Periodically readers write in to ask if my maternal grandfather really married thirteen times. I never met the man; he died the year before I was born. So all I can say is, that’s what my mother tells me. My grandmother corroborated some of the wilder tales, and told a few of her own, but mostly she didn’t like to talk about him.
Not only did Robert Bruce tend to leave his women, he was constantly switching jobs, and he moved around a lot. Supposedly he did a stint in Hollywood, courting actresses. I haven’t been able to track all the divorces and unions. I don’t even know how to go about finding a record of the woman who may have shot him near the SMU campus.
My mother believes that the “unidentified lady” walking with him in this photo (above) is his first wife. Mom was (amazingly) his only (known) surviving child, but according to Robert the first woman he married had a baby who died at birth.
For more on Robert Bruce, including the adultery letters, go here, here, here, here, and here.