Morton Downey, Jr. (1932-2001)

He belonged to one of America's oldest and most famous Hollywood dynasties and grew up spending his summers with the Kennedy family at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, where he claimed Bobby Kennedy gave him his first joint. He began his career in radio and as a lobbyist for Carter and then Nixon before becoming very close to Ronald Reagan. Brought up Catholic, he switched from being a Democrat to a Republican when he felt Carter hadn't done enough to ban abortions. In 1973, he was President of the Government Legislative Consultants Corporation in Washington D.C. He then hosted an outspoken radio show in Sacramento and is credited with discovering Rush Limbaugh who replaced him in 1984. In 1987, during Reagan's administration, the Federal Communications Committee (FCC) took the controversial decision to scrap the "Fairness Doctrine" - a regulation on US media dating back to 1949 that obliged news broadcasters to fairly reflect both sides of any story concerning controversial issues of public importance. Downey was the first person to take advantage of this new wild west, a period that at its dawn was described as "a bloodbath," and continues today. In the same year (1987), Downey established The Morton Downey Jr. Show that he used unabashedly to incite outrage and conflict, purely for viewing figures.

Downey, "understood performance, he understood how to turn everything into something theatrical." It was all an act - politics as entertainment - that was purposefully never made clear so that neither the show's audience nor participants understood that. Even though he was a bonafide member of the American Aristocracy, he presented himself as someone who stuck two fingers up to the elites who he said looked down on the likes of him and his hoards of supporters. Downey even went as far as to fabricate an attack on himself, shaving his head and drawing a swastika on his face for added effect. The increasingly controversial show lasted just two years, but his stratospheric rise to fame and his skill for turning serious political issues into outrageous entertainment won him the admiration of his soon-to-be friend and landlord in New York, Donald Trump. Although taken off the air, his influence set a precedent that continues to this day.

His birth name was "Sean Morton Downey," and off camera he was known as "Sean." He was married four times: (1) In 1954, Helen Marie Rowan. They had one daughter before divorcing five years later. (2) In 1962, Joan Tyrall. They had two daughters before divorcing in 1978. (3) In 1978, Kim, daughter of William Lester Cotton III. He divorced her in 1988, because she was "an embarrassment" (unable) to adjust to the strains of his fame." Before their divorce, he'd already made clear his intentions to marry someone else. (4) In 1993, Lori Lilly Krebs, a dancer. They had one daughter and were still married when he died. He is not related to the actor Robert Downey Jr. (whose surname at birth was Elias).