedys don't cry.”
Then came the scene where grief-stricken Robert, staying in the Lincoln bedroom on the night of JFK's assassination, closes the door and turns to embrace his wife, Ethel.
On the set in Toronto last year, Knepper, who was born in Fremont and grew up in Maumee, hit his marks, said his lines, and reached out to put his arms around actress Lauren Holly, who portrays Ethel.
“As soon as she hugged me, I just lost it, I lost it,” said Knepper during an interview in Los Angeles recently. “I sobbed and sobbed. I could hear the director yelling `Cut.' As soon as he did, I let go of Lauren and I bent over as if someone had hit me in the stomach. The weight of this part and remembering people I loved that I lost, the memory of my mother and sitting at her feet watching John Kennedy's funeral ... I couldn't stop crying and I had to take a walk.
“The next morning, I went up to the director and said, `Thank you for letting me vomit out all this emotion, but you're not gonna use that, are you?' He said, `What are you, nuts? Of course I'm going to use it. That's gold!'”
