marriage to Simone were forbidden from using their last names to promote their own oceanographic ventures. Soon the entire family was in court, battling it out to see which Cousteaus had the right to use the family name.
Update: Francine won. In a 2003 settlement, Cousteau’s grandchildren won the limited right to use the family name on a Web site, but amazingly, Francine was awarded sole ownership of “Cousteau” as a trademark.
THE REVEREND HENRY LYONS
Claim to Fame: From 1994 to 1999, leader of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., the largest organization of black churches in the United States, with 8.5 million members.
Secret Life: The first sign that something was amiss in Lyons’s life came in 1997 when his wife was arrested and charged with setting fire to a waterfront mansion in St. Petersburg, Florida. The mansion turned out to be owned by the reverend and a church employee, Bernice Edwards, whom Lyons described as his “business partner.” Mrs. Lyons hadn’t known about the house until she found the deed in her husband’s briefcase. So she drove to the house to look around and discovered some of her husband’s clothing hanging in the “business partner’s” bedroom closet. Drawing her own conclusions, she set fire to the house.
What do Cary Grant and Billy Joel have in common? Neither graduated from high school.
Update: The fire touched off an investigation into National Baptist Convention’s finances, which culminated in Lyons being charged with grand theft, racketeering, tax evasion, money laundering, and bank fraud. In 1999 he was convicted of swindling companies that did business with his organization out of more than $4 million and was sentenced to five years in prison.
CHARLES LINDBERGH
Claim to Fame: “Lucky Lindy” became an international hero in 1927 when he made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
Secret Life: Lindbergh fathered six children by his wife, Anne, but apparently six was not enough. In August 2003, three grown children of a Munich hatmaker named Brigitte Hesshaimer came forward to claim that Lindbergh was their father as well.
For Dyrk Hesshaimer, 45, Astrid Bouteuil, 43, and David Hesshaimer, 36, piecing the story together had taken most of their lives. When they were growing up, a tall, mysterious American they knew as “Careau Kent” visited them a few times a year, cooking them huge breakfasts of sausages and banana pancakes, and telling them tales of his adventures around the world...before disappearing again a week or two later. Their mother, Brigitte, confirmed that he was their father, but she refused to tell them his real name. Furthermore, she warned, if they ever talked about him outside of the immediate family, he might disappear forever.
Their father’s true identity remained a mystery until the late 1990s, when Astrid Bouteuil was cleaning out a storeroom and accidentally discovered a bag containing more than 100 love letters written to her mother. The letters were signed only with the initial “C,” but the bag also contained a magazine article about Lindbergh. When Astrid confronted her mother with the evidence, Brigitte confessed—Careau Kent was Charles Lindbergh, and he was their father.
Zagazig is a city in Egypt; Wagga Wagga is a city in Australia.
Brigitte begged her children not to reveal the secret while she was alive, and they respected her wishes. Two years after Brigitte died, they went public.
Update: In October 2003, Dyrk, Astrid, and David agreed to let the University of Munich test their DNA to confirm their story. Result: The test came back positive—Lindbergh is their father.
So is that the end of the story? Maybe not—the German magazine Focus reports that Lindbergh also had an affair with Brigitte Hesshaimer’s sister, Marietta. So far Marietta’s two sons are refusing to take DNA tests.
CHARLES KURALT
Claim to Fame: CBS newsman from 1960 to 1994 and host of the popular news segment On the
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