Joan Archer- Where is Buzz Aldrin’s Ex-wife now?

Who is Joan Archer?

Joan Archer is famous for being the first wife of Buzz Aldrin. Joan Archer’s ex-husband Aldrin is known among many as a former astronaut, engineer, and fighter pilot. Her ex-husband gained the attention of the public for being the man who made three spacewalks as a pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission. As the Lunar Module Eagle pilot on the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, Aldrin and mission commander Neil Armstrong were the first two people to land on the Moon. Joan Archer and Buzz Aldrin were still married when all this event took place.

Joan Archer- Bio Summary

Who was Buzz Aldrin’s first wife?

Buzz Aldrin’s first wife is Joan Archer. Archer was born on Dec. 5, 1930, to her parents Michael Archer and C. Evelyn Cleminshaw in the United States of America. According to sources, she was the only child of oil executives Michael Archer and her wife C. Evelyn Cleminshaw.

After acting in high school productions, she studied drama in college, earning a bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University in 1951 and a master’s from Columbia University in 1953.

Archer gained fame for being the first wife of the second man to step on the moon, Buzz Aldrin. They were still married when Aldrin when to the moon.

Where is Buzz Aldrin’s Ex-wife now Joan Archer now?

Joan Archer died on July 22 2015 in Ventura of natural causes, her family said. She was 84 at the time of her death. Joan Archer is survived by three children, James Michael Aldrin, Janice Ross Aldrin, and Andrew John Aldrin; a grandson; and two great-grandchildren.

Joan Archer Felt a Lot of Emotion About Her Husband’s Success

As said earlier, her husband Buzz became the second man to walk on the moon in 1969 and felt all of those emotions — and some that she was unprepared for.

Joan Archer’s husband as said earlier is the second man to step on the moon. “I had married an engineer and here he was a hero,” she told The LA Times a few years after her husband’s historic Apollo 11 mission with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins. “This was disturbing but I didn’t understand and my immediate reaction was anger toward Buzz. I did realize I should have expected it.”

How did Buzz Aldrin and his wife Joan Archer meet?

According to sources, Buzz Aldrin was an Air Force lieutenant when she met him in the early 1950s. There are no specific details of how they met and started their love affair. However, Aldrin and Archer were married in 1954. Joan Archer found the first year of marriage difficult with her quirky pilot husband, who gave her an unruly monkey named PoPo II as a Christmas present and was in the air more than he was at home. “I was always alone,” she recalled to Koppel.

“To be an astronaut wife meant tea with Jackie Kennedy, high-society galas, and instant celebrity,” Lily Koppel wrote in “The Astronaut Wives Club,” a 2013 book about the women who stood beside some of the most iconic figures of the past century. “When their husbands … were chosen to man America’s audacious adventure to beat the Russians in the space race, they suddenly found themselves very much in the public eye.”

When her husband joined the space program in the early 1960s, Archer joined the circle of astronaut wives in Houston. The women met regularly, forming a sisterhood whose members supported one another through the thrills and perils of space flight.

“If you think going to the moon is hard, trying staying at home,” Barbara Cernan, whose husband, Gene, commanded the Apollo 17 mission, said in Koppel’s book.

“I wish Buzz were a carpenter, a truck driver, a scientist, anything but what he is,” Joan Archer told Life magazine in 1969, recalling her thoughts while waiting to hear if he would be named to the Apollo 11 team.

Joan Archer’s husband, Buzz Aldrin, whose moonwalk on July 20, 1969, was broadcast to millions around the world, struggled with alcoholism, depression, and extramarital affairs. The Aldrins’ marriage, like many astronaut marriages, ended in divorce.

“There’s something about the public making a hero of a man, what it did to him and me and the kids,” Aldrin said. “Maybe these things have been behind closed doors too long. They’re not unusual. It’s only unusual that we’re talking about them.” She went to work as an administrator at ABC television in Los Angeles after her divorce in 1974. She left in 1998 and spent the rest of her life in a nursing home, where she directed a play reading group.

After their divorce Buzz got married to Beverly Van Zile, two years after their marriage, they also called their marriage a quit. Buzz then moved on with his life and got married to Lois Driggs Cannon. Lois and Buzz were married for more than 2 decades before they also went their separate ways. His settlement to Lois included 50 percent of their $475,000 bank account, and $9,500 a month plus 30 percent of his annual income, estimated at more than $600,000 according to Aldrin’s Wikipedia.