Things are starting to fall apart in the relationship.  It's April 28, 1940, and for some reason Dunninger signs a common law wife document, according to a clipping.  He later recants it, claiming he signed it under duress when his mother was ill.  I wonder what brought that about?  Maybe Chrystal was feeling insecure about something and wanted some promises?  Who can say for sure.

Summer 1943, and the romance is over.  The newspapers go wild!  In April 1944, Walter Winchell's column asks, "Does Dunninger, the best of the mind-readers, know Mrs. D. will sue for divorce?"  She didn't--it was a separation.   Chrystal and Winchell, a very famous, popular gossip columnist, had a life-long friendship.  In my collection I have letters he wrote to her, thanking her for the little tips she sent him!  And I don't mean grammar tips, she was a little covert PR machine.  Fun!  So guess who fed him the tidbit about the divorce?  Dunninger had to know, and be annoyed.

Chrystal evidently decided that revenge was the best way to get over a broken heart.  On July 10 the same year, 1943, Winchell's column notes:  "Dunninger's estranged spouse (Chrystal Dunninger) plans appearing in a night club featuring his mind-reading act."  Wow!  What nerve!  A real shot across the great mentalist's bow.  He must have gone wild when he read that!  A few days later, Ed Sullivan's column amends that, "Chrystal Dunninger says that she's not going to do his act in night clubs, for money, but for free in canteens and hospitals."  Probably because she could already hear Dunninger's support payment being stuffed back into his wallet when he read that first column.

A clipping from the same era shows Chrystal actually achieved her aim of performing mentalism:  "Mrs. Dunninger, wife of Joe Dunninger, the mental telepathist of radio fame, uncannily demonstrated mental telepathy to her stunned listeners."  Amazing!  The girl paid some attention, evidently.  Good for her!  Hey, maybe for the next PEA convention I'll recreate Chrystal's radio act and put out my own DVD!  Or--maybe not.  I don't want a certain modern-day Dunninger impersonating mind reader cutting off my bonbon and movie magazine allowance!

October 6 of the same year, 1944, Chrystal won her separation from Dunninger on grounds of abandonment.  And no wonder.  He had taken up with a Mrs. Betty Devery, and brought her to the proceedings!  Ouch.  Poor Chrystal.  According to news clippings, Chrystal and Betty had a telephone altercation that resulted in a lawsuit between them and a lot of press coverage before they settled the matter.  Interestingly, in her filing, Chrystal cited "A.J." as the co-respondent.  Now who was A.J.?  Yet another girlfriend?  Yikes.  Dunninger basically argued to the court that he and Chrystal hadn't ever been married, but the courts begged to differ.  They had three little words for him:  Common Law Wife.  And two more:  pay up!

Chrystal won some serious lifelong alimony from the well-to-do mentalist, although the former lovebirds squabbled for years in court over how much.  At one point Dunninger even turned her in to the FBI, accusing her of extortion, but nothing came of it.  For years Chrystal raked in some serious money from suing careless tabloids that wrongly referred to her as divorced instead of separated.  According to clippings I have with notes in her own hand, it wasn't until 1967 that she divorced Dunninger, in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.  I just want to know the important thing--who got custody of Daffy?!

From this point on, Chrystal was a solo act.  She traveled widely and lavishly all over the world visiting famous, exotic destinations such as Cairo, Morocco, the Far East, Great Britain, Europe, and the Holy Land--just for a start.   Here she is in Madras India, at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and Hong Kong,