JFK satirist Vaughn Meader dies at 68 Maine native made famous by album

AUBURN – Vaughn Meader, who gained instant fame satirizing the presidency of John F. Kennedy in the multimillion-selling album “The First Family,” only to have his star plummet when the president was assassinated, died Friday. He was 68.

Meader, who had battled chronic emphysema and other ailments, died at his home in this central Maine city after refusing to be taken to the hospital, his wife, Sheila, said.

When it came out in late 1962, poking gentle fun at JFK’s wealth, large family and “vigah,” “The First Family” became the fastest-selling record of its time, racking up 7.5 million copies and winning the Grammy for album of the year.

Compared with today’s bare-knuckled political humor, the satire was tame, but it tickled the funny bone of the Kennedy-obsessed public.

The Maine native, recruited to play the president on the album after he began throwing Kennedy impressions into his musical act, had to tweak his own New England accent only slightly to sound just like the Massachusetts-bred president.

“I couldn’t believe what it meant to people,” Meader said in an Associated Press interview last year. “I was just doing my act. I’m a singer and piano player. I just stumbled onto a voice.”

Even the president was said to be amused, picking up 100 copies of the album to give as Christmas gifts. He once opened a Democratic National Committee dinner by telling delegates: “Vaughn Meader was busy tonight, so I came myself.”

Meader’s career was stopped short by news that Kennedy had been assassinated. It was also that day that Vaughn Meader died, he would say. He began going by his birth name, Abbott.

Meader was born in the central Maine city of Waterville during one of New England’s worst floods. He often told crowds, “I was born on March 20, 1936, the night the West Bridge washed out.”

After high school he joined the Army, and later started doing a standup comedy act in New York. His Kennedy act led to the popular album, which brought Meader, still in his 20s, instant fame.

He appeared in Time and Life magazines, packed rooms in Las Vegas and was called by the Ed Sullivan Show.

“It was just a whirlwind, going here, going there, going here, going there. And playing the game – the star game,” Meader said in an 1999 interview with The New York Times Magazine. “It was a blur, you know? I thought I was having the time of my life.”

With Kennedy’s death, his acts were canceled and stores pulled the album, no longer funny, from their shelves. His famous friends no longer associated with him. Meader said he turned to booze and started taking cocaine and heroin.

After a period of drifting, he returned to Maine, where Meader wrote and played bluegrass and country music and became known for his honky-tonk performances in small, local bars.

Living back in what he called the slow lane, Meader reveled in a resurgence of nostalgia-driven media interest in his JFK comedy act, said Sheila, his fourth wife with whom he was married for 16 years. He maintained his sense of humor, she said.

“I liked his music,” Sheila said. “The reason we stayed married was he made me laugh.”

The couple moved to Gulfport, Fla., in 1999 but returned in 2002.

Meader will be cremated and a private committal ceremony is planned for Sunday. A public celebration of his life is scheduled for Nov. 21 at The Wharf, a Hallowell bar where he had performed, his wife said.