| drunkenly swearing allegiance to the woman who stole his heart. Their love eventually ended in Antony�s suicide. Soon after, as the Romans came for Cleopatra�s life, she took fate into her own hands through the use of an asp. How�s that for tempestuous endings? |
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| Antony and Cleopatra These two lovebirds define what it means to use and abuse. As history goes, Cleopatra was one to play the field, so to speak, looking for love more as a means to further her career--which, to her, meant having dominion over the world. After a few marriages (two, I believe, were to her brothers), she finally honed in on the Roman hero Antony and seduced him into her depraved world. Power was what she sought and along with it, came the adulation of Antony who could do nothing other than to submit to her every whim and incite Roman fury at their union. By the time they were married @ 40 BC, they were prancing around Egypt in all the style to which Cleopatra was accustomed. As rumor has it, this prancing including Antony in women�s attire, |
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| Napoleon and Josephine The mystic Nostradomus apparently referred to what interpreters call three antichrists. The first, they say was Napoleon. Taking Cleopatra�s stance that true happiness lay in conquering the world, Napolean systematically set out to call the universe his own. Needless to say, he was a reviled and feared man. But his connection to one woman (and his letters to her) have survived all the megalomaniacal advances. |
| I don�t know much about their marriages other than what I saw in a made-for-TV movie when I was a young swooner myself. Various research only turned up data about he wars he commenced and the fact that he divorced Josephine in 1809 to marry the daughter of the Austrian emperor in the vain hope of keeping Austria out of further coalitions against him. (Although it must be noted that PBS has since created a documentary from which I should take information to rework this section...) He met his final defeat at Waterloo and was sent to permanent exile on the island of St. Helena. The TV movie ended with a destitute Armand Assanti calling out Josephine�s name�knowing her to be the only person to love, or perhaps, endure him. |
| King Edward VIII and Wallis Warfield Simpson Here was a guy who gave up power over one of the last remaining monarchies (albeit a figurehead) to keep a woman by his side. Wallis Warfield Simpson was an American living in England with her second husband. The Prince of Wales was an aging bachelor who some thought would never make up his mind regarding a mate. Together, the two made history. |
| Prince Edward (known to his friends as David) met Wallis in 1930. Several years later, she and her husband Ernest were frequent guests to the Prince�s cottage retreat. Soon after, Ernest seemed to slip out of sight. Edward took over England�s throne when his father King George V died in 1936. His was a short tenure, however. When Wallis� marriage finally ended, the king was forced to choose: the monarchy or this twice-divorced pushy broad from Maryland. He chose the woman. |
| In a radio broadcast heard over the world, Edward proclaimed, �I have found it impossible to carry out the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do, without the help and support of the woman I love.� I really wanted this one to have a storybook ending. The kind where they didn�t care about being snubbed by the castle, where they wrote epic poems for each other and said they would do it all the same if given a second chance. But observers say after the sandal there wasn�t much left to do besides host dinner parties. There was no poetry, no declarations of true love and happiness. Their world was empty as they voluntarily exiled themselves in Paris. To onlookers, the tone of their marriage was one of Wallis� domineering. She had been known to scold the man who gave up his country for her with such reprimands as, �David, pull up your socks.� |
| Clark Gable and Carole Lombard He was the most wanted man in Hollywood (I guess today�s version of People magazine�s "Sexiest Man Alive"). She was beautiful and sassy, one of the great comedic actresses of her time. These two epitomize the contemporary notion of love. Divorced from actor William Powell, Lombard wanted Gable�bad�and went after him. Knowing he loved the outdoors, she became a down-home chick for him and began going hunting and camping with the guys. They kept their love secret for a time, pretending not to know each other at the big studio parties. After the prolonged separation with his socialite wife finally ended in divorce, Lombard and Gable were free to declare their love (although everybody knew it by the time). |
| They got married as soon as he was finished shooting Gone with the Wind. Living away from the Hollywood hub-bub, they seemed to prefer simple life among farm animals. The two were by all accounts, the perfect couple. Then fate stepped in to destroy the idyll. The plane on which Lombard was traveling while selling war bonds crashed into a mountain near Las Vegas. Gable was heartbroken. Frantic at the thought of living without her, he first flew to Vegas to rescue her and then, realizing the worst, was never the same. He remarried twice, but when he died in 1961, his wife had him buried right next to Carole Lombard, the love of his life. |
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