Elyse Knox - Personal Life

Personal Life

While appearing on the Bing Crosby radio show, she met football star Tom Harmon. They were engaged to marry, but ended the relationship when Harmon entered the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942. Later that year, Knox married fashion photographer Paul Hesse, who had shot many of her print ads and magazine covers. The marriage was brief. Following her divorce and Harmon's return from World War II (during which he survived two plane crashes and being lost in the jungle), she and Harmon married in 1944. Knox's wedding dress was made from silk from the parachute Harmon used when bailing out of his plane. The couple remained together until his death in 1990.

The couple had three children. Their daughter Kristin (born 1945) became an actress and painter who at seventeen married recording artist Ricky Nelson and bore four children: Tracy, twins Gunnar and Matthew, and Sam. Harmon and Knox's second daughter Kelly (born 1948) also modeled and acted in film and television and was once married to automaker John DeLorean. Harmon and Knox's son Mark (born 1951) became a film and television actor who has starred in films such as The Presidio and television series including NCIS.