John Derek & Ursula Andress

Derek walked out on his wife and family in 1955 after meeting 19-year-old aspiring Swiss actress Ursula Andress, who can't speak English when they met. The two began having an affair, but what Derek didn’t know was that Andress came with baggage.

Andress’s baggage came in the form of an actor and boyfriend, James Dean. When Derek and Andress started their affair, Dean was not happy; he even went so far as to stalk the two in his car while Derek and Andress were driving down Sunset Boulevard. Derek continued to date Andress, however, and things continued to escalate between Derek and Dean.It soon led to an inevitable showdown between the two men.

The alleged showdown began after Derek dropped Andress off at her home one day. As soon as Derek stopped in front of Andress’s home, Dean walked out the door and offered to drive Derek around in his brand-new Porsche. Derek’s friends tried to stop him from getting into the car; they had no doubt that Dean’s intentions were far from good. Derek, however, wasn’t going to back down. He hopped into Dean’s car, which quickly roared to life.

With Derek in the passenger seat, Dean careened down the streets of Hollywood, driving over curbs, going up and down sidewalks, and screeching up Laurel Canyon. Dean wanted to give John Derek a good scare, but was infuriated when Derek kept as cool as a cucumber. Frustrated at Derek’s lack of reaction, Dean drove back to Andress’s home in a fury.It gave Derek a good laugh.

In 1957 Derek and Andress married in a quickie ceremony in Las Vegas. For the next couple of years, the new couple traveled through Europe, with Derek acting in a few movies along the way.All too soon, their money began to run out. Seeing their chance, CBS gave Derek an offer too good to refuse.CBS asked Derek to return to Los Angeles in order to appear in a television series called Frontier Circus, and even offered to pay for both Derek’s and Andress’s plane tickets home. Without many options, Derek agreed, but he did so with a heavy heart. By this point, Derek had grown to dislike acting and wanted to become a director.

Derek directing movie Once Before I Die (1966) with his wife as the cast.

His marriage to Andress ended in 1964 when she began an affair with the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.In a fit of anger, Derek threw Andress out of his home and shut the door in her face.Later , Andress developed reputation as a serial homewrecker after being named correspondent for the divorces between John Derek and Pati Behrs, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Elodie Constant, and Ryan O'Neal and Leigh Taylor-Young.