FACTBOX-UPDATE 1-Some facts on U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy

May 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and patriarch of an American political dynasty, was hospitalized in Boston on Saturday after suffering a seizure at his Cape Cod vacation home.

Here are some facts about Kennedy, age 76.

* First elected in 1962, he is the second-longest serving member in the current U.S. Senate, and has served longer than all but two other senators in American history.

* He is the last surviving of four Kennedy brothers, including President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, and Robert Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1968 during his presidential bid. Both brothers also served in the U.S. Senate.

* Edward Kennedy's one try for the White House ended in failure in 1980, when he took on a sitting president of his own party, Jimmy Carter. His presidential ambitions were haunted by an accident at the Massachusetts island of Chappaquiddick in 1969, when his car plunged off a bridge and a young woman riding with him, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned.

* Known as "Teddy," he is a liberal icon who has held fast to ideology, but also is known as a consummate dealmaker, able to reach across party lines to get things done. He is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and serves on the Judiciary and Armed Services committees.

* He is the father of U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island and has two other children from his marriage with Joan Bennett Kennedy that ended in divorce. He took on the role of surrogate father to his slain brothers' 13 children. He married Victoria Reggie in 1992.

* One of his most famous statements came in his eulogy to his brother Robert. "My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. He should be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it."

* His father Joseph Kennedy was appointed ambassador to Britain from 1938 to 1940, and was instrumental in advancing the political careers of his sons.