Wallis Simpson in NYC 1974

When I hooked up with my wife I made a great sacrifice -- I moved to Queens. I literally crossed a bridge (the Triborough to be exact) to be with my lady love. 

Into Queens for a Queen, you might say. Never regretted it.

All guys do this -- make some kind of sacrifice to get with dames classier than they are (and my wife is WAY classier than me, like that's a surprise). But no one made a greater sacrifice for love than King Edward VIII who renounced the British Imperial throne in 1936 to marry the woman he loved, American divorcee Wallis Simpson. (As King, he was the head of the Church of England and the head of the church couldn't be divorced or married to a divorced woman back then). This guy gave up a crown, gave up a job he'd spent his whole life preparing for, gave up living in palaces and castles, gave up being a world leader, gave up the literal family jewels, gave up ruling an empire that spanned a quarter of the globe -- for a chick!

Even now, 80+ years later, it boggles the mind that someone would do such a thing. Imagine being a KING, a literal real-life KING, ruling an EMPIRE, the BIGGEST EMPIRE IN HISTORY -- and giving it all up, walking away from it all, vacating your destiny, abandoning everything you have including your family, for, you know ... some dame.

I guess I'm just not enough of a romantic to understand it (don't tell my wife). Almost a century later, it still boggles the collective mind that something like that happened.

Edward VIII died in 1972. He and Wallis lived in exile in France for the last 20 years of his life. But in 1974, Wallis made one of her final visits to the United States when she came to NYC. Even almost 40 years after the abdication and Edward's death, she still fascinated the media and the public at large who would besiege her whenever she came back to her homeland.

What was it about Wallis, what magic did she wield, what sorcery did she exercise, what qualities did she possess, that made a King renounce his Kingdom in order to "hook up" with her?

Let's face it -- she wasn't some great beauty. And, from everything I've read, she wasn't some kind of stunning intellect or even a particularly nice person. Her earthly charms seem elusive.

So what was it then?

Pre-verts have speculated that she had some kind of other-worldly carnal power over the King (you know, she gave great "luvin'" and knew "tricks") but this doesn't really wash. Prior to meeting her, the King (then Prince of Wales) had been with lots and lots of women so that probably wasn't it. My theory -- she was like the mother he never had. Edward's own mother was a monster so, instead of truly loving Wallis, she instead filled an emotional void he'd carried around his entire life. And, for that, beacuse of these mommey issues, this not particularly beautiful or interesting woman rocked an empire to the core and changed the course of world history.

When Wallis came to NYC in 1974 she was an elderly widow simply visiting friends and doing some shopping. She could have been and was, in many ways, just about anyone. At this moment, the Watergate scandal was raging and a presidential resignation -- much like the abdication, something that had previously been thought of as unthinkable -- was on the horizon. And yet the fascination with Wallis and her role in history remained unabated even then -- and even today, more than 30 years after her death.