Iacocca’s involvement in billionaire Kirk Kerkorian’s unsuccessful hostile takeover bid for Chrysler in 2005 prompted the company to scrap plans to put his name on its new headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan. The rift was swiftly repaired when Iacocca returned to doing commercials for Chrysler, sharing the screen with actor Jason Alexander, rapper Snoop Dogg and an actress portraying his granddaughter.
Iacocca donated his fee for those commercials to the charitable foundation he founded to combat diabetes, the disease that claimed the life of his first wife in 1983.
Unwanted Headlines
His second marriage generated unflattering headlines. His bride, the former Peggy Johnson, was a onetime flight attendant, 26 years his junior, who had worked with him at the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation. Married at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in April 1986, they divorced in November 1987. Five years later, Iacocca won an annulment of their marriage, prompting Johnson to appear on television to describe her surprise and hurt. She died of a heart attack in 2000, at 49.
Iacocca’s third marriage, to the former Darrien Earle in 1991, also ended in divorce, in 1994.
Politically, Iacocca described himself as a Republican who had voted for presidential candidates of both parties. He endorsed Republican George W. Bush for president in 2000 and his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry, in 2004.
In his 2007 book with Catherine Whitney, “Where Have All the Leaders Gone?,” Iacocca urged voters looking ahead to the 2008 elections to “throw the bums out.” He said he had thought seriously about running for president in 1988 before deciding he wasn’t cut out for that particular chief executive post.
“You can be a success in business and not have the temperament to be president,” he wrote. “For myself, I concluded long ago that to run for president you’ve got to be overambitious or just plain crazy.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.