Marriage
On February 26, 1933, Lefty married June O’Dea (born Eilean Frances Schwarz on December 18, 1912 in Revere, Massachusetts; died December 5, 1992 in Novato, California ). A Broadway headliner who starred in Of Thee I Sing, she gave up her career in 1936. By 1937 the marriage was on shaky ground. Apparently in an effort to rekindle their relationship, they sailed to Bermuda in January, returning to New York aboard the Monarch of Bermuda on the twenty-seventh. It evidently didn’t help much, as Lefty traveled to Hollywood that April and June returned to Massachusetts to stay with family. Through the tabloids, she learned in December that Lefty was filing divorce papers in Mexico, charging incompatibility. Being a devout Catholic, June refused a divorce but agreed to a formal separation, citing abandonment and cruel and inhuman treatment. Publicly, Lefty said the whole idea of divorce was absurd, but after the first of the year he moved to Reno to get a six-week divorce. It was his intention for the divorce to be finalized by the time he began spring training in Florida. Separation proceedings continued for months, but were called off in May 1938. Lefty and June went on to have two daughters, Vernona and Sharon, and two sons, Gery and Duane.
Read more about this topic: Lefty Gomez
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