ANDY WILLIAMS - WILLIAMS CHANGED LIFESTYLE AFTER PAL KENNEDY SHOT

Veteran crooner ANDY WILLIAMS was so affected by the assassination of his close friend ROBERT KENNEDY in the late 1960s he immediately vowed to clean up his own lifestyle. The 79-year-old was watching the presidential candidate's speech on television from a suite inside the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where Kennedy was shot in 1968. Williams says, "I was in an upstairs suite at the Ambassador watching his speech on television. We were supposed to meet at the Factory nightclub as soon as he walked off the floor. "When the live TV pictures of Bobby being shot came on it was terrible. I immediately went to the hospital with my then wife CLAUDINE LONGET. We waited there all night until Bobby was pronounced dead then we got on the Air Force 2 plane which took his body back to New York. It was an awful time. "Bobby's death affected me greatly. I decided I'd start to take care of myself, get in shape, quit drinking and become a better person. I wanted to do that after he died." Kennedy was killed by Palestinian SIRHAN B SIRHAN, who believed himself betrayed by Kennedy's support for Israel.