Countless Hollywood movies have glamorized love and its expression; from an angelic Nicolas Cage falling (literally) to Earth in order to claim mortality and be able to love to Gary Oldman as Dracula defying time and death just so he could be with the reincarnation of the woman he loved and lost. Flowers and boxed chocolate pale in comparison to taking a fatal fall or becoming undead in the name of love, don’t you think?
But don’t worry; even without the Hollywood special effects, you’ll find that there are other extraordinary ways to express your affection. And after you read this article you’ll realize that some love stories in history and real life are a worthy rival to any movie or book and that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.
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Warning: some nudity and disturbing imagery.
Death-Defying Devotion
Giving gifts is not the only way to express love. To some people, caring and serving their significant other is just as sweet and meaningful an expression of affection.In Florida during the 1930s, a radiologist by the name of Carl Tanzler puts the act of caring to whole other level. Carl was treating Elena Hoyos, a young and beautiful woman suffering from tuberculosis. He fell madly in love with her and although he fought long and hard to save her life, she died. Still, this did not stop Carl from expressing his devotion to the dead Elena.
Carl paid for a lavish funeral and commissioned the construction of a mausoleum. He would visit this tomb almost every night for two years. However, he was not satisfied with this arrangement. On April 1933, Carl removed Elena’s body from the tomb and brought it to his home. There he attempted to reconstruct Elena’s features using coat hangers, wax and plaster. He dressed her in a gown, fitted her face with glass eyes and, when her fair fell out, he fashioned a wig made out of her hair. He also covered the entire body with powerful perfumes and wax to mask the stench and slow down the decomposition process.
Soon, Elena’s sister heard rumors that Carl was sleeping with Elena’s disinterred body. After a confrontation, the corpse was eventually found. Carl was arrested and detained but was later released and Elena’s body was soon buried in an undisclosed location.
In 1944, Carl moved to Pasco County, Florida, where he lived with a life-sized effigy of his beloved Elena until his death in 1952.
Object of Desire
In many cultures and religions, marriage is the ultimate public declaration of love; a sacred ceremony where a couple pledge their love and devotion to each other. And it is no different for Erika LaBrie. In 2007, the former US military member and archery world champion married the Eiffel Tower in a commitment ceremony attended by her close friends. Erika has legally changed her name to reflect the bond; she is now Erika La Tour Eiffel.
According to Erika, she first “encountered” the Eiffel Tower in 2004 and felt an immediate attraction to the iconic French structure. Like the more common version of love (as in the one shared by two people), Erika’s love for objects has given her empowerment. In fact, she reveals that her first love, Lance, a bow, helped her become a world-class archer.
Erika’s love story may seem outlandish but she is not alone. There are other people around the world who declare themselves objectophiles and Erika says that she and others like her “feel an innate connection to objects. It comes perfectly normal to us to connect on various levels, emotional, spiritual and also physical for some.”
Crimes of Passion
Anyone who has been in a relationship has to admit to being jealous at some point. Even kings in ancient times were not exempted from feelings of jealousy over their wives. Herod the Great, a Roman client king of Judea and the same Herod in the New Testament who masterminded the Massacre of the Innocents, was notorious for killing anyone who came in his way. His laundry list of victims includes his own wife, Mariamne I, a Hasmonean princess. The only thing that equalled Herod’s passion for her was his jealousy and this, as it turns out, would have grave consequences.
In 29 BCE, Herod had his wife executed; some sources reveal that the murder was committed for political gain; others say that he was driven by jealousy. But that is not what gives Herod’s story a crazy twist. After he had Mariamne killed, Herod ordered her body to be embalmed and kept in his private quarters for nine years. He then continued to have sex with the corpse of Mariamne; an arrangement that lasted seven years.
Forgive and Forget
Love despite its splendor is subject to humanity's flaws, limitations and sometimes erratic behavior. Forgiveness is the miracle cure that makes all this right and no other love story seems to be the embodiment of the saying, “Forgive and forget” than the romance between Linda Riss and Burt Pugach.
In 1959, Linda met the much older Burt who became enamored with the twenty-year-old woman. Within a year of their courtship, Burt proposed and Linda accepted. Their wedding plans however were stalled when Linda discovered that Burt was already married and had a child. When Burt was unable to provide the divorce papers which he promised, Linda broke off the engagement and started dating other men. Still, Burt began to obsessively pursue and stalk Linda, even threatening her by saying, “If I can’t have you, no one else will.”
Everything came to a head when Burt hired three men to carry out a horrible task: disfigure Linda to the point where nobody would want her. They visited Linda at her home and when she appeared at the door, they threw chemical lye in her face. Linda lost her hair and the vision in one of her eyes; soon she would become completely blind. Burt was subsequently sentenced to fourteen years in prison for the crime.
Linda tried to move on with her life but had to hide behind dark glasses to mask her horribly disfigured eyes. At one point, she met a man whom she was certain she would marry. When he saw what Linda looked like without her glasses, she never heard from him again.
When Burt’s sentence was nearing its end, he began sending love letters to Linda. He proclaimed that nobody else could ever love her the way he does. Finally, Burt was released and Linda, believing that he really did love her, accepted his marriage proposal.
Linda never made him explain why he did all those things in the past. Burt, in turn, claims that he was temporarily insane and that what he did all those years was not the real him. Linda and Burt’s twisted love story is explored in detail in an award-winning documentary called Crazy Love.
Made for Each Other
Destiny is a common element in movies and novels and the real-life love story of Juan Baptista dos Santos and Blanche Dumas may make it easy for us to believe in this concept.
Born in 1843, Juan was a Portuguese and had a very unique condition: he was born with a number of extra appendages including a third leg and a second penis, both of which were fully functional. Juan like his Byronic namesake had a voracious appetite for sex. At some point, Juan probably got tired of the physical aspect of love and wanted something with more depth. His search led him to Blanche Dumas, a prostitute. Blanche not only shared Juan’s sexual appetite, she also had a similar condition as his: she had an extra leg, four breasts and two sets of fully-functioning genitalia. And so when the two met, sparks flew, passions ignited and another strange love story was committed to history.
Image credits:
Carl Tanzler: Wikipedia :: Elena Hoyos: Wikipedia :: Erika Eiffel: Strange Harvest :: Juan Baptista: Find a Grave :: Blanche Dumas: Listverse
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