Ted Kennedy himself narrowly escaped death in 1964, when a small plane crash killed the pilot and one of his aides on board.

Despite his serious role as a powerful senator, Kennedy was dogged by scandal in his private life. His reputation for drinking and enjoying good food was a favourite target for late-night television comedians.

The scandal arose from a car accident in July 1969 on the island of Chappaquiddick off Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, the elite resort area. After leaving a party with a woman who was not his wife, Kennedy lost control of his car, which went off a bridge and into a river. Kennedy was uninjured, but the woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, 29, drowned.

Kennedy claims he dived in to find her. But then he inexplicably went away and waited 10 hours before reporting the accident to police.

He pleaded guilty to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident after causing injury, and received a sentence of two months in jail, which was suspended -- an outcome that stirred public outrage and raised suspicion that the family used political connections to protect him from more serious charges.

The voters of Massachusetts forgave him, sending him back for his eighth term in 2006.

But in 1980 when he attempted to challenge incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Party nomination, he quickly recognised that the burdens of his past gave him little chance, and he gave up his effort.

'It is the fate of Ted Kennedy that his failures outside the Senate have always drawn more public attention than his successes inside it,' Time magazine wrote in 2000.

Time went on to say that while millions of Americans knew about Chappaquiddick, they didn't know about his contributions to programmes benefiting the handicapped, the elderly and young people that have changed 'the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne'.

Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, was married to his second wife and has three children from his first marriage.

Kennedy became the first important Democrat to openly accuse US President George W. Bush of justifying the Iraq war through deceit and to describe the war as Bush's Vietnam.

He succeeded as a legislator by working with centre-right Republicans on many major pieces of legislation -- including with President George W. Bush to pass the 'No Child Left Behind' education law in 2001.

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has called Kennedy the 'last lion in the Senate' and 'the single most effective member of the senate'.

He was a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Virginia Law School.

He made his home in Hyannisport, with his second wife Victoria Reggie Kennedy, and her children from a previous marriage, Curran and Caroline Raclin. He had three other children with his ex-wife Joan -- Kara, Edward Jr and Patrick.