5. The Spectacular Crash of a Career
As reporters processed the fact that Jerry Lee Lewis had wed a girl so young, his child bride made things worse when, in an attempt to defend her love, she remarked that fifteen was not too young to marry. As she explained it, in her neck of the woods: “You can marry at 10, if you can find a husband“. Once the press on both sides of the Atlantic discovered Myra’s true age was actually thirteen, the backlash was fierce. The British press was particularly vicious. It labeled Lewis a “cradle robber” and “baby snatcher”, urged a boycott of his concerts, and called for his deportation as a child molester. Tour dates were canceled, and Lewis and Myra were forced to flee back to the US.
The scandal had crossed the Atlantic by the time the couple’s plane landed in New York, and the American press was no kinder than the British. Lewis had experienced a meteoric rise, and at the peak of his career, he rivaled Elvis Presley. It crashed and burned spectacularly, and his personal appearance fees dropped from the then princely sum of $10,000 a night to $250. He reinvented himself a decade later as a country singer and performed for audiences less offended by performers who married child brides who also happened to be blood relatives.