Number of Divorces: Eight (Seven marriages)
The King of Cable also holds the record for the most divorces of any of the late-night talkers. (The previous record was held by Johnny Carson, who married four times.) The ladies seem to be attracted to those infamous suspenders—King dated actress Angie Dickinson, and was engaged to two other women in addition to his marital conquests. King’s wives include his high-school girlfriend. His most interesting time at the altar came not once, but twice—he married Playboy bunny Alene Akins in 1961, in a marriage that lasted two years, and gave it the old college try again in 1968, but Round 2 only lasted three years. Apparently, holding on to Larry is something to be proud of: His soon-to-be ex-wife, Shawn Southwick, said proudly in 2007 on their 10-year anniversary that she was “the only wife to have lasted into the two digits.”
Danny Moloshok / AP Photo
Number of Divorces: One (and one on the way)
The brooding actor’s divorce total will soon tie his Oscar haul. After Sean Penn’s tumultuous four-year marriage to Madonna in the late 1980s, which included plenty of paparazzi run-ins and a domestic assault charge (Penn pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor) he gave matrimony a second try. His next marriage, to actress Robin Wright, was also been marred by conflict. Their 18-year relationship (and 13-year marriage) was rocky in 2007 and earlier this year, with each initiating divorce proceedings—just this week, however, Robin Wright Penn filed for divorce, and this time both seem serious. The couple has already agreed to divide their property and custody of their 16-year-old son.
Michael Jacobs / Newscom; Chris Pizzello / AP Photo
Number of Divorces: Three (Four marriages)
Elvis and Priscilla’s daughter first married at the age of 20, to fellow musician Danny Keough, in a ceremony held at the Church of Scientology. The two—who remain great friends—were married for six years. But Keough’s ties to Scientology weren’t the strangest part of Lisa Marie’s love life—a mere 20 days after their divorce was finalized, she married Michael Jackson, and stayed with the controversial singer for two years, amid rumors that the two were never intimate (both denied these reports). Next came a whirlwind romance with Nicolas Cage, and after marrying in Hawaii in 2002, the unusual couple’s marriage lasted for 108 days before Cage (who was a huge Elvis fan) filed for divorce. Most recently, Lisa Marie tied the knot with her guitarist and music producer Michael Lockwood.
AFP / Getty Images
Number of Divorces: Three
The green-eyed beauty of Old Hollywood had three very high-profile relationships. Gardner married Mickey Rooney before she was a huge star, when she was only 19 (she was the first of his eight marriages). Rooney raved about Gardner in the bedroom, but she was less impressed, “Well, honey, he may have enjoyed the sex, but [goodness knows] I didn't." Next, Gardner became bandleader Artie Shaw’s fifth wife, in a marriage that lasted only a year. And finally, Gardner made up for her time in the bedroom with Rooney after Frank Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for the screen siren, and the two had a passionate marriage for six years. "We were great in bed,” said Gardner, after they divorced in 1957. “It was usually on the way to the bidet when the trouble began.”
AP Photo
Number of Divorces: Three (Four marriages)
Many thought Ol’ Blue Eyes’ 12-year marriage to Nancy was going to last, but when he left his wife for Ava Gardner, it was just the start of his handful of Hollywood marriages. Years after his union with the actress dissolved, Sinatra wooed 21-year-old Mia Farrow when he was 50 years old. Their two-year marriage had a messy ending when she refused to quit Rosemary’s Baby and join his film instead, and Sinatra served her divorce papers on the set. Eight years later, the crooner married Barbara Marx (former wife of Zeppo) and the two made it last until his death in 1998.
Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Number of Divorces: Four
Poor Liza doesn’t have the greatest track record at the altar. The star’s first marriage, to Aussie entertainer Peter Allen, lasted for seven years, from 1967 to 1974, but the Boy from Oz performer became a gay icon in the years following their marriage. Next, Liza was married to director and producer Jack Haley, Jr. (her mother, Judy Garland starred with his father, who played the Tin Man) for five years, and sculptor Mark Gero for 13 years. Her last marriage, to concert promoter David Gest, was arguably one of the biggest train wrecks in Hollywood history—after their high-profile nuptials in front of 1,000 of their closest friends, with Liz Taylor acting as maid-of-honor and Michael Jackson as best man, their marriage fell apart after 16 months. Gest later sued Minnelli, claiming she was an alcoholic and abused him. The suit was dismissed because of a lack of evidence.
Marty Lederhandler / AP Photo; Robert Spencer / AP Photo
Number of Divorces: Four (Five marriages)
British actress Joan Collins was the villianous vixen on Dynasty, and her multiple marriages in real life were also befitting the soap star. Collins was first married to Irish actor Maxwell Reed for four years, and next to the slightly more-famous actor and composer Anthony Newley, who wrote ballads for Sammy Davis, Jr. and Tony Bennett, and the couple had two children together during their seven-year marriage. Next came former Apple Records president Ron Kass, followed by a quickie relationship with Swedish singer and playboy Peter Holm, whom she called “the most combative person I’ve ever met.” Because Holm gave poolside interviews dishing on their relationship and contested their pre-nup, the couple’s divorce captured the media’s attention, and upon Holm losing the case, Collins said, “I don't need a husband, what I need is a wife!" Her statement was short-lived: In 2002, Collins married production tech Percy Gibson, who is 32 years her junior. Collins said of their age difference, “If he dies, he dies.”
Retna
Number of Divorces: Five
File Billy Boy under “Improbable Playboy.” The 54-year-old actor has been divorced five times, with his 2003 split from Angelina Jolie drawing the most attention. Although his other marriages, including one right after high school graduation, were much more under-the-radar (no famous actresses with beestung lips or vials of blood were involved in any of the other relationships), they did produce four children for the actor. And although he has a child with his latest girlfriend, Billy Bob won’t be donning a tux any time soon—marriage, he says, “doesn’t work” for him.
Jason Kirk / Getty Images
Number of Divorces: Five
In romance novelist Danielle Steel’s case, reality really is stranger than fiction. While attending NYU at the age of 18, she married banker Claude-Eric Lazard, and they stayed together for nine years. Steel next tied the knot with Danny Zugelder for a short-lived marriage with a devastating ending—he was later convicted as a serial rapist. The day after her divorce was final, she married William Toth, whose parental rights to their son Nicholas she terminated because he was a heroin addict. Next, Steel married winemaker John Traina, who adopted Nicholas, and they had five more children. Their marriage dissolved, however, after Steel took two writers to court who attempted to disclose that Traina wasn’t the biological father of Nicholas (who later committed suicide). In recent years, Steel dated George Hamilton (who says he was treated like “homework”) and was married to a Silicon Valley businessman, but now remains single and with plenty of fodder for her books.
SIPA / AP Photo; Kevin Winter / Getty Images
Number of Divorces: Five
A huge star in the 1940s, Rita Hayworth was far from the slinky siren she played in the 1946 noir classic Gilda. Married and divorced five times, most notably to Orson Welles, Hayworth said of the men in her life, “They fell in love with Gilda, and woke up with me.” All of her marriages lasted less than five years, beginning with her nuptials at age 18 to her much-older manager Edward Junson, whom she divorced on the grounds of cruelty. At the age of 25, she quickly married Welles, although their relationship was far from picture-perfect—he frequently cheated and was disinterested in having a family. Hayworth then abandoned her film career to marry Prince Aly Khan, a renowned playboy and the son of the leader of Shia Islam. She filed for divorce from him, also on the grounds of mental cruelty. Her subsequent marriages, to singer Dick Haymes and James Hill, each lasted under three years, and the vivacious star never married again.
Peter Stackpole, Time Life Pictures / Getty Images
Number of Divorces: Seven (Six husbands)
It might be easier to recall the legendary Liz Taylor for her multiple divorces than for any one film role—the gorgeous actress was married eight times, widowed once, and divorced seven times (including twice to longtime love Richard Burton). Her first marriage, at the age of 18 to Conrad “Nicky” Hilton, Jr., lasted only a year, which unfortunately cut short any time Taylor could have spent hanging out with his great nieces, Nicky and Paris Hilton. Taylor subsequently married English actor Michael Wilding and, less than a week after divorcing him, Michael Todd, who tragically died when his plane (named Lucky Liz) crashed. Then came Eddie Fisher, Todd’s best friend, who divorced Debbie Reynolds to marry Taylor, Richard Burton (twice)—and here’s a wild card: Republican politician John Warner, whom she was married to for six years. She wed her final husband, Larry Fortensky, whom she met at the Betty Ford Clinic, at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, but the magic only lasted five years.
AP Photo; Newscom
Number of Divorces: Seven (Nine husbands, one annulment)
Before serial divorcee Liz Taylor wed Conrad Hilton, Jr., Hungarian beauty queen Zsa Zsa Gabor married his father, Conrad Hilton. None of Gabor’s conquests quite reached her same level of fame—an investment banker here, an attorney there—and nearly all came in under the five-year mark. For 18 months, she was married to Jack Ryan, the designer of the Barbie doll. Luckily, Gabor finally found love with her ninth husband, German socialite Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt. The two have been married since 1986. He has said, “We didn't marry for love. It was a friendship, but when you're with someone over a certain time you fall in love."
Jim Pringle / AP Photo
Number of Divorces: Seven (Eight marriages)
For a diminutive man, Mickey Rooney put up big marriage numbers. The former child star’s first marriage was to Ava Gardner—and perhaps the following seven were his attempts to top it? He was also married to minor film actresses Martha Vickers and Elaine Devry. His shortest marriage was to Marge Lane, and lasted a mere 100 days. Rooney is rumored to have once joked, “I'm the only man in the world with a marriage license made out ‘To whom it may concern.’” Rooney, now 88 years old, has been married to current wife, Jan Chamberlin, for more than 30 years—more than his previous seven marriages combined.
AP Photo
Number of Divorces: Eight
Usually musicians get the girl, but how often does the clarinetist score some of the most beautiful women in the world? Shaw was a famous bandleader from the 1930s to the ‘50s and was the first husband of serial divorcer, actress Lana Turner. He also had quick marriages and divorces from actresses Ava Gardner and Doris Dowling. The self-proclaimed “difficult man” was married longest to Evelyn Keyes, the actress famous for portraying Scarlett O’Hara’s sister Suellen in Gone With the Wind.
Zumapress
Number of Divorces: Eight (Seven husbands)
Lana Turner played the young ingénue in her early film roles, but was unusually outspoken when discussing her love life. The eight-time divorcee was married to Artie Shaw for only four months when she was 19 (or her “college education,” as she put it), twice to actor Josef Crane (although their first marriage was annulled) and then to, in the following order: a millionaire, a two-bit actor, a rancher, a writer, and a nightclub hypnotist who (unsurprisingly) disappeared after she loaned him $35,000. Turner’s most famous relationship, however, ended not in marriage—but with murder. After her fourth divorce in 1957, Turner engaged in a tempestuous relationship with gangster hanger-on Johnny Stompanato. During one violent argument, Turner’s 14-year-old daughter defended her mother, stabbing and killing Stompanato. Which is one way cut down on future divorce expenses.
Zumapress
