ABSTRACT
John F. Kennedy mastered TV as Franklin D. Roosevelt had mastered radio, but Kennedy went further, cultivating his image in a more methodical and comprehensive way. As the nation’s celebrity in chief, Kennedy emerged as a charming and cool operator and America’s leading man. He exhibited enormous grace under pressure while seeming to be a good husband and father with a gorgeous wife and two beautiful children. In some ways this image was a sham, since Kennedy was a womanizer who had deep trouble in his marriage. But he used his celebrity status to keep the nation’s attention and to capture America’s imagination, a dynamic that exists to this day.
