It seems strange to suggest yet another wife for Artie Shaw, but what if he had married Lena Horne (June 30, 1917 – May 9, 2010) with whom he had a relationship--not just a musical one [1]--in 1941? Shaw later said that "She wanted to marry *me*...I was a very big name, at that time. And we were--we were--in bed, you know. It was good sexually, but--that's not enough to get *married*. I said, 'Lena, you know, this is the wrong *thing,* we're not gonna *do* it'..." https://books.google.com/books?id=0nN-zXQfhUEC&pg=PA163
Shaw sometimes challenged taboos-including racial ones--but apparently he thought that in the United States in 1941, the taboo against interracial marriage was just too strong--that "it would be the end of our careers" as Shaw put it in 2004. https://books.google.com/books?id=wBUPO0XS8kMC&pg=PA89 I'm not sure if that's true about Horne--she later married a white man, Lennie Hayton, and her career obviously survived. But would it have ruined Shaw's career?
[1] Though they made great music together:
and
Shaw sometimes challenged taboos-including racial ones--but apparently he thought that in the United States in 1941, the taboo against interracial marriage was just too strong--that "it would be the end of our careers" as Shaw put it in 2004. https://books.google.com/books?id=wBUPO0XS8kMC&pg=PA89 I'm not sure if that's true about Horne--she later married a white man, Lennie Hayton, and her career obviously survived. But would it have ruined Shaw's career?
[1] Though they made great music together: