The 6 Biggest Over-Achievements in the History of Marriage
When it comes to marriage, there are a lucky few who manage to land somebody way out of their league. Rarer still is the segment of this over achieving population who appear to just hate it: "Eeuw, I'm rich! I have a hot wife! God, how did I end up in this awful situation?" We don't know what's wrong with them (our leading theory is something called Self-Destructive Penis Syndrome) but good lord is it fascinating.
#6.
Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong Jones
Princess Margaret (Queen Elizabeth's kid sister) was still reeling from a failed romance, and so was ripe for the kind of hasty, poorly considered rebound relationship that Mr. Antony Armstrong-Jones specialized in.
You know what they say about ladies on stamps, right? We don't, but someone must.
Though he was a well-known celebrity photographer in his own right - mostly famous for his "creative" portraits where he had subjects pretend to be a table leg or stick their heads through a toilet seat - he definitely fell in the realm of "commoner" as far as the royal family was concerned, and that made theirs the first marriage of royalty to a commoner in roughly 450 years. They even had to invent an earldom for him (the Earl of Snowdon) when Margaret got pregnant, so the royal baby wouldn't be born without a title and doubtlessly get picked on by all the other royal babies.
Here they are on vacation in Arizona. All the fences made it easy for Snowdon to disguise his height.
His marriage to Princess Margaret was "like Cinderella in reverse," according to rival photographer Nicky Haslam. But Tony didn't think it was such a big deal. Not only did he flout royal customs like walking two steps behind his wife in public but normal human being customs as well, like not cheating on your wife with other women and particularly not cheating on your wife with other men.
Moments later, he gave a "royal edict" to the cameraman in a nearby broom closet.
Although it wasn't all bad, as this horrible sham marriage did set up one of history's best zingers: When Margaret was asked how the queen was doing, she responded by asking, "Which one? My sister, my mother, or my husband?"
Oh, dang, Snowdon! You need some Royal Jelly for that ROYAL BURN?!
We're guessing the countless pansexual orgies softened the sting.
Tony was such a terrible husband that he felt the need to get a running start at failing his marriage. So he conceived a child during a threesome with his best man and his best man's wife a few months before the wedding. Margaret later cheated on him as well for revenge, but she was, simply put, out of her league.
"Ha! Just one lover? What is this, open mic night? Leave the infidelity to the professionals, Margaret."
He continued his photography work and demanded she respect it, but didn't pay the slightest respect to her station ("Yes, yes, dear, of course you're a princess. You're a doll. You're wonderful.") He tried to make up for his indiscretions by leaving her little notes in books he knew she would read, which is a wonderfully romantic gesture...except his notes tended to be lists of "things I hate about you."
Why was this guy so full of himself that he took marrying a princess for granted? Some say ego, some blame Margaret, but his prep school classmates probably have the real answer here: He had a monster dong. And that lets you get away with anything.
So that's why he needs a wheelchair.
#5.
Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky
When you think of the words "prudent" and "marriage," the last person you should think of is Elizabeth Taylor, who was married eight times, and shocked and astounded each and every time it didn't work out. The most bizarre choice of husband was probably Larry Fortensky, a construction worker she met in rehab.
Just looking at him, you can tell he smells like corn nuts.
Gossip columnist Liz Smith, completely misreading the situation (as is her job,) said, "It will be fun for her. After all, Elizabeth is no snob. Under the high gloss of her facade, she is really an ordinary woman who has led an extraordinary life."
And that is the most monumental lie that has ever been told. There was absolutely nothing ordinary about Elizabeth Taylor. Ever. Even if you're unfamiliar with her Hollywood career, just consider the wedding itself: It was guarded by a 100 man security force headed by an ex-Israeli army officer, and held at the home of her good friend Michael Jackson.
Just a normal wedding. With a giant Merry-Go-Round.
After the ceremony, they returned to Elizabeth Taylor's massive mansion where she had an army of servants to attend to her every need, and Larry's needs as well, and Larry just freaked the hell out. Apparently he didn't realizing she was THE Liz Taylor until well after the wedding. He was so shell-shocked by his new life, he made Elizabeth get rid of all her servants and even introduced her to the concept of the stove, which she no doubt came to fear as the magical house where fire lived. Instead of lounging by the pool and working on his experimental new music label, as most rich-woman-marrying jerks are wont to do, Larry kept taking his regular construction jobs.
And wearing his regular mullet.
At this point you might think he was just a humble, salt-of-the-earth guy trying to gently urge his wife back to the simple life, but Larry was no saint: He just literally could not give one crap less about money. When Taylor offered him $1 million to quit his chain-smoking habit, he told her to suck it up and "deal with it." After the marriage, he was arrested for drug use in an illegally parked motor home with his "live-in maid." No secret suite at the Hilton for Larry Fortensky; you get railed in his 1986 Winnebago Chieftain, or you don't get railed at all. He was later arrested again for domestic assault.
Liz Taylor would go on to continue being Liz Taylor.
So sure, his life after the marriage kind of sucked and read like the subplot to a later season of Roseanne, but we're sure it beat living in that filthy mansion and having everything paid for with that god-awful "money" stuff -- good thing he got out of that hellhole alive.
#4.
Roger Vadim
Roger Vadim was a French director known for starting the career of Brigitte Bardot, considered to be one of the sexiest women of all time, and for marrying Bardot and some of the other sexiest women of all time, and finally, for completely neglecting and abandoning the sexiest women of all time.
Maybe he hated his wang?
You're probably reading the words 'French Director' and assuming he was a pretentious but brilliant, world-renowned artist -- which of course the ladies love -- but that's wrong: His best known film was Barbarella, the cheesy sci-fi flick starring Jane Fonda and an all-star cast of breasts and asses. But somehow he managed to marry a succession of ridiculously sexy movie stars that were probably at the top of any man's list in the day - starting with Brigitte Bardot and including Jane Fonda (number 3).
Ho-hum. Another jaunt to an island paradise with a beautiful supermodel. Just another Tuesday for Roger Vadim.
Instead of being grateful that he was married to women that would be pants-saluted everywhere, he quickly tired of them whenever they started developing into real people. He ditched his lover Catherine Deneuve when "my shy adolescent had blossomed out into a hard-headed woman ruthlessly in control of her own life," as he put it. The whole point of Brigitte Bardot as a sex symbol was the natural, unabashed charisma she exuded as a confident woman, but it didn't do anything for Vadim, who said, "From the moment I liberated her ... the moment I showed her how to be truly herself, our marriage was all downhill."
He's like some sort of sex-vampire that feeds on innocence.
After divorcing the heiress Catherine Schneider, he complained how she had taken him for granted by saying, "You bring a mistress flowers, and she accepts them as a lovely present. A wife only notices when you don't bring flowers." Sure, she gave him all the money he could ever want, but she didn't shriek in delight every time Vadim slipped her a $12 bouquet, so he's moving right the hell on.
Being married to Jane Fonda, a feat which every teenage boy in the era considered one step above parting the Red Sea, was okay for a while. But then this happened: "Unfortunately she's lost her sense of humor," Vadim states. "One day I called her Jane of Arc. She didn't laugh at all."
"Get it? Because your names are almost kind of similar? Ha ha! You're not laughing. DIVORCE!"
She really DOES have Crazy Eyes.
ReplyMary Bowes happens to be, through her children with her first husband John Lyon, Earl of Strathmore, ancestress of the late Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, aka the Queen Mother, aka the Queen's mother. This also means that #2 is the direct ancestor of #5 on your list.
ReplyThat Salomon guy does indeed sound like a scuzzball, but the women he hooked himself up with...well, let's just say they aren't exactly known for their amazing brainpower. It really doesn't surprise me all that much that they wound up with a loser like him.
ReplyThat Stoney guy sounds like a real piece of work! I suspect he's burning in his own private hell now. I was kinda surprised that he wasn't number one, but Peter Cook does indeed tend to embody the definition of "dickhead".
When I saw Christie Brinkley I thought for sure they would mention Brinkley with Billy Joel. Sure he was also popular and famous but the idea of a supermodel with such a tiny nerdy man with golf ball muppet eyeballs and a (back then) jew fro had a LOT of people asking if he had hidden her contact lenses
ReplyThis is a list of guys who were assholes to their wives. Billy Joel wasn't. Also, he and Christie are both rich and famous (it could be argued that he's at least slightly more famous than her, because her looks will eventually fade, but people still love his music), and just because he is not as hot as she is doesn't make her out of his league.
I think these guys acted like such dicks because after scoring with a supermodel, they figure they must be hot s**t and don't think that maybe, just maybe, that despite being rich and famous she's still a person. So they get a big head and start treating these girls like trash 'cause they figure they can get away with it. They were probably always assholes and getting married to these girls just turned it up to 11.
ReplyI love this article, but where the heck is K-Fed??
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesI actually don't think he belongs on this list. I think Britney was a bit effed up herself back then.
The moral of the Britney/K-Fed story is "You can take the girl out of the trailer park but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl."
Not to argue with you there SimuLord, but I thought the moral was "Horrible horrible people have horrible horrible marriages".
Well, not one. A couple of clues. Being mature is a complex thing.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesAnd for sure, if we talk about 'being in another league' or someting like this... well, telling frankly, I bet all of that is a giant mistake. Mature people do not think in this way. Being in one or another league is actually not about who are you regarded as, at all. It's about who you really are. ~tall chat. c0 m~ a nice club .....
Wow the spambot made a relevant comment. This is the future of spam.
I don't like it, it's creepy. It's like they're trying to be people...
Mature people grade each other by height?
This is one of my favorite articles on Cracked. Each time I've revisited it, after a long absence, it remains both hilarious (captions, and some scenarios) and also cringe-worthy (not from the writing, but that fact that people can be *such* asshats). I still think that Andrew Robinson Stoney was the worst of all these scumbags, though.
ReplyI have a huge problem with #1. In fact, I have a huge problem with all of this "out of his league" bullshit. So because a women is popular and pretty the man is automatically inferior to her? How come when a women is interested in a man wealthier than her, she's somehow not out of his league? Why do we even think this way when it comes to relationships? It just encourages feelings of inferiority? It encourages elitism and class discrimination. That's a pretty clear double standard in favor of the woman.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIt also really makes me not even want to approach some women. Apparently, I'm just not "good enough" for some. Unfortunately, some assholes will agree.
If you look closely, you'll notice that ALL of the women on this list were wealthy, celebrities or royalty (and possibly some combination thereof). They're not talking about the "average woman" here.
In fact, if the "average woman" (one that isn't rich, a celebrity or some form of royalty) marries a man who is one of or more of those three, people DO talk. Often, that talk consists of badmouthing here, as in "she's a gold digger and just after his money."
So it cuts both ways. The important thing isn't what other people think, it's what you and your partner think/know. If both of you want to be together, regardless of wealth or status, then that's what really matters.
And I think those women would thank you for realizing how worthless you are, and not wasting their time with that. So I guess I'm that a*****e who agrees, yay!
Lack of self-confidence is the #1 turn off for most women so you may want to work on that.
"...and that made theirs the first marriage of royalty to a commoner in roughly 450 years." This is actually not true. 23 years earlier, King Edward VIII abdicated his throne to marry, not only a commoner, but an American divorcee one at that. He remained royal (retained the title Prince Edward) and was named Duke of Windsor by his brother (Queen Elizabeth's father, George V) to boot. Yeah just a little fact checking.
ReplyNot to be a dick, but Elizabeth's father was George VI. George V was her grandfather.
"Hark, the herald angels sing, Mrs. Simpson's pinched our King"
for a time I thought #3 said Rick Santorum.
ReplyWhat this article really shows is just how human these "stars" are. All they want is a connection with someone. And it doesn't even matter if you're a douche. Fame and money are secondary, if you're not like the 99% who get impressed with shiny fake camera effects, you can do wonders. Just don't be a douche and end up on a list like this.
ReplyHow are these "over achievements"? They just sound like really terrible marriages to me...or was the title supposed to be sarcastic? Ether way it wasn't really funny.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesIt's clearly about how one half of these marriages managed to play way out of their league. That's the over-achievement.
Case in point... a recovering drug addict of a construction worker marries a Hollywood actress. That's not simply "out of his league" so much as comparing a little tyke playing tee-ball to the MLB.
However, the point of the article wasn't simply overachievers, but assholes who didn't consider themselves overachievers based on how f*****g awesome they considered them selves to be (or how little they gave a damn). Like in #1 where a psychiatrist diagnosed Cook as "a narcissistic, self-destructive man." Yeah, that sums up all but maybe one of them. (which is how they probably pulled off the marriages, Cracked has another article mentioning the "bad boy" effect.)
Yeah, basically one half of these marriages "played out of their league," then SCORED massively, but decided they weren't happy and went way further than they should have.
yeah, this one just didn't do it for me, not very funny, just sort of a list of assholes. maybe because i'm not interested in any of the women listed... jane fonda? traitor... pam anderson/shannen d... idiot bimbos. christy brinkley... billy joel
ReplyTraitor, realy? Is it because she was against the US wiping Vietnam from the face of the Earth via napalm because your government were being paranoid imperialist fuckwits.
It wasn't the fact that she was against the war, it was the fact the way she protested.
To add to that list: Geoffrey Arend, the husband of Christina Hendricks. Seriously. Christina H (get it? Ha!) is a goddess, and her husband is pretty ugly. Now, she probably married him for dumb reasons like "love" and "personality" and "not being shallow," but if that's true, then why not marry me? I have personality, and (as you can see from my post) I'm totally not shallow.
ReplyIs Christina Hendricks's husband a well-known asshole? No? He's a good guy, despite being "ugly"? Well, then, shut up.
Have to add a comment because there are 666 comments and...thats creepy. So, yay #667!!
ReplyBesting the Devil?
Who do you think you are - the Charlie Daniels Band?
Larry Fortensky sounds kinda like my Dad.
ReplyA man like that doesn't trust money he hasn't made with his own hands. Liz should have brought him a little store/business/garage or warehouse to keep him busy.
christina i love you!
Reply"Get it? Because your names are almost kind of similar? Ha ha! You're not laughing. DIVORCE!" THIS WINS
Reply(sorry for my English) All the problem about this is, BOTH males and females are usually unaware of what the real difference between man and boy, and between woman and girl is. The world is full of boys pretending they're men and girls pretending they're women. That's extremely sad indeed.
ReplyA real woman would never marry an inapprioprate guy, 'cause real women are just too sharp not to recognize who is who.
A real man, on the other hand, would never marry a girl, 'cause real men are aware of that deliberate doing you-know-what to an immature female should be regarded as a crime. Just as pedophilia is. Sorry, I can see no difference between the two. That's completely awful for a mature male. If I did such a thing, the next what I would presumably do is vomiting.
I'm not married yet, but you see... in fact, I managed to beat all of my psychological problems BEFORE marriage. And I bet that's the only way. What was the clue that turned out to be the crux of the matter? Well, not one. A couple of clues. Being mature is a complex thing.
And for sure, if we talk about 'being in another league' or someting like this... well, telling frankly, I bet all of that is a giant mistake. Mature people do not think in this way. Being in one or another league is actually not about who are you regarded as, at all. It's about who you really are.
I'm sorry too