The REAL Story of WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE

Ebony, Dec, 1998 by Joy Bennett Kinnon

Widow recalls life with Frankie Lymon

There were a lot of things that Frankie Lymon lacked--but love and talent weren't on the list. One writer said Lymon did for rock and roll what Chubby Checker did for the Twist. Lymon was always short on cash, was short of a childhood, and by most descriptions was short on self-control, but when the pint-sized star was on stage, he always stole the show.

He also stole quite a few hearts, leading to a five-year court battle to answer the question of which of three women, who claimed to have married the star, was the real Mrs. Frankie Lymon. That courtroom drama led to a movie earlier this year named after his hit song, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love."

For a Georgia schoolteacher, there was never any question. Thirty years after Lymon died from a heroin overdose at 26, she still carries his name and his love for her in her heart. She still sleeps in the bed they shared as husband and wife, and still places her clothes in the dresser of the "much too expensive" bedroom set he bought for her after they were married.

Emira Lymon is now retired from teaching, but her gentle Southern charm hides a tenacious spirit. She says she refused many offers to settle the case out of court. "Because I knew I was right and I was always taught that if you're right, you're going to win," she says. And she did win, taking her case to the New York State Supreme Court, which in 1990 overturned a lower court ruling against her. She is Mrs. Frankie Lymon today and she always will be Mrs. Frankie Lymon.

Never remarried, she still lives in Augusta, Ga., where she was born, raised and where, on June 30, 1967, she married the love of her life, Frankie Lymon, in Beulah Grove Missionary Baptist Church. By that time, Frankie Lymon was down on his luck. "When I met Frankie, he wasn't a big star. He was broke," she says. Her Georgia attorney, William McCracken, jokes that the reason Emira Lymon won the case was because "she was the only one who could get him (Frankie) into church."

Perhaps she was also the only one who could keep him away from the heroin habit he started when he first got into show business.

Frankie Lymon told Ebony in 1967, the year before his death, that he was first introduced to heroin by a woman twice his age, when he was 15. Women twice his age were his forte, he said then, and although he was only 14, at the height of his fame, he was making adult money, as much as $5,000 per week for personal appearances in 1957. Wildly popular with screaming teenagers, Lymon told Ebony that girls his age were not his style. "They didn't know anything about life," he said. "I went for women of 25 or over. They were less trouble and more rewarding."

Lymon's love life ended up being more trouble than even he could imagine. "You could teach a class in domestic law on nothing but this case," Attorney McCracken says. "In this case we dealt with the law in Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Georgia, California and even in Mexico." Other cases involved litigation with the surviving members of the Teenagers. "It's just been a battle royale all the way. But we've worked out litigation with The Teenagers so that everybody's happy and there are no conflicts." Although Lymon prevailed in the earlier lawsuits, the Frankie Lymon litigation continues. His widow recently filed a lawsuit against a record company regarding royalty payments for the use of the singer's songs.

Lymon lives a modest lifestyle in the comfortable home that she shares with her mother, and cares for a 3-year-old nephew. A new Lexus, which she loves, is the only evidence of her settlement or her status as the widow of Frankie Lymon. Although she says she has enjoyed traveling, meeting the stars of the movie and attending the premiere, she shuns the spotlight. The movie focused on the initial court proceedings, Lymon says, and she was portrayed by actress Lela Rochon. She enjoyed the movie and Rochon's performance, but said there were parts of the story that were strictly "Hollywood." Rochon's performance portrays her as a sweet and sheltered, cookie-baking Southern girl, but she is no dumb belle. "I don't bake cookies," she says.

A major discrepancy in the movie left the impression that Lymon only received a $15,000 settlement. After Diana Ross re-recorded Frankie's song, "Why Do Fools Fall in Love," his estate was worth more than $1 million. Attorney McCracken confirms that "the settlement was well over seven figures."

Another discrepancy, she says, was showing Elizabeth Waters, played by Vivica A. Fox, as initiating the suit. "I was the one who started the lawsuit, then everybody jumped on the bandwagon," she says.

Did she know about the other two women? "I knew about that because before Frankie and I got married, I asked him, `Frankie, what about these two women that you're supposed to be married to?' and he said to me, `How can you be married to a woman who was already married?'"

The last Mrs. Lymon declined to comment on the other Mrs. Lymons. In the protracted court suits lasting five years, it was claimed that the first Mrs. Lymon, Elizabeth (Mickey) Waters, married Lymon in 1964, while she was reportedly still legally married to someone else, and that the second Mrs. Lymon, Platters singer Zola Mae Taylor, played by Halle Berry, claimed to have married Frankie in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1965. The singer reportedly met Lymon in the mid-1950s when he was 14 and she was at least eight years his senior. No records exist of that Mexican marriage, according to court documents.