Pressure with the thumbs, matrimony comes...Celebrating The Sanctity of Marriage...Between A MAN and a WOMAN....as God Intended!
To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage."
— Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu
Happy Tuesday!
I hope this finds you all well and celebrating LOVE today! I Love you for taking the time to join me on this journey celebrating weddings and marriage. As you all must know by now, marriage equality is for ALL in New York! My partner and I got married on Sunday after 21 years together. Not 50 as one paper said! Perhaps sometimes it feels like 50 years! Sometimes, it feels like we just met. 850 couples got married on Sunday! Isn't that exciting? I really wish that EVERYONE could have experienced and seen first hand the love filling City Hall on Sunday. If you saw my blog on Sunday, you may recall that we were joined by our friends Pat & Joe, Tom & Leslie, Frank & Doug.
A very intimate affair.
As we waited in line waiting to go in, people in line were singing, congratulating each other, laughing, crying, celebrating.
Of course, there were the detractors as well. At one point, Leslie pointed out the Phelps Church crackpots across the street. That "church" consists of The Phelps family. How sad that all of their energy is used for channeling hatred rather than love!
Imagine what they could do with if that negativity was turned around!
Why does the idea of two people who love each other getting married scare so many people? I keep hearing over and over that this will destroy the sanctity of marriage!
Since I am all about building up rather than tearing down, today I want to celebrate the sanctity of marriage...between a MAN and a WOMAN...the way that God intended!
Do you realize that between Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Judy Garland, and Liza Minnelli, that there have been 35 marriages! And some people in this country are denied ONE! Something is wrong with those numbers!
Taylor was married eight times to seven husbands.
When asked why she married so often, she replied, "I don't know, honey.
It sure beats the hell out of me,"but also said that, "I was taught by my parents that if you fall in love, if you want to have a love affair, you get married. I guess I'm very old-fashioned."
Michael Wilding : The "gentle" Wilding, 20 years older than Taylor, comforted her after leaving Hilton.
After their divorce Taylor admitted that "I gave him rather a rough time, sort of henpecked him and probably wasn't mature enough for him."
Michael Todd : Todd's death ended Taylor's only marriage not to result in divorce. Although their relationship was tumultuous, she later called him one of the three loves of her life, along with Burton and jewelry.
Eddie Fisher (May 12, 1959 – March 6, 1964): Fisher, Todd's best friend, consoled Taylor after Todd's death. They began an affair while Fisher was still married to Debbie Reynolds, causing a scandal;Taylor outraged columnist Hopper by telling her, "Well, Mike is dead and I'm alive...What do you expect me to do? Sleep alone?"
Reynolds eventually forgave Taylor; she voted for her when Taylor was nominated for an Oscar for Butterfield 8, and starred with her in These Old Broads.
Richard Burton (March 15, 1964 – June 26, 1974): The Vatican condemned Burton and Taylor's affair, which began when both were married to others, as "erotic vagrancy".
The press closely followed their relationship before, during, and after their ten years of marriage, due to great public interest in "the most famous film star in the world and the man many believed to be the finest classical actor of his generation."
Taylor wanted to focus on her marriage rather than her career, and gained weight in an unsuccessful attempt to not receive film roles.
Richard Burton (October 10, 1975 – July 29, 1976): Sixteen months after divorcing—Burton said, "You can't keep clapping a couple of sticks [of dynamite] together without expecting them to blow up"
—they remarried in a private ceremony in Kasane, Botswana, but soon separated and re divorced in 1976.
Burton disagreed with others about her famed beauty, acknowledging her "wonderful eyes" but saying that calling her "the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense. She has...a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she's rather short in the leg."
He stated, however, that when he first saw Taylor in 1952, "She was unquestionably gorgeous. I can think of no other word to describe a combination of plentitude, frugality, abundance, tightness. She was lavish. She was a dark unyielding largesse. She was, in short, too bloody much."
John Warner (December 4, 1976 – November 7, 1982): As with Burton, Taylor sought to be known as the wife of her husband, a RepublicanUnited States Senator from Virginia.
Unhappy with her life in Washington,however, Taylor became depressed and entered the Betty Ford Clinic.
Larry Fortensky (October 6, 1991 – October 31, 1996): Taylor and Fortensky met during another stay at the Betty Ford Clinic and were married at the Neverland Ranch.
Taylor had many romances outside her marriages. Before marrying Hilton she was engaged to both Heisman Trophy winner Glenn Davis—who did not know until the relationship ended that Taylor's mother had encouraged it to build publicity for her daughter—and the son of William D. Pawley, the United States Ambassador to Brazil.Howard Hughes promised Taylor's parents that if they would encourage her to marry him, the enormously wealthy industrialist and film producer would finance a movie studio for her; Sara Taylor agreed, but Taylor refused.
After she left Hilton Hughes returned, proposing to Taylor by suddenly landing a helicopter nearby and sprinkling diamonds on her.
Other dates included Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, and Malcolm Forbes.
In 2007, Taylor denied rumors of a ninth marriage to her partner Jason Winters,
“Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day.”
-Mickey Rooney!
Rooney has been married eight times. In the 1950s and 1960s, he was often the subject of comedians' jokes for his alleged inability to stay married. His current marriage, to Jan Chamberlin, has lasted more than 30 years which is longer than his previous seven marriages combined.
In 1942, he married Hollywood starlet Ava Gardner, but the two were divorced well before she became a star in her own right. While stationed in the military in Alabama in 1944, Rooney met and married local beauty queen Betty Jane Phillips.
This marriage ended in divorce after he returned from Europe at the end of World War II. His subsequent marriages to Martha Vickers
(1949) and Elaine Mahnken
In 1958, Rooney married Barbara Ann Thompson,
The marriage lasted only 100 days.
He was married to Carolyn Hockett from 1969 to 1974, but financial instability ended the relationship.
Finally, in 1978, Rooney married Jan Chamberlin, his eighth wife. As of 2011, they live in Westlake Village, California. Both are outspoken advocates for veterans and animal rights.
"Men have always liked me and I have always liked men. But I like a mannish man, a man who knows how to talk to and treat a woman—not just a man with muscles."
-Zsa Zsa Gabor
Gabor has been married nine times. She was divorced seven times, and one marriage was annulled. Her husbands, in chronological order, are:
Burhan Asaf Belge (1937–1941) (divorced)[13]
Conrad Hilton (April 10, 1942–1947) (divorced)[13][14]
George Sanders (April 2, 1949 – April 2, 1954) (divorced)[13]
Herbert Hutner (November 5, 1962 – March 3, 1966) (divorced)[15][16]
Joshua S. Cosden, Jr. (March 9, 1966 – October 18, 1967) (divorced)[17]
Jack Ryan (January 21, 1975 – August 24, 1976) (divorced)[18]
Michael O'Hara (August 27, 1976–1983) (divorced)[19]
Felipe de Alba (April 13, 1983 – April 14, 1983) (annulled)[20]
Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt (August 14, 1986 – present)
Behind every cloud is another cloud.
Judy Garland
Garland began a relationship with musician David Rose, and, on her 18th birthday, Rose gave her an engagement ring. The studio intervened because Rose was still married at the time to the actress and singer Martha Raye. The couple agreed to wait a year to allow for Rose's divorce from Raye to become final, and were wed on July 27, 1941.
Garland, who had aborted her pregnancy by Rose in 1942, agreed to a trial separation in January 1943, and they divorced in 1944.
During the filming of Meet Me in St. Louis, after some initial conflict between them, Garland and Vincent Minnelli entered a relationship together. They were married June 15, 1945,
She engaged Sid Luft as her manager the same year.
Luft arranged a four-month concert tour of the United Kingdom, where she played to sold-out audiences throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland.
The tour included Garland's first appearances at the renowned London Palladium, for a four-week stand in April.
Although some in the British press chided her before her opening for being "too plump", she received rave reviews and the ovation was described by the Palladium manager as the loudest he had ever heard.
Garland and Luft were married on June 8, 1952, in Hollister, California,and Garland gave birth to the couple's first child, Lorna Luft,
Garland sued Sid Luft for divorce in 1963, claiming "cruelty" as the grounds. She also asserted that Luft had repeatedly struck her while he was drinking and that he had attempted to take their children from her by force.
She had filed for divorce more than once previously, including as early as 1956.
Garland's fourth marriage was to tour promoter Mark Herron.
They announced that their marriage had taken place aboard a freighter off the coast of Hong Kong; however, Garland was not legally divorced from Luft at the time the ceremony was performed.
Her divorce from Luft became final on May 19, 1965,but Herron and Garland did not legally marry until November 14, 1965 and then separated six months later.
By early 1969, Garland's health had deteriorated. She performed in London at the Talk of the Town nightclub for a five-week runand made her last concert appearance in Copenhagen during March 1969.She married her fifth and final husband, Mickey Deans, at Chelsea Register Office, London, on March 15, 1969,her divorce from Heron having been finalized on February 11 of that year.
Liza Minnelli has been married (and divorced) four times. Her first marriage was to Peter Allen (full name Peter Allen Woolnough) on March 3, 1967.Australian-born Allen was Judy Garland's protégé in the mid-1960s.The couple divorced on July 24, 1974.
Later that year, she married Jack Haley, Jr., a producer and director, on September 15, 1974.
His father, Jack Haley, was Garland's co-star in The Wizard of Oz. They divorced in April 1979.
Minnelli was married to Mark Gero, a sculptor and stage manager, from December 4, 1979 until their divorce in January 1992.
She was married to David Gest, a concert promoter, from March 16, 2002, until they divorced in April 2007. (They separated in July 2003.)(Pictured above)
Minnelli also had a relationship with Desi Arnaz Jr., the son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Wow! This blog took on a life of its own! You need a scorecard! I apologize in advance if my marriage destroys the sanctity of marriage! Here's to your relations...may they never be as successful as the ones in this blog!
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Richard Skipper, Richard@RichardSkipper.com
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