James 'Radio' Kennedy, man who inspired Oscar-winning movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr., dies at 73

Translating…

Kennedy died at a hospice facility in South Carolina.

December 15, 2019, 6: 16 PM

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James “Radio” Kennedy, the individual with an intellectual disability who inspired the Oscar-winningmoviestarring Cuba Gooding Jr., has died at 73 years old.

Kennedy changed into a nationwide icon after aSports activities Illustratedarticle, which highlighted his friendship with Harold Jones, the veteran head coach of the football program of T.L. Hanna Excessive College in Anderson, South Carolina, used to be published in 1996.

Gooding Jr.later obtained an Oscar for the 2003 movie “Radio” in accordance with Kennedy’s lifestyles.

Kennedy died Sunday morning while in hospice care after fighting effectively being complications for some time,ESPNconfirmed with Jones. He had been living along with his niece, Jackie Kennedy, and youthful brother, George Kennedy, Jones informed the sports activities disaster.

Kennedy used to be given his nickname after showing up to football practices within the 1960s and 1970s while holding a transistor radio to his ear.

Jones and other coaches befriended him after he would mimic them on the sideline.

“It be sad. It be very sad for us,” Jones informed ESPN. “Every person loved him at the college and any one he met loved him. He used to be real so outgoing and loved to hug you.

Kennedy used to be inducted into the college’s Athletic Hall of Standing in 2016, and a lifestyles-sized bronze statue used to be unveiled of him a decade earlier.

“Generations of Hanna students and college occupy had a probability to know Radio,” a description on the college’s online web express reads. “Every person has a narrative to uncover, about a of them valuable.”


ABC News


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