Kara Kennedy, Ted's daughter, dies at 51

WASHINGTON -- Six years after she was deemed cancer-free, Kara Kennedy accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on behalf of her father, just days before Sen. Edward Kennedy died in 2009 of a malignant brain tumor.

However, her own lung cancer treatment -- surgery and grueling chemotherapy and radiation -- left her physically weakened, her brother Patrick Kennedy said. She died Friday at age 51 after her daily workout at a Washington-area health club.

"Her heart gave out," said Patrick Kennedy, a former congressman from Rhode Island. "She's with Dad."

Kara Kennedy was born in 1960 to Edward and Joan Bennett Kennedy, just as her father was on the presidential primary campaign trail for his brother John F. Kennedy.

The late senator wrote of his oldest child in his 2009 memoir, "True Compass," that "I had never seen a more beautiful baby, nor been happier in my life." Later, she and her brother Edward Kennedy Jr. helped run their father's 1988 U.S. Senate campaign.

Her lung cancer diagnosis came in 2002, and the prognosis was grim. But the family refused to accept that, the senator wrote. She was able to have an operation, and Edward Kennedy accompanied his daughter to chemotherapy treatments. "Kara responded to my exhortations to have faith in herself," he wrote. "Today, nearly seven years later as I write this, Kara is a healthy, vibrant, active mother of two who is flourishing." Her children, Grace and Max, are now teenagers.

Kara Kennedy, a graduate of Tufts University, also worked as a filmmaker and in television. She helped produce several videos for Very Special Arts, an organization founded by her aunt Jean Kennedy Smith. She also served as a board member for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute.