Editing Roy Orbison (section)

===1965–1969: Career decline and tragedies===
[[File:Roy Orbison 1967.png|thumb|Orbison in 1967]]
By late 1964, Orbison had "occasionally treated himself to a [[groupie]]"<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p130}} and his wife Claudette had had an affair with the builder Braxton Dixon, who had built Orbison's house.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p121}} After Roy became aware of the affair, he fired Dixon and finished building the house himself (with the help of a hired carpenter).<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p132}} In early 1965, Roy confirmed that Claudette and he were divorced.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p132}} Later in 1965, Claudette gave birth to Roy's third child, and Roy and Claudette reunited several months later.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p143}}

Orbison's singles in early 1965 had been unsuccessful, and his contract with Monument was expiring soon.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p137}} Wesley Rose, at this time acting as Orbison's agent, moved him from Monument Records to [[MGM Records]] (though in Europe he remained with [[Decca Records|Decca's]] [[London Records]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.45cat.com/record/hlu9986 |title=Roy Orbison - Ride Away / Wondering - London - UK - HLU 9986 |website=45cat |access-date=August 29, 2015}}</ref>) for $1&nbsp;million<ref name="offbio" /> and with the understanding that he would expand into television and films, as Elvis Presley had done. Orbison was a film enthusiast, and when not touring, writing, or recording, he dedicated time to seeing up to three films a day.<ref>Clayson, Alan, pp. 130–131.</ref> The move was described as Orbison "joining the ranks of fading rock stars fleeing to MGM".<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p137}}

Rose also became Orbison's producer. Fred Foster later suggested that Rose's takeover was responsible for the commercial failure of Orbison's work at MGM. Engineer Bill Porter agreed that Orbison's best work could only be achieved with RCA Victor's A-Team in Nashville.<ref name="Zak, p. 33."/> Orbison's first collection at MGM, an album titled ''There Is Only One Roy Orbison'', sold fewer than 200,000 copies.<ref name="escott"/> With the onset of the [[British Invasion]] in 1964–65, the direction of popular music shifted dramatically, and most performers of Orbison's generation (Orbison was 28 in 1964) were driven from the charts.<ref>Lehman, p. 14</ref> The contractual requirement to release a certain number of singles and albums per year for MGM also took its toll on the quality of Orbison's songs.<ref name="offbio" />

Orbison was fascinated with machines. He was known to follow a car that he liked and make the driver an offer on the spot.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p126}} While on tour again in the UK in 1966,{{sfnp|Slate, Orbison et al.|2017|p=131}} Orbison broke his foot falling off a motorcycle in front of thousands of screaming fans at a race track; he performed his show that evening in a cast. Claudette traveled to Britain to accompany Roy for the remainder of the tour. It was now made public that the couple had happily remarried and were back together (they had remarried in December 1965).{{sfnp|Slate, Orbison et al.|2017|p=129}}

Roy and Claudette shared a love for motorcycles after Roy had been introduced to them by Elvis Presley.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p54}} Orbison was a daredevil driver, blasting around on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and owning a Ferrari car, which he used to challenge other drivers to race him on the highway.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p1}} On June 6, 1966, when Orbison and Claudette were both riding their motorcycles home from [[Bristol, Tennessee]], she was struck by a pickup truck in [[Gallatin, Tennessee]]<ref>Clayson, Alan, p. 139.</ref> and thrown into the air. She was taken by ambulance to hospital, but her liver was seriously injured and she died, aged 25.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p148}}

A grieving Orbison threw himself into his work, collaborating with Bill Dees to write music for ''[[The Fastest Guitar Alive]]'', a film in which MGM had scheduled for him to star, as well.<ref name="offbio" /> It was initially planned as a dramatic Western, but was rewritten as a comedy.<ref>Lehman, pp. 108–109.</ref> Orbison's character was a spy who stole and had to protect and deliver a cache of gold to the Confederate Army during the [[American Civil War]], and was supplied with a guitar that turned into a rifle. The prop allowed him to deliver the line, "I could kill you with this and play your funeral march at the same time", with, according to biographer [[Colin Escott]], "zero conviction".<ref name="escott"/> Orbison was pleased with the film, although it proved to be a critical and box-office failure. While MGM had included five films in his contract, no more were made.<ref>Clayson, Alan, pp. 146–147.</ref><ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p151-3}}

He recorded an album dedicated to the songs of [[Don Gibson]] and another of [[Hank Williams]] covers, but both sold poorly.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p153}} During the counterculture era, with the charts dominated by artists including [[Jimi Hendrix]], [[Jefferson Airplane]], the Rolling Stones, and [[the Doors]], Orbison lost mainstream appeal, yet seemed confident that this would return, later saying: "[I] didn't hear a lot I could relate to, so I kind of stood there like a tree where the winds blow and the seasons change, and you're still there and you bloom again."<ref>Clayson, Alan, p. 152.</ref> Orbison's single "Cry Softly Lonely One" from March 1967 was his last song to enter the top 100 until the 1980s.<ref name="offbio" />

During a tour of Britain and playing [[Birmingham]] on Saturday, September 14, 1968,{{sfnp|Slate, Orbison et al.|2017|p=144}} he received the news that his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, had burned down, and his two eldest sons had died.<ref>Clayson, Alan, pp. 161–63.</ref> This occurred two years after the death of his wife Claudette and Orbison's grief meant he could not write songs.<ref name="offbio" /> Fire officials stated that the cause of the fire may have been an [[aerosol]] can, which possibly contained [[lacquer]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Hendersonville, TN Home Fire Roy Orbison's House, Sep 1968 {{!}} GenDisasters ... Genealogy in Tragedy, Disasters, Fires, Floods|url=http://www.gendisasters.com/tennessee/18633/hendersonville-tn-home-fire-roy-orbison-039s-house-sep-1968|access-date=July 26, 2021|website=www.gendisasters.com}}</ref> The property was sold to Johnny Cash, whose house at the same location also burned down later.<ref name="offbio" />

During the 1968 tour of England, Orbison and his childhood friend Bobby Blackburn slept with many girls over the course of two months, and used a calendar on the wall to track when each girl was arriving and leaving their rented apartment in Upper Brook Street in London.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p156}} During this time, Orbison met the 16-year-old German girl [[Barbara Orbison|Barbara Wellhonen]], with whom he became fascinated,<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p156}} although Orbison continued to see other girls in the meantime.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p157}} On May 25, 1969,<ref name="offbio" /> Orbison and Wellhonen got married.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p163}} Roy was 33 years old at the time, and sources vary regarding whether Wellhonen was 17, 18, or 19.<ref name="Amburn"/>{{refpage|p163}}<ref>{{cite web | url=https://bandweblogs.com/blog/2008/10/10/barbara-orbison-exclusive-interview/ | title=Barbara Orbison EXCLUSIVE interview – Band Weblogs }}</ref> Wesley (born 1965), his youngest son with Claudette, was raised by Orbison's parents. Orbison and Wellhonen had a son (Roy Kelton) in 1970 and another ([[Alex Orbison|Alexander]]) in 1975.<ref>Clayson, Alan, p. 178.</ref>