Debra Paget can be remembered for 1 of her roles in over 40 TV and film acting credits specifically her role in The Ten Commandments.
You may also know her as the woman Elvis Presley proposed to but couldn’t marry or the woman who got married 3 times and had a fleet of men drooling over her.
Paget’s marriage timeline ranges from 22 days to about 17 years. Her first husband was singer David Street. The second man Debra Paget got married to is director Budd Boetticher.
After Budd, the former actress got married a third time to an American-Chinese oil industry executive named Ling C. Kung.
Paget’s First Marriage Lasted Only a Few Months
David Street first met Debra Paget when she was 12 years old. They had met at the Biltmore Theatre when Debra’s mother was performing ‘Rain’ that night.
Over the next couple of years, they kept bumping into each other at events and premieres. Street was a part of 20th Century Fox and about the time he was leaving, Paget joined.
Despite their bumps now and again, David didn’t fall in love with Paget. The first time they met, he was married to Mary Beth Hughes, his third wife.
The period it took before he fell in love with and decided to marry Debra, he had already remarried after getting divorced from Hughes.
Street was married a total of 4 times before Debra married him. His first wife was Mary Frances Wilhite whom he married in 1942 and the marriage lasted just a few years. After her, he remarried Lois Andrews (1945-1946), then Mary Beth Hughes (1948-1956).
After Mary, David Street was married to Sharon Lee from 1957 to 1958. The marriage lasted for 26 days – from December 14, 1957, to January 8, 1958.
In 1957, he met Debbie as he fondly called her, fell in love with her, and got married to her again a few days after his divorce from Sharon. Their love story happened within 3 days after they watched a late-night show together.
Street’s marriage to Debra Paget happened on January 11, 1958, and in less than 100 days, it ended.
The couple reported spending less than 10 days together from their wedding day. Because both of them were busy with their careers, they couldn’t spend ample time together. Their honeymoon only lasted 2 days after which they both began to travel to different places for filming and work.
By April 10, 1958, Debra Paget asked for a divorce from her first husband. She claimed that she realized that she rushed into the marriage and didn’t feel free to do what she wanted to do anymore.
At this same time, the singer, Street was battling with his first wife who claimed he was behind on child support and his most recent ex, Lee, was suing him for $3000 which she claimed she borrowed from the entertainer.
David was pained by the divorce of Paget because he believed that she was actually in love with him when they got married. He was however unable to point out where he went wrong and the love went sour.
Paget’ at the time was still quite young, had a promising career in the entertainment industry, and was looking to make her big break in the industry.
She Married a Movie Director as her Second Husband
Budd Boetticher has been described as a flamboyant Western director and he also happens to be Paget’s second husband.
Like with her first husband, she got married to a way older man and wasn’t his first wife. Debra wasn’t even his second wife.
Before she got married to Budd, the movie director was married to Marian Forsythe Herr from 1938 to 1946. When that marriage ended, he remarried Emily Erskine Cook and they were together for 10 years, from 1949 to 1959.
Debra Paget was the director’s third wife and their marriage lasted from 1960 to 1961. The union lasted longer (on paper) than her first marriage but shorter than the next.
They got married on March 26, 1960, and after 22 days, were separated. The divorce was only made official in 1961. 3 years later, she felt like she was done with acting and entertainment and so she left the industry.
Debra Paget was also the shortest union Boetticher had as he remarried twice again. His fourth marriage to Margo Jensen lasted for 2 years from 1969 to 1971. After Margo, Budd married Mary Chelde in 1971 and they have remained together since then.
Debra Paget’s Last Husband was her Longest Marriage
On April 19, 1962, Paget got married for the third time. She got married to Ling C. Kung, a man whose parents were H.H. Kung, a banker and politician, and Soong Ai-ling, a businesswoman.
Ling himself was a big oil industry executive, descendant of Confucius, and related to many Chinese political figures.
Paget and Ling Kung met in February of 1962 and after dating for 2 months, got married in April.
A year after getting married to Ling, Debra Paget cut off ties with the entertainment industry. She left acting behind and remained married to the American-Chinese man for almost 2 decades.
In 1980, the marriage between Debra and Ling ended in a divorce and they both went their separate ways. They were married for about 17 years.
From all her marriages, Debra Paget had only 1 child, Gregory The-chi Kung whom she had with her 3rd husband.
Elvis Presley was Interested in Marrying Debra Paget
Before Debra Paget ever thought of walking down the aisle with David, she was in love with Howard Hughes. Howard was a filmmaker, investor, aerospace engineer, businessman, pilot, and philanthropist.
He was married twice to Ella Botts Rice from 1925 to 1929 and Jean Peters from 1957 to 1871.
Paget and Hughes did have a romantic relationship which wasn’t quite defined. She was desperately in love with Howard and this love lasted for 2 years but she was never allowed to be with him alone.
While she was in love with Howard, Elvis Presley was also in love with her, deeply. The entertainer even proposed to her but she couldn’t have accepted.
According to Debra, her parents were not in support of her getting married at the time and so she had to turn him down. Paget’s mother who was also an entertainer, doubled as her agent and watched over her.
Given that Debra was still very young when she got introduced to the entertainment industry, it was only natural for her mother to watch over her.
