Michael Kennedy was one of 11 children born to the former US Senator Robert F. Kennedy and his wife Ethel.

But like other strands of the family his life was dogged by tragedy and controversy.

Michael was seen as the rising political star of the Kennedy clan until a sex scandal surfaced last year when he was accused of having an affair with a 14-year-old babysitter.

No charges were brought against Michael Kennedy but his brother, the US Representative Joseph P Kennedy II, withdrew from the 1998 Governor's race in Massachusetts.

Since the allegations Michael, who was married to Victoria, had been keeping a low profile but he did admit last year that he was undergoing treatment for alcoholism.

His brother David died in Florida in 1984 from a drugs overdose.

Michael's father and uncle John F. Kennedy were both assassinated. JFK was America's 35th President when he was killed in Dallas, Texas, by Lee Harvey Oswald, in 1963.

Robert Kennedy was shot dead in June 1968, while campaigning in Los Angeles for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Their older brother Joseph was shot down in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War Two and sister Kathleen was killed in a plane crash.

Michael Kennedy, a father of three, headed the Citizen's Energy Corporation, a non-profit group supplying heating to the poor.

He also managed his uncle Edward's US Senate re-election campaign in 1994.
 

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