Split Decisions : Who’s Still Together From Connubial Class of ‘81? Charles and Di, Ringo and Barbara, Mo and Den . . .

It was the hankie-wringer of the century, proof that there really is a Happily Ever After, with horse-drawn coaches, diamond tiaras and no therapists whispering from the sidelines that the newlyweds had only a 50-50 chance of making it work.

Ten years ago this week, the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer made marriage look the way it should--heroic (duck for the trumpets) and frothy (check out those Emanuel sleeves)--even better than the way Luke and Laura’s looked on “General Hospital” the same year.

It was the perfect centerpiece for an era of marriage mania. In 1981, after a decade of relative ignominy, getting married, big time, was once again the thing to do.

In such a conjugal climate did a then-record 2.4 million couples wed, including a New York Guardian Angel pair who spent their wedding night patrolling the subway and six Silicon Valley lovebirds who used a computer called the Rev. Apple (press Y for “I do”).

Now, Chuck and Di are again in the enviable forefront: They’re still married, however tenuously, on their 10th anniversary.

Even so, they are--by American standards at least--on fairly shaky ground. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 40% of this country’s 1981 marriages ended in divorce before the 10th anniversary and that half will eventually end the same way.

Can the Royals hold on? Who knows. Why does one marriage stick and another fall apart? Our search for the answer leads us to the following non-scientific examination of some famous couples from the Connubial Class of ’81.

Can Love Really Conquer All?

Thus did Manson family member Susan Atkins, 31, marry Donald Laisure, 52, who spelled his last name with a dollar sign and vowed to spend “$50 million” to win clemency for the woman he called “honey bear.”

They were married in the prison chapel.

“It’s just a love story,” said a beaming, cigar-chewing Laisure. “I’m going to love her till the end of time.”

It was over in five months. The marriage ended after Laisure claimed that Atkins stabbed him in a jealous rage during a prison visit. He wangled a Cuban divorce in February, 1982, personally signed, or so Laisure claimed, by Fidel Castro. Three months later, Laisure announced plans to marry an Albuquerque flight attendant. Atkins is still in prison.

Does Trendiness Beget Happiness?

For a nation smitten with the idea of marriage, the wedding of model Cheryl Tiegs and wildlife photographer Peter Beard in Montauk, N.Y., was almost as good as Chuck and Di’s.

It had style and tradition, everyone’s favorite way of doing things since the Reagans took over the White House. Tiegs was on the cutting edge with Dom Perignon, “The Blue Danube” and a white Oscar de la Renta gown.

By mid-summer, 1984, tradition had run its course, too. Fashionable Montauk wondered whether Peter or Cheryl would walk away with the beach house. By fall, Tiegs, 36, was showing up at New York nightspots with Tony Peck, 28, Gregory’s son. She was still on the cutting edge. In 1984, the newest trend in coupling was older women and younger men. They’re now married and having a trendy baby.

Does Eating Wheaties Do It?

Actress Linda Thompson, a regular on “Hee Haw,” had spent much of the 1970s living with Elvis and watching him eat peanut butter, so when she married Bruce Jenner, Olympic decathlon gold medalist and cereal box cover boy, it seemed like a healthy switch.

In fact, everything about the two seemed healthy. They met at a tennis match. They married on a Honolulu beach. They posed for Muscle and Fitness magazine. He made Bruce Jenner exercise tapes; she made him laugh. He commuted to New York for TV-host spots. She commuted to Nashville. And in 1985, after too many breakfasts apart, they decided to make the miles between them permanent. It was healthier.

Trial and Error

“I can’t be married. I’ve tried. I ought to know,” legendary leading man Cary Grant told his soon-to-be fourth wife, Dyan Cannon, in 1965. It was Grant’s shaky marital record that stopped his one-time photographer girlfriend, Maureen Donaldson, from becoming Wife No. 5 in the mid-1970s. But then along came Barbara Harris, a British-born Beverly Hills publicist, who lived with Grant for three years before marrying him in a private back-yard ceremony. Grant was 77. She was 37.

In an interview with the apparently blissful Grants--who sued the National Enquirer for suggesting that Barbara pushed her husband to the altar--a reporter asked Cary why he’d had so many failed marriages.

“Because all my wives left me,” the actor said. “And they were quite right to do so.”

Grant died in 1986. He left half of his estate to Barbara.

Can the Pope Help?

It started when 62-year-old Hugh Carey, then-governor of New York, began dyeing his hair auburn. Members of the Albany press said the governor “had gone ‘round the bend.”

In fact, the governor, a widower and a Catholic, was in love. The object was Evangeline Gouletas, a rich, glamorous, Greek-born condo queen, widowed once and divorced once. Or so she said on her marriage license.

A few days after the elaborate Greek Orthodox ceremony, Carey’s office released a statement saying, oops, Evangeline had been married three times before, not two. What’s more, supposedly dead Husband No. 1 surfaced to say he was alive. The Roman Catholic Church was not happy. Carey’s marriage, the Brooklyn Diocese said, could not be sanctioned.

The intrepid Careys appealed to the Vatican to annul the bride’s previous marriages. It takes 10 years to get this sort of ruling from Rome, and 10 years won’t be up till this fall.

At the moment, Carey and Evangeline are still technically married, even though the Vatican hasn’t said whether they were really married and even though she spends her time in Chicago while he spends his in New York.

Daddy’s Girl

Then-President Ronald Reagan was still recuperating from bullet wounds suffered during an assassination attempt, so he didn’t make it to the Beverly Wilshire Hotel for daughter Maureen’s April, 1981, wedding to law clerk Dennis Revell. But he sent his best wishes by phone. Since the President and Nancy were the year’s poster people for enduring wedded bliss, those wishes no doubt accounted for something.

Thanks, Dad. It’s working so far. Mo and Den have been married 10 years and three months.

Designer Destiny

Yes, there is more good news. When actress Barbara Bach and former Beatle Ringo Starr survived a mean car crash in 1980, they decided they were destined to be together. Forever. Barbara once said the couple never did anything separately, which How-to-Be-Happy experts say is the death knell for even the healthiest relationship. But destiny being stronger than how-to books, Barb and “Ritchie” sailed together past the Seven-Year Itch. They even went into an alcohol rehab program together, which helped kick off Ringo’s 1988 comeback tour--which Barbara and Ringo went on--together.

They, too, have been married for 10 years and three months. Probably because they sang “All You Need is Love” at the reception. Money doesn’t hurt, either. Last month, they paid cash for a new Beverly Hills home.

Meanwhile, back in England: Money hasn’t hurt The Royals, although they don’t use theirs for the Ringo-Barbara Togetherness Plan. Chuck and Di own enough homes so that they never have to sleep under the same roof.