The first time I had dinner sitting next to Ted Kennedy, he kept patting my tummy. This was in the very late 60s. He was young and cute and thought of as a bit of a playboy, so most of the guests at the table were not surprised that he was patting the tummy of the lady next to him. I was alarmed, however, as my husband tended to be edgy when cute men made a move, and he would have seen Ted patting my tummy as a move.

So I stood up to get away before my husband noticed familiarity between me and Ted Kennedy —  and Ted turned crimson. “Oh my God, Mary,” he said. "Oh my God. I thought you were pregnant and I was patting the baby!” I was a thin girl but I was wearing one of the crinolines we wore those days and it bunched up in front of me and looked, I guess, like a baby-to-be. Everybody at the table went into spasms of giggles, Ted didn’t know what to do about me so he put his arms around me to give me a friendly hug, my husband appeared and Ted took off like a shot. I never wore that dress again — who wants to look pregnant when they’re not!