Vicki Morgan

Earle Lamm nearly flipped his toupee the first time he saw Vicki.

It was just months after her child was born. She was working at a mall boutique, and he was a clothing wholesaler.

Lamm, originally from Chicago, was three times her age. He was born in the 1920s, but his sense of style was pure '70s: aviator glasses, gold chains, bell-bottoms, platform shoes, shirts open to his navel.

And that hairpiece.

The Sierra Towers

Vicki would later claim she didn't notice Lamm's augmented hairdo until she woke up in his bed one morning and saw his shining pate beside her. Across the room, the artificial hair rested comfortably on an artificial head.

But Lamm's bed happened to be located at Sierra Towers, a gleaming 32-story high-rise on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.

It was one of L.A.'s hippest addresses.

In the elevator, Vicki was liable to run into such resident celebrities as Joan Collins, Sidney Poitier, George Hamilton, Diahann Carroll or Peter Lawford. (The building still has cache today: Kate Moss, Cher, Lindsay Lohan and Matthew Perry are among current or recent residents.)

Within weeks of their meeting, Earle Lamm asked Vicki Morgan to be his bride. It must have blown her mind.

She was still shy of 17, and he was 47.

But consider her choices: She could stay at home with her mother and baby in sleepy Montclair, work at the mall and date penniless local rat finks like the one who knocked her up.

Or she could marry Lamm, quit her job and live in a fabulous apartment in a fabulous Los Angeles neighborhood.

She had tasted the high life, and she liked it.

She accepted his proposal, and they flew to Las Vegas, where they were married in a five minute ceremony at a 24-hour wedding chapel.