Fame can only hide so much, and as it turns out, some of the most famous people in history actually had secret lives that they managed to keep under wraps.
A song on the page
Most Parisians saw Josephine Baker as a woman who brought feathers, stage lights, and an impossible amount of charm. That’s true, but she was also so much more than that, as she actually worked for the French Resistance during World War II.
It makes sense, after all. Her fame meant she could eavesdrop at embassy parties without anybody even thinking of her as a threat. Baker successfully passed on notes about troop movements and airfields, writing in invisible ink on her sheet music.
A workshop after midnight
You probably recognize Hedy Lamarr from all those movie posters, yet there was a side to her that most people don’t know about. She secretly worked with composer George Antheil during World War II. To do what, exactly?
To make a radio system to prevent Axis forces from jamming torpedo signals, no big deal. They managed to patent their invention, and although the Navy didn’t use it at the time, it was still pretty impressive that Lamarr kept her life as an inventor so secret.
A voice over the wire
The Nazi Party once tried to convince actress Marlene Dietrich to become a Naxi-propaganda film star in Germany, but she was having none of it. She actually went the opposite direction. During the war, she secretly recorded anti-Nazi material for German troops.
This included songs and spoken messages. Yes, a lot of people know that Dietrich performed for Allied forces, but most people don’t know the secret recording work she was doing.
A name in print
Romain Gary was someone who went beyond simply using a pen name, as he actually created an entire life for himself. Gary already won the Prix Goncourt, a kind of literature award, under his own name, but he wasn’t happy with that. So he created an alter ego named Émile Ajar.
Gary published more work under Ajar’s name, and his relative, Paul Pavlowitch, appeared as Ajar in public. It worked. Gary won the award again as Ajar, and he also continued to write under other names, like Shatan Bogat, René Deville, and Fosco Sinibaldi.
A quiet agreement
Everyone knows Arthur Conan Doyle, the writer behind Sherlock Holmes. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that he had some mysteries of his own, including his relationship with Jean Leckie. He married Louisa Hawkins in 1885, but their marriage suffered after she developed tuberculosis.
Doyle then met Leckie and fell in love with her. The two lived a secret life together, allegedly platonic, but kept it all under wraps from everyone, except very close family members. That sounds like something from a Sherlock Holmes book, honestly.
A visitor from America
Pilots know how to live a double life. Take a look at Charles Lindbergh, for example, a famous solo pilot who had more than his fair share of secrets. He started a relationship with a Munich hatmaker named Brigitte Hesshaimer while he was married to another woman.
He had three children with Hesshaimer. However, they knew him as Mr. Careu Kent, instead of his real name, and that wasn’t even his only secret family. Lindbergh had children with Brigitte’s sister, as well as with his German translator. He was a true womanizer.
A trail of letters
You might not expect a president to have a double life. Warren G. Harding proves that wrong. He had an affair with a woman named Carrie Fulton Phillips for over fifteen years, and he also had a mistress called Nan Britton. She said he was the father of her daughter, Elizabeth Ann.
But it wasn’t until 2015 that DNA testing confirmed Britton’s grandson was connected to Harding’s descendants with 99.9 percent certainty. There was no denying it, Harding had a double life. Or two. Or three.
A room in Georgia
Starting in 1914, Lucy Mercer worked as Eleanor Roosevelt’s social secretary. It was shortly after that she began an affair with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, something that Eleanor only found out about in 1918. Mercer was then dismissed from the Roosevelt household.
While she did marry Winthrop Rutherfurd, she continued to see Roosevelt on the side. News about Roosevelt’s double life and affair with Mercer only came out years later, well after his death. Mercer was with Roosevelt at Warm Springs, Georgia, when he died.
A careful public face
There was no way that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky would’ve been able to live as one person. At least, not in Russia at that time. He had a public image of a serious composer with a respectable name, but behind closed doors, he lived a secret life as a gay man.
He allegedly had secret relationships with other men. But he kept it all hidden from the public eye, marrying a woman named Antonina Milyukova instead and loving her in a ‘brotherly’ way. It didn’t take long for the marriage to break down.
A part he kept playing
Rock Hudson also lived a double life. The public knew him as the charming actor on the silver screen who was married to Phyllis Gates, but secretly, most of Hollywood knew he was gay. He couldn’t exactly share it with the world, though.
Hudson’s agent, Henry Willson, helped to keep Hudson’s real self hidden away, and so did the studio machine. In 1984, Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS, and he shared this news with the public a year later. He died less than three months afterward.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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