Charles Spalding; Scriptwriter, Friend of JFK

Charles F. Spalding, 81, investment banker, writer and close friend and supporter of President John F. Kennedy. Scion of founders of a large meatpacking company, the Illinois-born Spalding was educated at Yale, where he wrote a column for the student paper. Introduced to Kennedy in 1940 by his college roommate, Spalding became a fast friend of the future president and worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign in Illinois and West Virginia. He also helped with Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in California. Spalding served in the Navy during World War II and, with his friend Otis Carney, wrote a 1943 book about flight school called “Love at First Flight.” Actor Gary Cooper bought the book for a possible motion picture and brought Spalding to Hollywood as a scriptwriter. During the early days of television, Spalding also scripted shows for the small screen as an employee of J. Walter Thompson. He later founded his own investment banking firm, De Sainte Phalle Spalding, and worked as vice president of the larger firm Lazard Freres & Co. in New York. Two years ago, Spalding was quoted in Seymour M. Hersh’s controversial and partially discredited book, “The Dark Side of Camelot,” saying that he once destroyed Palm Beach records of a purported marriage between congressman Jack Kennedy and socialite Durie Malcolm. Even Hersh, however, cast doubts on Spalding’s ability to recall an event that happened 50 years before and on which he had never commented. Kennedy and Malcolm repeatedly scoffed at the half-century rumor of their marriage. On Tuesday in Hillsborough, Calif., of myeloma.