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Famous Historic Figures’ Public Image vs the Reality of their Lives

Khalid Elhassan June 3, 2020 34 min

John Ford - The Searchers — John Wayne. Pintrest

15. Ignoring Good Advice

Jerry Lee Lewis and his child bride. Today I Found Out

In Louisiana back then, marrying a thirteen-year-old girl, or marrying one’s cousin, were not exactly commonplace, but neither were they too unusual. Where Jerry Lee Lewis grew up, it simply was not that big of a deal, so he did not think his new wife’s age, or her blood relation to him, would prove scandalous. To the extent that he was worried about potential scandal, it had more to with the timing of the wedding. Just as he had done with his second marriage, Lewis had married his third wife before his divorce from his second wife had been finalized.

In short, Lewis did not realize that marrying his thirteen-year-old cousin might offend a lot of people, and destroy his public image. People from his record label warned him against taking his child bride with him on his first European tour. Lewis ignored them, and took Myra with him to England. It was a huge mistake.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.