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history
Unhitchin’ post
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Nevada’s lax marriage and divorce laws have made for memorable hookups, breakups and romantic shake-ups By Dorothy Wright
20 | Desert
Companion | February 2013
This Vegas wedding stuck: Michael Caine and Shakira Baksh in 1973. They’re still together.
Wealthy Maria Gable, known as Ria, moved into her attorney Frank McNamee’s home, which he obligingly vacated. She was there, as she told the press, to “catch up on my knitting.” Of course, what she was “knitting” was an end her 17-year marriage to Clark, so that he could marry blonde actress Carole Lombard. Being a good sport, Mrs. Gable allowed herself to be photographed playing roulette, boating on Lake Mead and skiing at Mt. Charleston. With the nationwide Gable publicity, and because of a new California law requiring a medical certificate as well as a three-day waiting period for marriages (the so-called “Gin Law”), divorces steadily increased in Las Vegas. And with that new divorce market came the advent of divorce ranches — dude ranches that catered to prospective divorcees. The former Kiel Ranch in North Las Vegas became the Boulderado Dude Ranch; Tule Springs in Centennial Hills opened its doors to sixweek residents; and, in the ’50s, cowboy actor Hoot Gibson opened his D-4-C Ranch just west of the Strip. Women (and the occasional man) could ride horses, go fishing and take an excursion to the gaming tables while they waited to get unhitched.
m i c h a e l c a i n e a n d s h a k i r a b a k s h p h oto c o u r t e s y l a s v e g a s n e w s b u r e a u
In 1931, in the throes of the Great Depression, the Nevada Legislature staked our state’s future on sin — divorce, gambling, easy marriage — as a way to draw tourists and their dollars. It was a bold move. Back then, divorce was scandalous — and strenuous. Most states had long waiting periods and a short list of grounds for granting a divorce, such as proven adultery. Enter Nevada, which enabled a six-week waiting period and allowed vague grounds for dissolving unions, such as “mental cruelty.” This opened the floodgates for the unhappily married to flock to Nevada — who brought more than their share of high-profile splits that have been enshrined in Las Vegas lore. Among them: • A bizarre case in 1931 that garnered headlines involved Minnie “Ma” Kennedy, mother of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, and herself a hellfire and brimstone preacher, and Guy Edward “Whataman” Hudson. After marrying Kennedy in Los Angeles, Hudson was charged with bigamy. He hightailed it to Las Vegas while his marriage to Kennedy was quickly annulled. Hudson settled in, officially to sell Buicks for Jim Cashman, but actually to divorce his first wife. Kennedy followed, preaching her fiery sermons on top of a blackjack table at the Boulder Club. The pair was united again in marriage — only to divorce acrimoniously a year later. • In October 1934, Hollywood socialite Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan novels, left his wife of 34 years and checked into the Apache Hotel (now the Horseshoe) in Las Vegas. He spent the six weeks gambling, playing tennis and chatting up his girlfriend, actress Florence Dearholt, on the phone. After the divorce was granted in December, he and Dearholt returned to Las Vegas in April to be married, each for the second time, proving writer Samuel Johnson’s adage that second marriages are “the triumph of hope over experience.” • In 1939, Las Vegas got a profile boost as a divorce mecca when Mrs. Clark Gable came to town to wait out the obligatory time period.