Private Life
Now famous, Merrill thoroughly enjoyed his celebrity and loved the nightlife and hobnobbed with both the famous and infamous. Although earning a good salary, he habitually was broke due to gambling. He had become a fixture at the parties of the rich and famous, and it was at one of these that he met Toby Wing, a chorus girl who became a movie star, appearing in 52 features and shorts. The two married in Tijuana in 1938, but her parents objected to this sort of marriage, so they were married a second time at the home of Sidney Shannon, an early Eastern Air Lines investor. His marriage finally turned around his financial woes and he became devoted to his new wife. Merrill was 22 years Wing's senior, and shortly after their marriage she met Bob Hope who joked, "Toby it's nice to see you and I'm glad to see you brought your father along." According to Wing, Merrill never forgave Hope for the insult.
After a Broadway run, Toby retired from show business the next year, and the couple moved to Miami, where Merrill flew the Eastern Air Lines Miami to New York runs with occasional flights to South America.
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Famous quotes containing the words private life, private and/or life:
“Madam, I may be President of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damn business.”
—Chester A. Arthur (1829–1886)
“My gentleman gives the law where he is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I could as easily exclude myself, as him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“[The sceptic] must acknowledge, if he will acknowledge any thing, that all human life must perish, were his principles to prevail. All discourse, all action would immediately cease, and men remain in a total lethargy, till the necessities of nature, unsatisfied, put an end to their miserable existence.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)