I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

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What was that magical power Rex Harrison had over women? This is the third story I’ve presented about a woman who was obsessed with the late actor.

Kay Kendall appeared in both comedies and dramas, including a Golden Globe-winning performance in 1957 musical Les Girls, opposite Gene Kelly.

She had a lengthy romance with Charlie Chaplin‘s son Sydney. But, in 1955, Kay starred with Rex Harrison in the film The Constant Husband. Harrison was married to actress Lilli Palmer at the time. However, when he learned that Kay was diagnosed with myeloid leukemia, he and Palmer agreed to divorce so that he could marry Kay. Harrison would provide constant care for his new wife, though she was never told of the true nature and severity of her illness. She merely believed her had an iron deficiency. As for the divorce from Rex Harrison, Palmer said she was not upset because she had a lover too. Curiously, Palmer and Harrison made plans to re-marry after Kay’s death, but Palmer ended up falling in love with her companion, actor Carlos Thompson, and married him instead.

Kay passed away in 1959 at the age of 32.

Rex Harrison, that scoundrel, married three more times before his death.

Carole Landis killed herself over Rex Harrison. Rachel Roberts, too.

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Lupe Velez got her show business start singing and dancing in Mexican vaudeville in the 1920s. She was recommended to American theater director Richard Bennett (father of actress Joan Bennett) by a friend who had seen her perform. Bennett needed an actress to play a Mexican cantina singer for a play he was staging and Lupe fit the bill. While in Los Angeles, when the play was produced, Lupe met comedian Fanny Brice. Lupe was fascinated by Fanny’s personality and the feeling was mutual. Through Fanny’s show biz connections, she was set up with a screen test and was soon cast in a small role in a Laurel and Hardy comedy. That led to a role opposite Hollywood heartthrob Douglas Fairbanks. Soon, Lupe was starring in a succession of pre-Hays Code films in the 1930s.

Lupe took a break from motion pictures to appear in Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld‘s musical Hot Cha. She eventually returned to Hollywood with the popular B-picture The Girl for Mexico, the first in a series of vehicles for Lupe, now dubbed “The Mexican Spitfire.” She rocketed to fame and her “spitfire” screen persona spilled into her real life. She was temperamental, feisty and outspoken. She appeared a boxing matches, screaming at the fighters from ringside. Her Hot Cha co-star Bert Lahr told stories of Lupe rehearsing in the nude and she allegedly danced at parties sans underwear. She had many high-profile romantic partners, including Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin and Clark Gable. However, Lupe reportedly threatened one lover, actor Gary Cooper, with a knife. She publicly insulted her contemporaries Delores Del Rio and Marlene Dietrich. Lupe married big-screen “Tarzan,” Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, but their tumultuous relationship lasted less than six years.

In November 1944, Lupe became pregnant by struggling actor Harald Ramond. She announced their engagement, but, on December 10, she broke the engagement and kicked Ramond out of her house. On December 13, 1944, after dining with two friends, Lupe went to her bedroom and took 75 Seconal pills, downing them with a glass of brandy. The next morning, her secretary found her dead on her bed. Beside her body was a suicide note addressed to Harlad Ramond.

Fifteen years after her death, filmmaker/author Kenneth Anger told a different account in his exploitation tome Hollywood Babylon. Anger falsely claimed that Lupe consumed over five hundred pills and, when her stomach rejected them, drowned with her face in the toilet, trying to vomit. The incident, which has been debunked many times over, unfortunately still remains firmly attached as the ending to Lupe Vélez’s life.

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It was pretty apparent that Pete Burns was unique when, at 14, he was sent to the headmaster’s office for arriving at school one morning with no eyebrows, flaming red hair and one gigantic earring.

While working as a clerk in a Liverpool record store, Pete formed his first band, the short-lived Mystery Girls. He then went on the assemble the neo-goth band Nightmares in Wax, but soon changed the band’s name to the ominous Dead or Alive. After minor acclaim with their cover of the disco anthem “That’s The Way I Like It” in 1984,  Dead or Alive scored a number one hit with “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record).” The song became an international success and brought Pete and his band instant, though fleeting, fame.

Although he kept Dead or Alive alive as a solo act over the years, Pete gained additional fame as an outspoken and flamboyant figure on British reality television. He appeared on the United Kingdom’s versions of Celebrity Big Brother and Celebrity Wife Swap. He also subjected himself to numerous cosmetic surgeries that altered his appearance beyond recognition. Pete’s evolving, androgynous look prompted him to accuse Culture Club’s Boy George of stealing his image.  Regarding his ambiguous sexuality, Pete once said “Everyone always wants to know – am I gay, bi, trans or what? I say, forget all that. There’s got to be a completely different terminology and I’m not aware if it’s been invented yet. I’m just Pete.” In a 2006 interview, Pete revealed that he spent nearly all of his savings on reconstructive lip surgery. He announced a lawsuit against the doctor who performed the procedure.

In 2006, Pete was arrested for assault and later fell gravely ill from a kidney ailment. He declared personal bankruptcy in 2014 and was evicted from his apartment for non-payment of rent. Suffering from recurring deep vein thromboses and pulmonary embolisms rooted as a result of his multiple surgeries, Pete succumbed to a massive heart attack in October 2016. He was 57 years old.

Boy George, his one-time nemesis, remembered Pete as “one of our great true eccentrics.”

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