He marries Vera Ivanova Shuvalova on January 1st, 1938. He drinks a lot, both before and after the ceremony.
He will spend most of 1938 drinking, for reasons not unconnected to this marriage.
He is woken in his honeymoon suite at the Hotel del Sol in Yuma by the ringing of a telephone, which he briefly incorporates into his dream as the sound of a doorbell until he realizes that the bell does not cease its jangling when he answers the door.
He picks up the telephone. It is the hotel manager on the line.
The hotel manager, who speaks perfect English, appears to be struggling with his vocabulary.
There is, says the hotel manager, well, we have, um, there is a, actually—
The hotel manager decides to bite the bullet.
—There is a lady here claiming to be your wife.
He turns over in the bed. Vera is snoring softly beside him.
—My wife is sleeping next to me.
—This lady appears quite insistent. Should we call the police?
He has a terrible sense of foreboding.
—Perhaps you could describe the lady in question?
The hotel manager provides, under the circumstances, a most accurate description of Ruth, but before anything more can be said, he hears shouts from the other end of the telephone, and a woman’s voice rapidly receding.
I’m afraid the lady is on her way upstairs, the hotel manager informs him.
He hangs up the telephone. He looks again at Vera. Vera should not be in the room with him. Babe should be in the room with him, wearing a cap and nightshirt, opening a window to see if there is any possibility that they might survive the drop.
There comes a hammering at the bedroom door. It is loud enough to wake even Vera. He notices that she stinks of booze, but probably no worse than he does.
What is it? Vera asks. Who is at the door?
Ruth’s voice sounds from the hallway outside.
—Bigamist! Bigamist!
I think, he says, that you may be about to meet my ex-wife.
It is said that when Jimmy Finlayson hears this story, he laughs so hard that he almost cracks a rib.
But Hal Roach, as Ben Shipman can attest, does not laugh.
And Babe does not laugh.