Nuclear bomb boffin Oppenheimer had an explosive sex life – like other eggheads

He was the “father of the atom bomb” – and this week a new blockbuster about American scientist J Robert Oppenheimer blasts onto the big screen.

But along with the physicist’s role in creating nuclear weapons, he also had an explosive love life.

And Christopher Nolan’s new biopic Oppenheimer, starring Peaky Blinders’ Cillian Murphy as the famous egghead, features some raunchy sex scenes.

Here we reveal some startling secrets about his love life and those of other top boffins and boffinesses…

“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” quoted Oppenheimer after his role in the US Manhattan Project which would create the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War Two.

But the physicist certainly had a lust for life. He slept with the already-married Kitty, played by Emily Blunt in the movie, at a scientist pal’s party, leading her to get a divorce.

Then, after their marriage in 1940 and having two children together, he rekindled an affair with former lover psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh, who took her own life in 1944.

HAIR-RAISING ANTICS

Albert Einstein’s sex life was as wild as his locks. The German-born physicist, played by Tom Conti in Oppenheimer is famous for his equation E = mc2 , yet he never found the formula for monogamy.

He divorced wife Mileva in 1919 to marry his cousin Elsa after they started sleeping together. But soon he was cheating on her, having an affair with his secretary Betty and notching up a string of other conquests before and after Elsa’s death in 1936. Einstein died, aged 76, in 1955.

SECRET FLAME

Marie Curie, the Polish-born pioneer of research into radioactivity, was married to French hubby Pierre for 11 years until his death in a road accident in 1906.

Four years later, the 43-year-old mum-of-two, once played by Rosamund Pike on screen, began a torrid affair with younger scientist Paul Langevin a married father of four.

When his wife found out she exposed it causing a scandal and nearly stopping Curie getting a Nobel Prize. In the end Langevin refused to get a divorce. She died aged 66 in 1934.

FREUDIAN SLIP

Sigmund Freud was the founder of psychoanalysis and a pioneer in studying sexual desire. And it turns out he may have got quite hands on with his research.

The Austrian-born neurologist wed Martha Bernays in 1886. They were married for more than 50 years and had six children.

But psychiatrist Carl Jung alleged Freud had an affair with Martha’s younger sister, Minna.

A Swiss hotel register from 1898 shows the pair booked into a double room as husband and wife!

FAST MOVER

British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair pioneered pocket calculators, but was most famous for his C5 electric vehicle which proved to be a sales flop.

Yet the balding, bearded father of three enjoyed a runaway love life, divorcing wife Ann to marry 33-year-old lap dancer and former Miss England Angie Bowness in 2010 at the age of 69.

They divorced seven years later. Sinclair, who admitted a weakness for beautiful women, died in 2021 aged 81.

SEXY TIME

The physicist Stephen Hawking, famous for his book A Brief History of Time, lived with motor neurone disease for more than 50 years which left him in a wheelchair and using a computer to speak.

After being married to Jane for 20 years he fell in love with one of his carers, Elaine Mason and the father-of-three divorced to marry her in 1995. But they divorced too in 2006.

In later life he was spotted at strip clubs and became a regular at Stringfellows in London.

Hawking, who died in 2018 aged 76, admitted he found women “a complete mystery.”

UNNATURAL SELECTION

Biologist Charles Darwin pioneered the theory of evolution in his The Origin of Species.

Despite his scientific interest in natural selection, he ended up marrying his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, in 1839.

The couple were happy and would have a whopping 10 kids together, but Darwin worried inbreeding was the cause of ill health among his offspring. Three of his children would die young.

He even once wrote: “We are a wretched family and ought to be exterminated.”

FRANK CONFESSION

US Founding Father Benjamin Franklin was also an 18th century scientist who pioneered the study of electricity and invented the lightning rod.

As well as fathering two children with wife Deborah Read, the randy polymath found time for a sparky extra-marital love life too which saw him sire up to 15 illegitimate children.

He once tried to steal a pal’s mistress and was a frequent visitor to brothels admitting in his autobiography of “intrigues with low women.”

CODE RED

He painted one of the world’s most beautiful women for the Mona Lisa, but thought sex was “disgusting.”

Leonardo Da Vinci, who also came up with early designs for everything from flying machines to diving suits, never married or had children.

But in 1476, aged 24, the Renaissance genius narrowly escaped execution, after being arrested and accused of sodomy with a 17-year-old model.

He was acquitted but committed himself to celibacy for life.

NOTHING FRUITY

Legend has it Sir Isaac Newton came up with his theory of gravity after seeing an apple fall from a tree. But the British scientist didn’t have a clue when it came to losing cherries.

He never married and once fell out with a friend who tried to “embroil me with women.” It’s widely believed Newton died aged 84, in 1727, still a virgin.

Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk