Why do you think Klaus and Astrid were getting into fights and eventually broke up? I just find the fact that she immediately got with Stuart and him not seeming to mind kinda funny lol. Was it because she was independent like Rita Coolidge? Also concerning Rita, did Klaus want her to quit her career and marry him because of the era they lived in, or does he seem like a controlling guy in general? To clarify, was he just following social norms of those days or is he still like that today?
Sorry for all the questions but you’re the Klaus expert and I have no where else to go.
Klaus has always said that he and Astrid were not compatible, and blames them both being Tauruses. He says Tauruses are notoriously stubborn, and two stubborn people do not make a harmonious couple. He has also discussed his dislike for being controlled, and felt that that was what Astrid was trying to do. While Stuart revelled in sharing clothes and adopting the style Astrid adored, Klaus did not. He sums it up in their 1999 book 'Hamburg Days':
“I felt quite embarrassed about getting dressed up, or having a big scarf around my neck, and with my hair combed down too. I did that more for her. Maybe she doesn't even know that to this day... She must, though. I got out our old letters the other day, a whole heap of them, and in one I was saying, 'We can't be a couple any more, because you are ruling over me too much and I don't think I can take that.' The clothes I was wearing were part of that. Astrid was dressing me up like a puppy on a leash that she could take for a walk. We clashed a bit over things like that. Even before Stuart came into the picture, I was saying, 'We can't do it together, it doesn't work, we are too different. I can't be what you want to make me.'”
They were drifting apart for a long time before Stuart came into the picture. They loved each other, but realised that was more platonic than romantic. As Astrid said: “We had this wonderful relationship - pretty unusual back in the sixties - in which he loved me more as an individual and a friend than as a lover: his greatest concern was that I should be happy… Of course, he was upset; but I really think that he was happy that I was happy.”
But I admit that this hatred of being controlled is quite contradictory later on when Klaus falls for Rita Coolidge. As you say, he told her she should give up her music career if they were to be together - “since she wasn’t a particularly good singer anyway.” Yikes.
However, reading the account back to write this, I’m not convinced he was doing it with the intention of controlling her. It was certainly clumsy and rude, but I don’t think he is the type to disagree with his partner working and having independence away from their relationship. With regard to Christine Hargreaves, for example, a 1968 Fabulous 208 article states that he “is more excited about his wife’s achievements than his own.” And he has been a great promoter of his wife Christina’s “destiny” to support Native Americans, with the profits from some of his projects going towards the campaign.
To his own admission, he was crazily infatuated with Rita, and was stupidly dreaming up their life together when they had only just begun to know each other. It does make me laugh though that Rita took no shit and is, like you say, very independent - as soon as he mentioned this ludicrous idea, she dumped him and drove off “without even looking back.” Ouch! But deserved.
