When legendary astronaut Buzz Aldrin married a beautiful blonde, 30 years his junior, on his 93rd birthday, eyebrows were certainly raised. What was one of the most famous men of the 20th Century – the second human to step foot on the Moon – doing marrying a woman young enough to be his daughter?
The answer, according to Aldrin’s long-time publicist and friend of 30 years was simple: Buzz was madly in love with Dr Anca Faur. ‘People were sceptical when they got married but I saw them up close and there’s no doubt that she was the love of his life,’ PR man Edward Lozzi said last night. ‘He was besotted with her, which is why this is such a tragedy.’
The tragedy is that two weeks ago, Mrs Aldrin died from cancer, aged just 66.
In the space of only a few months, her body had been overwhelmed by a particularly virulent form of the disease, robbing her husband of the one woman who brought him happiness in these final years of his life.
For now, Mr Aldrin, 95, remains in the couple’s apartment being cared for by a full-time nurse. His eyesight is failing and he is understandably fragile and fraught as he deals with his grief.
Mr Lozzi said: ‘I spoke to him this week and he said he didn’t know how he was going to live without her. It’s a tragedy that a man who has had such a full and long life, who inspired millions and whose name will forever be linked to one of the greatest feats of mankind, is facing this terrible heartache at this stage in his life. It’s a cruel twist of fate.’
In July 1969, Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin became the second human to walk on the surface of the moon
Aldrin married Dr Anca Faur, a beautiful blonde 30 years his junior, on his 93rd birthday in 2023
Two weeks ago, Mrs Aldrin died from cancer, aged just 66. In the space of only a few months, her body had been overwhelmed by a particularly virulent form of the disease
Mr Lozzi says that despite going to the Moon, being a decorated fighter pilot who served in Korea, meeting every president from Nixon onwards and helping Donald Trump set up a new arm of the US military, the Space Force, ‘Buzz always told me his greatest accomplishment in life was marrying Anca’, an accomplished chemical engineer.
‘He is the smartest man I know – genius level. He did mathematical calculations with a pen and paper for the Moon landing. He’s a nerd. Buzz is someone who would rather have his head in a book than anything else.
‘Then Anca came along and she’s this hugely intelligent woman who has everything – beauty, wit and brains – and who he happened to he hugely physically attracted to. She made him the happiest he’d ever been in life.’
For life hasn’t always been happy for Mr Aldrin. Despite making history on the Apollo 11 mission with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins, he struggled with depression and alcoholism.
Mr Lozzi said: ‘He hated it when people referred to him as the “second” man on the Moon, as if it was a failure, rather than as part of the first lunar landing. Being viewed as the also-ran almost broke him psychologically.’
In his memoir, Return To Earth, Mr Aldrin writes: ‘Getting to the Moon was easy, coming back, not so much. All my life, leading up to the flight of Apollo 11, I was a very hard-driving, goal-oriented individual. I wanted to resume my duties but there were no duties to resume. There was no goal, no sense of calling, no project worth pouring myself into.’
Instead, once the ticker-tape parades ended, Mr Aldrin found solace in the bottom of a bottle.
His alcoholism and self-professed cheating ended his first marriage to Joan Archer, the mother of his three children – sons James and Andrew and daughter Janice – after 20 years.
He spent days in bed, leaving only to buy more booze and buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Then a ‘disastrous’ three-year marriage to Beverly Van Zile ended in 1978. He has barely spoken about her and she died in 2004.
Aldrin and Professor Brian Cox at the 60th anniversary of the Omega Speedmaster, which has been worn by every piloted NASA mission since 1965
Aldrin and his first wife Joan Archer in 1969. His alcoholism and self-professed cheating ended his first marriage to Joan, the mother of his three children, after 20 years
Aldrin on the moon next to the US flag on July 20, 1969 in a photograph taken by Neil Armstrong during their lunar walk
After Mr Aldrin quit Nasa he worked briefly as a car salesman, – as incongruous as that sounds for a figure of his historical importance. Following that, he checked himself into rehab.
Buzz met his third wife, Lois Driggs Cannon in the mid-80s and the pair married in 1988.
Mr Lozzi said: ‘Buzz credits Lois with getting him into rehab and sobering him up. It was her idea to turn him into the “Hollywood astronaut”.’
It was around that time that Mr Lozzi, who represented stars like Debbie Reynolds and Jon Voight and worked in the White House of President George H. W. Bush, met Mr Aldrin at an auction of vintage planes. ‘We hit it off,’ he said. ‘I started inviting him to Hollywood events. We became friends and then he hired me as his PR man.’
Mr Lozzi ran an annual Night of 100 Stars Oscars gala, that was the toast of Hollywood. ‘Buzz was magnificent on the red carpet,’ he recalls. ‘Dressed up in a tux and dripping with medals, it didn’t matter how big a star they were, everyone wanted to meet Buzz. He’s an icon.’
It quickly became apparent that while Lois was good for Buzz, fame and celebrity were not good for her. ‘She saved him from alcoholism but ended up becoming an alcoholic herself,’ Mr Lozzi said. ‘There were great times, like their legendary Moon parties where you never knew if you would bump into Tom Cruise or the Governor of California.
‘Buzz became Hollywood’s astronaut. He went everywhere. He was thrilled when they named Buzz Lightyear after him [in the Toy Story movies].
‘But Lois became a mean drunk. She embarrassed him in public with her behaviour.’
Mr Aldrin stuck with the marriage until 2012 but was increasingly miserable. And Lois, who died in 2018, never got over him leaving her.
Mr Lozzi said: ‘The year after they split she wanted to come to the Night Of 100 Stars. I tried to gently let her down. When you’re the ex-spouse of someone like Buzz Aldrin, the invitations stop when the marriage ends.
Armstrong, Michael Collins and Aldrin in the official portrait of the Apollo 11 crew, taken at the Kennedy Space centre on March 30, 1969
Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins on the deck of the Nasa motor vessel retriever before water egress training
Aldrin and Anca in 2019. ‘People were sceptical when they got married but I saw them up close and there’s no doubt that she was the love of his life,’ PR man Edward Lozzi said last night
‘We eventually relented and let her come and she turned up hammered on the red carpet. A reporter asked her about Buzz, who had just arrived on the other side of the venue with a stunning brunette on his arm. Lois launched into a tirade of abuse against him and his new girlfriend.’
A lesson learnt for Mr Lozzi, who was charged with cleaning up his client’s ‘messes’.
Mr Aldrin once had a bitter falling out with his family – two of his children and a former business manager launched legal action in 2018 to declare him mentally ‘unfit’ in a alleged fight over money. Mr Aldrin counter-sued claiming elder abuse, fraud and slander. Mr Lozzi helped smooth the way with the press. The lawsuits were quietly resolved and the loyal PR man declines to discuss it to this day.
Then there was the time Mr Aldrin was ‘ambushed’ by a Moon landing denier, part of a global conspiracy theorist group who believes the CIA ‘staged’ the lunar landings in a studio on the Warner Bros lot.
Mr Lozzi said: ‘Buzz has spent his life being plagued by questions about how it feels to be the second man to walk on the Moon… That’s galling. Then there is this group of crazy conspiracy theorists who believe the Moon landings were a hoax.
‘This guy approached Buzz as he was arriving at a hotel and called him a coward and a liar. Buzz smacked him in the jaw.’
At the time Mr Aldrin was 72 and his ‘accuser’ Bart Sibrel, was 37. Mr Lozzi said: ‘It became a massive story, as all things involving Buzz do. It eventually went away when the police said Buzz had been provoked into throwing that punch.’
Mr Aldrin always kept himself in great physical shape, working out daily and eating healthily.
‘He’s from that strict military background and has always looked and acted much younger than his years, Mr Lozzi said. ‘He liked to keep in shape because he always liked the ladies. And there were plenty of ladies.’
In December 2017, Mr Aldrin met Dr Faur at a conference on fuel cells. By the following spring, they were living together.
Mr Lozzi travelled with the couple and witnessed their relationship first-hand. ‘He adored her, worshipped her. It was the first time I truly saw him in love.
‘He was like a besotted college kid. And she loved him deeply. Anca was born in Romania and was stunningly pretty but also had a mind which could keep up with his. She made him laugh. He told me right from the start he was going to marry her.’
Mr Aldrin told People magazine: ‘When I met Anca, I instantly recognised that here was a woman who is the whole Wizard Of Oz package: Brains. Heart. Courage.
‘There is something special about her and the way we connect so well. She has a bit of a stubborn streak so it took me several years until she agreed to be my bride, my best beloved. But I’m even stubborner than she is. I won!’
The wedding took place on January 20, 2023 – his 93rd birthday – in a small private ceremony in Los Angeles. He posted on X that they were ‘as excited as eloping teenagers’.
The new Mrs Aldrin added: ‘We both felt deep in our hearts all these years that marrying each other felt right.’
Four months later, Mr Lozzi watched proudly as his old friend was promoted to the honorary rank of brigadier general in the US Air Force, having retired from the service as a colonel.
‘Anca arranged everything from the guest list to the seating arrangements. She was a force of nature. She looked after him so well. I think they both assumed he would go first because she was so much younger. Who wouldn’t assume that?’
Mr Lozzi visited the couple at their small Los Angeles apartment where his old friend kept priceless possessions like Moon rocks, Moon dust, pictures of himself with US presidents and even a tiny piece of the lunar landing module.
‘They lived modestly. It wasn’t a fancy mansion like you’d imagine someone like him would live in. I don’t know if his artefacts are still in there or if they’ve been placed somewhere for safe-keeping.
‘He auctioned off some of his things but the priceless ones he kept. Anca made him happier than any possession.’
Indeed, it is only the odd mantelpiece trophy and framed award that distinguishes his small home from that of most nonagenarians not blessed with such an illustrious past. Today, as cardboard boxes and paperwork crowd the apartment’s chairs and tabletops, it bears the stress of the last few months.
When Anca became sick with cancer, Buzz and her family fiercely protected her privacy, sharing the diagnosis only with close friends. It was only after her death that Bobby Charles, a family friend, broke the news in an interview with People magazine last week.
He said: ‘Anca a had a very rare kind of cancer’ but ‘fought it valiantly’, adding: ‘I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a more positive and courageous and loving effort to live and fight for more time.’
Mr Aldrin has outlived her – as he has outlived his Apollo 11 crewmates Armstrong, who died in 2012, and Collins, who died in 2021. It’s a tragic achievement he would not have wished for.
‘Everyone is deeply concerned about Buzz’s welfare,’ said Mr Lozzi. ‘He’s an indelible part of all our histories but I worry about him as a friend.
‘Losing a spouse is terrible at any age but for a 95-year-old, even one as tough and brave as Buzz Aldrin, it takes a toll. It’s so sad that he finally found his soul mate and now she’s gone.’
