Oddly, one of Lombard's best films was made three years later — "My Man Godfrey" — when her leading man was none other than her ex-husband, with whom she remained a close friend.

Powell would later become deeply involved with the ill-fated Jean Harlow, while Lombard would become the love of Clark Gable's life.

In 1939 she married Gable, and it appeared she would have a long and successful career as an actress at home in drama, but especially entertaining in comedies.

It's strange that people, even those in show business, claim you didn't see beautiful women being funny, but Lombard was both beautiful and very funny. (So were Rosalind Russell, Jean Arthur, Joan Blondell, Ginger Rogers and Ann Sothern, to mention a few.)

Tragically, Carole Lombard was killed on January 16, 1942, in a plane crash on Mount Potosi, Nevada, while returning from a promotional tour to help sell World War 2 bonds. She was only 33.

Veronica Balfe Cooper was nicknamed "Rocky," which also could have described their marriage, since her husband went on to have affairs with some of his leading ladies — Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, and especially Patricia Neal, the relationship that prompted the Coopers to separate in 1951.

They reconciled three years later and remained married until Cooper died in 1961. She married John Converse in 1964; he died in 1981. She died in 2000. Veronica and Gary Cooper had one child, Maria, who was born in 1937.

It's no wonder Fred and Phyllis Astaire took to calling her son "Peter," a much better nickname than, say, "Elephant." The Astaires had a child of their own in 1936, and, like the Potter family, handed down the father's name, calling their son Fred Jr. In 1942 they had a daughter and named her Ava.

Two of the world's most famous fighters were married in 1933, both of them to entertainers. At the time, boxers were the most popular athletes in this country, after baseball players, and had groupies the way pro football and basketball players do today.

On July 6, in Germany, Max Schmeling, former world’s heavyweight boxing champion, wed Anny Ondra, European screen star at the Charlottenburg city hall.

Schmeling is best remembered for his two fights against Joe Louis. In 1936 Schmeling handed Louis his first defeat, setting up the much-ballyhooed 1938 rematch in which Louis put the German away in the first round, thus delivering a major blow to Adolf Hitler's proclamation of Aryan supremacy.

Because he was German, Schmeling was for years regarded in this country as a villain. Only later would be be recognized as a good and honorable man, something Louis knew long before. The out-of-ring relationship between Louis and Schmeling was dramatized in two films, "Joe and Max" (2002) and "Ring of Passion" (1978). Another interesting film, "Max Schmeling," was released in 2010.

As for his marriage to Anny Ondra, unlike most of them on this page, this one was for keeps. Mrs. Schmeling died in 1987; her husband passed away in 2005, at the age of 99.

On July 18, 1933, Jack Dempsey, another former heavyweight boxing champion and one of the most popular fighters of all-time, married Hannah Williams, Broadway musical comedy star, in Elko, Nevada. Like the Gary Cooper wedding (above), the ceremony for this one omitted the word "obey."

It was Dempsey's third marriage. In 1916, when he was 21, Dempsey married Maxine Gates, described as "a saloon piano player." They divorced in 1919, and six years later he married Estelle Taylor, a silent screen movie star whose career faded when talkies arrived. She divorced Dempsey in 1930. (She would date another heavyweight champion, Max Baer, in 1933, but said she'd never again marry a boxer.)

Dempsey's marriage to Hannah Williams ended in a divorce in 1943, on grounds of her infidelity. (The two men named as co-respondents, were Benny Woodall, a former fighter, and former lightweight champion Lew Jenkins.) She counter-sued, charging Dempsey with cruelty and threats to her life.

Fifteen years later, the 63-year-old Dempsey married Deanna Piatelli, and they remained married until he died in 1983.

Walker, personable, but corrupt, resigned as mayor of New York in 1932, under pressure from then-Governor Franklin Roosevelt. Walker then went to Europe as a sort of self-imposed (and temporary) exile, perhaps thinking absence would make the hearts of his former constituents grow fonder.

As for his marriage to Compton, he must have known every bed of roses comes complete with a lot of thorns. He and Compton divorced in 1941.

Walker's life was turned into a hokey film, "Beau James," with Bob Hope in the starring role. Vera Miles played Betty Compton. The project was partly intended to show the motion picture academy that Hope could deliver a solid dramatic performance, albeit with a light touch, since Walker was a fast man with a quip. But, alas, there was no Academy Award waiting for Hope, who would joke about being ignored by the Oscars almost every time he hosted the awards show.

Louise Brooks may still be considered the most stunningly attractive woman to step in front of a camera. Maybe it was that hairdo, one that was tried for awhile by Clara Bow ("The It Girl'). But no one pulled it off as well as Brooks. Many photographs of her look as though they could have been taken yesterday.

It's no surprise that as a film actress she was more successful in silents than talkies. She was rather unconvincing when you could hear what she was saying. Not that she minded. She never liked Hollywood.

She was 20 when she married Sutherland in 1926. They divorced two years later. As for Deering Davis (notice he is described as a polo player), she left him in 1934, though the divorce didn't become final until 1938.

The love of her life, apparently, was George Preston Marshall, the man best-remembered as the owner of the Washington Redskins. They had a longtime, on-and-off relationship.

Her women friends, for the most part, were lesbians, and she admitted having a one-night stand with Greta Garbo, but claimed this, and other sexual experiments with women, did not do much for her.

There was much fuss made about her a few years ago, a sort of Louise Brooks revival, started, not surprisingly, in France. (If only she and Jerry Lewis could have made a film together.)

Highlight of her film career was "Pandora's Box," playing a character named Lulu, which figured in the title of her memoirs, titled "Lulu in Hollywood," published in 1982. She rarely gave interviews, but wrote several articles and could intellectualize with the best of them.

In truth, she wasn't much of an actress, and, unfortunately, some of her work, when viewed today, is downright embarrassing, such as two Westerns she made in the 1930s — "Empty Saddles" with Buck Jones and "Overland Stage Raiders" with John Wayne.

But, then, she didn't really want to be a good actress.

The divorce was granted. Ayres went on to marry Ginger Rogers in 1934. (They would divorce in 1940.)

Lola Lane was one of four performing sisters, though Leota, the eldest, left the act in 1931. Lola and sisters Rosemary and Priscilla sometimes appeared together in movies, though each tried to carve out solo careers, with Priscilla the most successful.

Ayres was Lola Lane's second husband. She would marry three more times, starting with Alexander Hall in May, 1934.

Elliott Roosevelt was re-married more times than his father was re-elected President. He and his first wife, Elizabeth Browning Donner, had a son, William Donner Roosevelt.

His marriage to Ruth Googins produced three children — Ruth Chandler Roosevelt, Elliott Roosevelt Jr. and David Boynton Roosevelt — before they divorced in March, 1944.

She married Harry T. Eidson three months later; in December he married actress Faye Emerson. They were divorced in 1950.

In 1951 he married Minnewa Bell Ross; they were divorced in 1960.

Finally, also in 1960, Roosevelt married Patricia Peabody Whitehead, and adopted her four children.

Chevalier denied rumors he was in love with Jeanette MacDonald, his co-star in two Hollywood films, "One Hour With You" and "Love Me Tonight." He didn't remarry until 1937; the second Mrs. Chevalier was dancer Nita Raya.

Helen Morgan was best known in her lifetime for performances on Broadway in "Showboat," and several years later for the movie version, which marked a comeback for the singer, who was an alcoholic.

Various sources say Morgan, who was born in 1900, was married three times, mentioning a man named Lowell Army as husband number one, but elsewhere Maschke turns up as her first spouse. She lied about her age, shaving it by five years. The marriage lasted two years.

On July 27, 1941, she married Los Angeles automobile dealer Lloyd Johnson, but ten weeks later the singer died of cirrhosis of the liver, attributed to her years of heavy drinking.

In 1957 there were two version of her life story produced, the first for television, starring Polly Bergen, who did her own singing, later recording an album of Helen Morgan songs, and the second a movie starring Ann Blyth and Paul Newman.

It was one of those times — and this happens more often than movie people like to admit — the television version was better, though the big screen production had one plus. Gogi Grant did the singing for Miss Blyth.

There was nothing wrong with Polly Bergen's vocal performance, but Gogi Grant was an unusually talented singer, with an outstanding voice, though she is remembered for only one hit, "The Wayward Wind."

Grant died in 2016 at the age of 91, but she performed until 2013.

Wanda Toscanini, 25, and Vladimir Horowitz, 27, did not wait until January. They were married in Milan, Italy, on December 21.

Vanderbilt also was regarded as one of the world's best contract bridge players, helping make it the card game incredibly popular in the 1930s. He died in 1970, at age 85 and still married to the former Gertrude Conway.

Ah, Evelyn Eugenia Bankhead, the oft-married, slightly older sister of actress Tallulah Bankhead, whose best work was done on the Broadway stage, but who is recalled today mostly for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 movie, "Lifeboat."

While Tallulah only married once — in 1937 to actor John Emery — she was notorious for her sexual appetite and described herself as "ambisextrous," though she talked publicly only about her affairs with men.

Eugenia, on the other hand, had this thing about marriage, saying "I do" for the first time when she was 17 to Michael Morton Hoyt, who was 19. This made both of them underage for matrimony without parental consent, so the wedding was annulled.

Three years later they got married again, and remained that way for eight years. In 1928, while she was in England to watch her sister perform in London, Hoyt went to Reno, Nevada, established residence, and divorced her.

However, before the year was over, they reconciled and married for a third time. The problem: Hoyt sold her on the idea of living in Reno. He discovered he liked it there. She didn't. So within months they were divorced again.

While in Nevada, she met Wilfred Lawson Butt, a football hero at Nevada University. And so they got married soon after her divorce began final. Trouble was, Butt was still legally married to someone else. And when Eugenia found out, she had her fourth marriage annulled.

No matter. A month later she was married again, to Howard Lee, who had two credentials that really impressed women in the early '30s. He was an aviator and a polo player. But on their wedding day, Lee became so ill that the reception was called off. He also had misrepresented himself as being very influential in the field of aeronautics. Somehow this was important to Eugenia Bankhead, who had this marriage annulled six weeks after the wedding.

This time she waited almost a year before getting married again. Edward Ennis White passed himself off as a New York business man. So why did he want to live in California?

Because he also was known as Graham Devine, who was wanted in New York on four counts of forgery and for passing bad checks, among them the one he had given the justice of the peace when he and Eugenia were married. Another annulment loomed.

She turned again to Michael Morton Hoyt, but this time there was no wedding, at least not in 1932 or 1933. As for Kennedy McConnell, well, despite Eugenia's announcement that she'd marry him, a wedding never took place.

Hoyt, who'd never married anyone else, was back in the picture in 1934, but, again, there was no wedding for Eugenia until she became Mrs. William D. Sprouse, at which point interest in her love life slipped below the radar, until she popped up as a house mate of Louisa Carpenter, duPont heiress and lesbian pal of Eugenia's sister, Tallulah, and singer Libby Holman.

Donald Woodward, called "The Jello King" in a newspaper headline, wasted little time getting back in the game. The day after his divorce to wife number two became final, he married again, to Mrs. Adelaide Jennings, head of the Rochester branch of the Jennings-Foley Detective Agency. The wedding took place in Rochester.

The parentage of the conjoined Hilton twins remains unknown. Their mother likely was single and died when Daisy and Violet were infants, and it is believed their father died in World War I. The girls were joined at the base of the spine and were raised by the midwife who delivered them, Mary Hilton, who brought them to the United States in 1916 and exploited the girls through circus troupes and vaudeville houses.

The twins finally broke free of Mary Hilton in 1929, but remained on the vaudeville circuit. The appeared in two movies, Tod Browning's famous "Freaks" (1932) and "Chained for Life" (1952).

They were not identical twins —Daisy was a natural blonde and Violet a brunette. Despite their announcement in the news item above, Daisy Hilton did not marry Jack Lewis, Violet did not marry an English boxer. Most states would not issue marriage licenses to them.

However, in 1936 Violet Hilton married James Moore, a dancer, but this short-lived marriage was annulled. In 1941 Daisy wed an actor,, Harold Estep (aka Buddy Sawyer), by that marriage ended ten days later.

After 1952's "Chained for Life" failed to revive their careers, the Hilton twins move to Florida and operated a fruit stand. In 1960 they settled in Charlotte, North Carolina, and worked in a supermarket. They died in 1969.

It was Livermore's third marriage, her fifth. Her first four husbands had all committed suicide. She was nicknamed "The Black Widow."

In October Livermore was sued for $250,000 in a breach of promise by Nadia (or Naida) Krasnova, variously referred to as "beautiful," "an actress," and a one-time employee at Livermore's Chicago office.

Later in 1933, the Livermores moved to New York City, and in December he went missing, causing his latest wife to believe he had been kidnapped. But 26 hours later he was back; his doctor said Livermore had had an attack of amnesia.

Livermore declared bankruptcy in March, 1934. The breach of promise suit was still pending and he owed more than $500,000 in state and federal taxes. Time Magazine (March 19, 1934) also reported that Livermore had promised a dancer named Lucille Ballantine $150 a month for five years for keeping him "cheered and amused" while he was getting his second divorce.

Livermore obviously was depressed, but held on until 1940 when he kept intact the perfect marital record of Harriet Nobel — he shot and killed himself.

The "boy plunger" lived like a king in the 1920s and had a Long Island mansion that was the scene of an interesting jewel robbery in 1927.

This item seemed to have all the makings of a fiasco or a disaster ... but Mr. and Mrs. Lamb — she was better known Ginger — defied the odds, though taking a lot longer than they originally intended, returning to California in the fall of 1936. Their 18,000 mile voyage was the basis for their first book, "Enchanted Vagabonds" in 1938, which launched their careers as travel writers.

In April, 1936, they were marooned on Cocos Island, off the coast of Central America, and weren't rescued until August 22. They still had their 16-foot canoe, but on their trip back to California, they brought the canoe aboard the liner that gave them the smoothest ride they had had in three years.

Once, in the canoe, they were blown 80 miles out to sea in a gale. They stopped several times during their prolonged honeymoon to look for gold in Mexico, and said they found enough to pay for the cost of their trip.

I can't help but wonder whatever happened to Jewell Hasty Bell of Kennett, Missouri. In 1933 she was just 19-years-old, but already had earned a place in the femme fatale Hall of Fame.

That's because by then she had already been married three times, and two of her husbands had committed suicide, while the third was shot and killed by husband number two, before he took his own life.

Jewell Hasty Bell was pretty, but no raving beauty, attracting men to whom she could not say "No" — until after she'd said "I do."

Married the first time at age 14, to Robert Wright, she immediately realized her mistake, him and went home to her mother. Wright asked her to come back, she refused, and he killed himself.

Next she married a much older man, Arthur Pruett, 44, because he seemed prosperous and attentive. But he was a criminal who had gotten away with murder at least twice. He also was married to someone else.

That marriage was annulled, then she found a nice young man, Harry Bell, 24, but before they could have a honeymoon, Pruett showed up to make trouble. Days later Pruett kidnapped his ex-wife, who managed, five days later, to convince him to turn her loose.

But there would be no peace for the newlyweds. On July 21, Pruett showed up looking for Jewell at her mother's house, making several wild demands. Bell, husband number three, went outside to talk to Pruett, but quickly realized talking would do no good.

Long story short, Bell went back to the house, got a pistol, and confronted Pruett, who was charging toward the house, rifle in hand. Bell managed to wound Pruett in a shoulder, but the older man fired a fatal shot with his rifle and continued into the house and tried to reach his ex-wife, who was locked in a back bedroom with her mother and other members of her family.

Pruett busted the door open, but Mrs. Hasty slammed it shut and the mother, determined to protect her family, stood against the door, even as Pruett fired a few shots through it, one of those shots striking the woman in the left hand.

Abruptly, Pruett went back to the dying Bell, shot him point blank two more times, then turned the gun on himself.

Incredibly, Bell outlived his killer, but only by a few hours, dying at a hospital in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.

At that point Jewell Hasty Bell disappeared from the news.

Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888-1957) was a United States naval officer and early aviator best known for exploring Antarctica, though earlier he also had explored the Arctic.

As the items above indicate, Byrd's 1933 expedition got off to a rough start, an omen of things to come. Byrd almost died after he attempted to spend the winter by himself in Antarctica's interior. He would return to the Antarctic three more times, though his exploring was interrupted by service in World War 2.

The early 1930s was an era of good feeling in America toward Italy and its leader, Benito Mussolini. Not only was 1933 the year Italy's air minister, General Italo Balbo, led a squadron of 24 seaplane to visit the Chicago's World Fair, but on July 4, in Rome, Mussolini became an honorary member of the American Legion when Colonel William E. Easterwood of Dallas, national vice commander, pinned a legion button on Il Duce's lapel.

And in October, William Cardinal O'Connell, archbishop of Boston, visited Italy, and when he returned on the Italian liner Volcania, he proclaimed that under the dictatorship of Mussolini, the Italians had become "a new people."

“What Mussolini has accomplished is almost miraculous,” he added. “There is a great improvement in the general order of things. He has transformed Italy in 10 years, not only the land but the people as well.”

Oh, yes, and he made the trains run on time. Too bad he didn't quit while he was ahead.

Huey Long may have been a hero and a legend in Louisiana, but the bombastic politician, after he became a United States senator in 1932, became a laughing stock to many people elsewhere. Others may have thought he was a joke, but they weren't laughing.

However, he was building what he thought was a large following, and in 1935 would announce his intention to run for President Shortly thereafter he was assassinated by Dr. Carl Weiss, the son of one of his political enemies.

Robert Penn Warren's fictionalized novel, "All the King's Men," was based on Long, but called the protagonist Willie Stark. It has been filmed twice, in 1949, with Broderick Crawford delivering an Oscar-winning performance, and in 2006, with Sean Penn.

Miss Lenska had lost her life savings by investing with a man who was very much in the news in 1933 — Samuel Insull, who had been the chief financial backer of the Chicago opera.

Insull, former Chicago utilities magnate, was hiding in Greece in an attempt to escape punishment on a federal charge here that he had violated the bankruptcy act. He wasn't brought back to the United States until 1934. After a trial he was found not guilty.

While generally unknown, Insull was a target in "Citizen Kane," the classic Orson Welles film. While most of the movie was inspired by the life of William Randolph Hearst, it was Insull and his wife, Gladys Wallis, who were subjects of the ridicule screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz directed at Charles Foster Kane and his second wife, an opera singer.

However, Wallis was an actress, apparently a good one when she and Insull married in 1899. But when she briefly came out of retirement in 1925, at the age of 56, she played the part of an 18-year-old in "School for Scandal." Mankiewicz, then a sometime theater critic for the New York Times, was assigned to cover the production, and he referred to Miss Wallis as "an aging, hopelessly incompetent amateur," though he was drunk at the time and never finished his review.

This experience was recalled for "Citizen Kane," which also borrowed from the life of Chicago industrialist Harold F. McCormick Sr., who mounted a production for his opera-singer wife, Ganna Walska, known for her off-key performances.

As for Hearst, he remained married to Millicent Wilson, but maintained an affair with Marion Davies, a successful screen actress. Hearst wanted Davies to take on more serious roles, when, in fact, she was recognized as one of Hollywood's best comedic performers.

Lawyer Ferdinand Pecora became a household name through an investigation by the United States Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. Pecora was the committee's chief counsel, and there was much press interest when Pecora led the inquiry into the business practices of J. P. Morgan, one of the country's wealthiest men.

Morgan's bank was just one of the targets as the committee attempted to determine the causes of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and what steps were required to prevent a recurrence.

Not surprisingly, the investigation found evidence of how financial institutions played — and paid — favorites. And as if Americans needed reminding, the investigation also spotlighted how the rich and the poor play by different rules. Morgan, for instance, paid no income tax in 1931 and 1932.

When his committee work was done, Pecora was appointed a commissioner of the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission, created as a result of the investigation. However, he resigned a few months later to become a judge of the New York State Supreme Court.

Great man that he was, Mahatma Gandhi probably never worried that the British would allow him to make good on a "fast unto death."

This was not the case in one of the 1933's strangest stories involving a 36-year-old woman born in Germany, who moved to the United States and settled in Texas.

Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler apparently received his nickname at an early age because of his cheerful disposition. He is best remembered today not as a governor or a United States senator, as the commissioner of major league baseball for six years, starting in 1945 when he succeeded Kennesaw Mountain Landis, the first man to hold that position.

Two years later Chandler supported Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, over the signing of Jackie Robinson, which ended the whites-only policy held by major league baseball since the 1880s. Chandler is in the baseball hall of fame.

Ms. Cocea recovered, but her real problems were yet to come. The native Romanian already was out of favor in France, despite her earlier success on stage and screen. Lieutenant Victor Point was a French hero, and he killed himself after finding Cocea with another man. Her subsequent "comeback" was a stage appearance that found the audience booing her when she made her entrance.

But, like I said, that was the past, and her problems were in the future after she hooked up with Roger Capgras, whose personal alliance with the Nazis landed him a cushy job as director of a newspaper after the Germans occupied Paris. She wound up arrested as a Nazi collaborator.

She was eventually released, without being tried, and in 1962 briefly resumed her film career. She died in 1970.

Buffalo Courier Express, July 11
LONDON — The “elevator boy baronet,” Sir Reginald Beatty Wolseley — known as “Dick” to the folks back in Waterloo, Iowa — is dead, it was announced today. He was 61 years old.

Sir Reginald, the son of Dr. Cadwallader Brooke Wolesley of Dublin, and a cousin of Admiral Earl Beatty, lived a fantastic life. In 1897, at the age of 25, he left England for the United States, and wound up in Waterloo as an elevator boy in a hotel.

He acquired his title in 1923 on the death of his cousin, Sir Capel Charles Wolesley, but liked his job in Iowa so well that he stayed there and kept his title a secret.

In May, 1930, Miss Marion Elizabeth Baker, a Devon girl, went to Waterloo as a messenger from Sir Reginald’s mother, who had just died. Miss Baker revealed she was fulfilling a deathbed wish made by his mother to bring Sir Reginald back to England. The day after her arrival she married Sir Reginald. He was 58, she was 40.

However, the bride found that getting back to England was no easy task. She left the day after the marriage with the understanding Sir Reginald would soon follow. The baronet, though, was attached to his lift. He refused to budge.

That fall he obtained a divorce, saying his wife harassed him by sending so many cablegrams coaxing him to come home.

Undaunted, Lady Wolseley that December once again traveled all the way to Waterloo and used all her powers of persuasion, finally winning her point. The divorce was set aside in January, 1932, and Sir Reginald and his wife sailed for England.

“This business of running an elevator is a fine occupation,” Sir Reginald said as he left America. “It paid well, too. I earned $20 a week.”

Sir Reginald’s widow survives him.

In New England Captain Bill Wincapaw, widely known New England aviator, and four others, flew six hours and hundreds of miles in a big seaplane through frigid, howling winds on Christmas Day to deliver newspapers, magazines and a pound of fresh coffee — gift of Adriel Bird, Boston business executive — to each of 70 lonely lighthousesand Coast Guard stations strung along the New England coast from Boston to northeastern Maine.

The flights have been an annual event for Wincapaw for four years in order to do a good turn for those who have aided him as an aviator. He said there were many times the gleam of a lighthouse through the night and sometimes through fog has spelled safety to him and other aviators flying off the coast.

He had intended to fly on Christmas Eve, but was prevented from completing his trip by fog that blanketed the coast and ice that coated his plane’s wings and forced him to turn back.