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  • 2019-06-12 (xsd:date)
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  • Was JFK's Speech in Netflix's 'The Crown' Authentic? (en)
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  • The popular Netflix drama series The Crown has won plaudits from some commentators and drawn criticism from others for the way in which its writers have combined accurate portrayals of real incidents and historical episodes with useful fabrications in recounting the early years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign in the 1950s and 1960s. In Episode 8 of Season 2, Dear Mrs. Kennedy, the British royals are shown hosting a visit to the U.K. by President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy. During a dinner, Kennedy (played by Michael C. Hall) delivers remarks that have prompted inquiries from Snopes readers about their authenticity and provenance. In the episode, the fictionalized version of Kennedy gives the following speech: In reality, that fictional speech borrowed heavily from Kennedy's actual address to the 1960 Democratic National Convention, at which he accepted his party's nomination for the presidency. Several phrases were taken word-for-word from that address, known as the New Frontier speech. Stacey Chandler, a research archivist at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, shared her insights with Snopes, pointing out the overlap between the two texts: Through her research, Chandler has also traced the first lines of Kennedy's fictional remarks in The Crown to an opinion column Kennedy penned for Life magazine in August 1960, when he was still a U.S. senator for Massachusetts: Kennedy's 1960 convention speech can be read in full here, and watched in full here. His August 1960 column for Life can be read in full here. Although the speech from Season 2, Episode 8, of The Crown was not taken verbatim and in its entirety from a speech that Kennedy delivered in reality, the majority of it came from his 1960 Democratic National Convention address, with several lines taken word-for-word from that source. Another section of the fictional speech appears to have originated in an article written by Kennedy. As such, the fictional speech has a high level of authenticity, and we therefore issue it a rating of Mostly True. (en)
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