The segment shows Robert Aldrich's long marriage to Harriet crumbling quite suddenly during the filming of "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte". It is true that their divorce was finalized in 1965, a few months after the film's opening, but Aldrich sometimes told interviewers that the marriage had, in fact, fallen apart during the period when, in exile from Hollywood after being fired from "The Garment Jungle", he had lived in Europe and made three films there (1957-60).
B.D.'s marriage by civil ceremony wasn't done surreptitiously. It was done openly New Year's Eve 1963 for a tax advantage on the advice of her fiance Jeremy's accountant. The scheduled church ceremony was performed a few days later.