The beautiful half of one of the 20th century's most notorious dictatorships, Imelda Marcos has spent two decades fighting attempts to jail her and trace a reputed fortune of billions. On the 20th anniversary of the revolution that ousted her and Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines, she talks exclusively about her wealth, their legacy -- and those shoes.
Twenty years ago this week, Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda were settling down to exile in Hawaii, after millions of Filipinos had jeered the couple out of Manila's Malacanang Palace during the so-called People-Power Revolution. Television pictures captured protestors waltzing wide-eyed through the palace's drafty corridors and uncovering Imelda's hoard of 3,000 pairs of shoes in a joyous celebration of the oppressed.
By the time the brilliant ex-lawyer and his beauty-queen wife boarded a U.S. helicopter on Feb. 25, 1986, they had become synonymous with the corruption and cronyism that made the Philippines one of the poorest nations on the planet. To his eternal credit, Marcos ordered his army not to fire on Manila crowds before he left, but then he expected to be back within days. Instead, he was to die in Hawaii three years later, leaving Imelda to carry on the Marcos legacy.