Lost rings at weddings Hollywood stories

Old Hollywood Stars,
Lost Wedding Rings: Dawgone I forgot the ring!

Buster Keaton and Natalie Talmadge

Whether it's the best man's pretending to have forgotten the ring or the groom who's really left the ring behind, the show must go on. Though traditionally part of the best man duties to keep and hand over the ring, the groom has to remember to bring the ring to begin with! 

What celebrities from the Golden Age of Hollywood dealt with a lost wedding ring at their own weddings??

"The ring proved to be undiscoverable. Gone, vanished, vamoosed you comprehend? We called a recess and all of us - even the parson knelt in prayerful repose to search the floor. Presently the ring was found in my vest pocket so the debate proceeded." Buster Keaton recollecting his wedding to bride Natalie Talmadge. 
-- Screenland 1923

A celebrity is no different from anyone else. Harry Ritz dropped the ring during the service. Everyone including the minister got down on hands and knees, poking around under furniture to find the missing circlet. It was more elusive than a collar button, grumbled to bridegroom. 

Harry Ritz performed with his brothers Jimmy and Al. Harry appeared in Mel Brooks' film, Silent Movie. When Caesars Palace hotel opened in Las Vegas August 5, 1966 the acts featured were Andy Williams in the main showroom and The Ritz Brothers in Nero's Nook.

In 1939 Madge Evans lost her engagement ring traveling to her stock appearance at Ogunquit, Maine. It was returned before her wedding to playwright Sidney Kingsley. 

In 1935 Sally Blane was married in the home of her sister, Loretta Young. Alan Campbell the best man who temporarily lost the ring. Unfortunately Young was upstairs lying ill and she could not attend the proceedings.

When Errol Flynn married Lili Damita he couldn't find the ring. Then the minister noticed it was on nervous groom, Flynn's right thumb. 

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz 1955

At the wedding of Arthur Hornblow and Myrna Loy, the ring was also thought to be lost.  They took their vows in Ensenada, Old Mexico. Hornblow began to search for it but it turned out that the best man hadn't really trusted him to carry it.

In 1955, the John Ericson-Milly Coury wedding. Best man Dick Clayton lost the ring hours before down a drain pipe while he was shaving and it was retrieved 30 minutes before the ceremony. Tab Hunter and Lori Nelson who attended the wedding helped transport guests to the reception when one of the wedding party's limousines broke down en route to the church.


Vivien Leigh did a screen test with Laurence Olivier for the role of the second Mrs. de Winter in the 1940 Hitchcock film, Rebecca. Joan Fontaine played the role, for which she won an Academy Award.



Vivien Leigh was married to Laurence Olivier for twenty years. During this time, she lost two wedding rings. One was once said to have been lost in a robbery. When Olivier gave her the third ring, the second of the replacement rings, he had it inscribed: "This is the last one you'll get I hope."

"I'd lost the first when I was sitting in a cinema in the west end watching Les Enfants du Paradis. I put my hand up to rub my eye and the ring slipped off."
-- Vivien Leigh, The Milwaukee Journal 1960

As a side note, when the couple was first married in 1940, reports are that their friend Benita Hume, wife of Ronald Colman, bought the ring for them. Most likely it means that she went to pick it up and brought it to the wedding site. The wedding was to be secret.

"I'll never forget the event - when we got to the part where Bob Burns was to put the ring on his bride's finger, he dug into all his pockets, looked red and frantic then gulped, 'Dawgone I forgot the ring!' And he had forgotten it. As soon as I pronounced the pair man and wife Burns kissed her and exclaimed: 'Now honey you won't have to laugh at my jokes!'" Quoted by the reverend who performed the ceremony. 
-- Modern Screen 1942

In 1957 Desi Arnaz and his wife, Lucille Ball were vacationing in Honolulu.

Tile Item Finder for Anything

Before swimming in the ocean, Arnaz put his wedding ring onto a chain around his neck. 

His wife had given him the gold chain. When he came out of the water the chain and the ring were gone. Also missing was a medallion that had hung from the chain.

Did Clark Gable lose his wedding ring on the golf course of the Arizona Biltmore? This would probably have been in the 1950s when stories of his visiting the hotel were in the news. Is the story apocryphal, urban legend? Gable was Rhett Butler, another star member of the Gone with the Wind cast along with Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara.

"'I lose so many wedding rings that every time I see her it's a new one,' John Travolta says in January 1999 Harper's Bazaar.

"'I know he's not fooling around or anything,' Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston said. 'It's just that he goes to the spa and losees them. He gets in the car and loses them. The loses them on the set or at dinners. Sometimes we find them again. He has a box of them by the bed.'"

Okay he's not old Hollywood, but he's a favorite of mine so here he is. :) It was 1981. Bill Murray got married to Margaret Kelly. The best man was his older brother, Brian Doyle-Murray. "He did the classic fumbling-for-the-ring routine, looking around him in an exaggeratedly comic way and miming confusion. Everyone thought Brian was a riot at the wedding."
-- 1981 Rolling Stone Magazine

Bill Murray 2014

Carol Channing had her wedding ring stolen from her hotel suite while she was doing Lorelei in Detroit. Also taken was a costly cigarette case in which she had 12 custom made eyelashes. She said she hoped the burglar looks good in the eyelashes.

There are other rings of sentimental value. The stories of their losses are recounted.

Irene Rich had a ring, a sapphire encircled by diamonds and set in platinum. It

1929 Irene Rich with her
Packard All Weather Town Car

was given to her by her mother.  

"At a beach party last summer near Santa Barbara she lost it in the sand.  She felt so badly about its loss that the entire party spent several hours searching for it without result. 

"Several weeks later she and the same group of friends were picnicking at the spot where the ring had been lost. One of the girls was scooping up sand when suddenly she felt a lump between her fingers. It proved to be the ring. Irene was overjoyed." 
-- Picture Play Magazine 1932

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