Suzy Parker - Relationships and Children

Relationships and Children

Parker was married three times. In 1950, she and high-school sweetheart, Ronald (some sources cite Charles), drove to Georgia to secretly marry. Parker said that she married him in a bikini with a raincoat on top, adding, "He was very good-looking, and it was just a sheer disaster." The young couple drove back to Florida where she was still living with her parents who were upset because of her age and because Ronald was part Cherokee. They moved to Pennsylvania and rented a house near where Dorian was living with her husband and children. Parker was already modeling in the United States and Europe while Ronald was attending the University of Pennsylvania as a freshman.

Parker met journalist Pierre de la Salle (Pitou) (born July 12, 1925) at a Jacques Fath party outside of Paris. She and Dorian were modeling together and separately on this trip with photographer Richard Avedon. She returned to the United States and asked Ronald for a divorce, but he would only agree to a quick divorce if Parker gave him a large monetary settlement and paid for plastic surgery on his nose and his acting lessons. She agreed, and their divorced was finalized in Mexico in 1953. Purportedly when Ronald could not get acting jobs, he committed suicide. Parker and Pierre continued to date for years despite Pierre's numerous infidelities. She also was paying for his high cost-of-living expenses. They married about 1957 or 1958, but the couple kept it a secret.

In 1958, Parker was a passenger in a car her father was driving when they were hit by an oncoming train. Supposedly neither heard nor saw the train until it slammed into the car. Her father died of his injuries at the hospital. Parker checked into the hospital with broken bones and embedded glass (with her face untouched) under the name Mrs. Pierre de la Salle. The press jumped on this, but Pierre continued to deny that they were married. Soon thereafter, a photo spread of the couple appeared in the August 19, 1958, Look magazine cover story about her. Parker began psychotherapy to cope with her rocky marriage and the death of her beloved father.

After recovering from her injuries, Parker became pregnant and Pierre left. She said, "He didn't want to be a father. I already hired a nanny... he was gone, history." She gave birth to their daughter Georgia Belle Florian Coco Chanel de la Salle in December 1959, whose godmother was close-friend Chanel. Suzy named her daughter after her older sisters Georgiabell and Florian and purposely left Dorian's name off. Dorian and Suzy feuded for many years, as Suzy was fed-up with Dorian's promiscuous life-style and not taking care of her children. A March 14, 1977, People magazine article featured Parker trying to launch her then 17-year-old daughter Georgia as a model. However, Georgia modeled only a few times during and after college. Georgia's father, Pierre de la Salle, lived in Mammoth Lakes, California for many years with his wife Berenice, whom he married in 1977. He died on November 12, 2011 at the age of eighty-six.

In 1960, Parker met actor Bradford Dillman on the set of their movie, Circle of Deception. She was still married to de la Salle but no longer living with him. Bradford was ending his first marriage and dating Juliette Greco at the time. She obtained a divorce and married Bradford in 1963 on board a boat at sea. She changed her name to Suzy Parker Dillman following the marriage.

Parker mostly retired from modeling and acting by 1964. After she married Dillman, she also became a stepmother to his two children, Jeffrey and Pamela and wanted to stay home to be a mother and cook. Like her sister Dorian Leigh, who was a Cordon-bleu level chef, Suzy was also an excellent cook.

She had three more children with Bradford: daughter Dinah (born 1965) and sons Charlie (born 1967) and Christopher (born 1969). The family lived in the Bel-Air district of Los Angeles until Dinah was bitten by a rattlesnake in the yard and almost died. They then moved to Montecito in the Santa Barbara area, where Suzy remained until her death in 2003.