Rob Lowe will play JFK in ‘Killing Kennedy’

Rob Lowe made a major impression with viewers over the Memorial Day weekend playing Liberace’s plastic surgeon in the HBO film “Behind the Candelabra.� Now he’s following that up with another eye-catching role, as John F. Kennedy in National Geographic Channel’s upcoming movie “Killing Kennedy.�

The film is a follow-up to National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Lincoln,� based on the book by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard, which became Nat Geo’s highest-rated program to date when it aired in February. The film, narrated by Tom Hanks and starring Billy Campbell as Abraham Lincoln, drew 3.4 million viewers.

The “Kennedy� film, which is also based on a book by O’Reilly and Dugard, traces the events leading up to President Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas in 1963. “Once Upon a Time’s� Ginnifer Goodwin is set to play Jacqueline Kennedy, with Michelle Trachtenberg as Marina Oswald, wife of Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.

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The film will begin in 1959, as Kennedy is announcing his candidacy for president at around the same time that Oswald is renouncing his United States citizenship.

Production on the film, to be directed by Nelson McCormick, will begin in June in Richmond, Va., and is expected to air close to the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination on Nov. 22.

The production of “Killing Lincoln� was so successful that the channel has already announced plans to team with O’Reilly to produce a film from his forthcoming book, “Killing Jesus.�

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