Ricky Nelson Married Her At 17. She Waited 35 Years To Say Why

Brentwood, California, April 20, 1963. Ricky Nelson, 22, the teen idol America had watched grow up every week on his family’s television show, marries Kristin Harmon at Saint Martin of Tours. She is 17, the daughter of Heisman winner Tom Harmon, and within months she is playing his wife on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Thirty-five years later she said she had spent her whole life fighting the fairy tale. First trying to be it, then trying to tell the truth. This is that marriage as the record has it, told from her side. The fan who met him at 12, the first date on Christmas Day 1961, a church wedding and a baby girl, Tracy, born that October. The show, the twins, Matthew and Gunnar, her paintings and her first one-woman show, then Sam, and a husband whose money came from touring. Then the long breakdown: the divorce petitions of 1977 and 1980, what each side said about the other in court papers, a paternity suit in New Jersey, and a fight over money and the children that only ended in November 1982. Then the last night of 1985 near De Kalb, Texas, the rumours that followed, and what the National Transportation Safety Board actually found. And finally, in 1998, what she said about that wedding day. If you want the record behind more of the legends you grew up with, subscribe. If this one changed how you see her, leave a like. And tell me in the comments, where are you watching from? Sources include Joel Selvin, Ricky Nelson: Idol for a Generation (1990); Philip Bashe, Teenage Idol, Travelin’ Man (1992); The New York Times (1998); People (1974); the Los Angeles Times (1990) and its photographic archive at UCLA; United Press International (1982, 1985, 1987); the National Transportation Safety Board report on N711Y (1987). Film from the Prelinger Archives. Images from Wikimedia Commons contributors; wedding photograph Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection, UCLA Library (CC BY 4.0). #rickynelson #kristinharmon #ozzieandharriet #countrymusic #musichistory #theprivaterecord