David McLane/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Shari Lewis was married to Stan Lewis from 1953 to 1957 The Lamb Chop ventriloquist married Jeremy Tarcher in 1958, and they remained together until her death in 1998 She shared her only child, Mallory, with her second husband Shari Lewis's two great loves shaped her life and career in significant ways. The ventriloquist's two marriages are covered inShari & Lamb Chop, a new documentary about the trailblazing children's entertainer and her beloved sock puppetLamb Chop. Shari Hurwitz met her first husband, Stan Lewis, when she was just 15. Four years later, the high school sweethearts tied the knot. Stan worked in entertainment, on the business side, as an account executive for a number of TV game shows. He made headlines when he became involved in a "scandal." "They had a bit of a crisis. There was a scandal involving people being manipulated by the show, and there was a big investigation, and the shows were cancelled, and Stan lost his job," Ely Hurwitz, Shari's cousin, explains in the documentary. Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE's free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest sories. Kino Lorber The incident was "devastating to Shari and to her parents," Hurwitz notes. "They were very concerned about the impact of the scandal on her public reputation." "That sort of put an end to that marriage. So they separated and got divorced and kept everything as quiet and secret as possible." It wasn't long after her divorce from Stan that the rising star met Jeremy Tarcher, who worked in TV as an assistant program manager and who, according to Hurwitz, "came from a wealthy family and is what we today would call a trust-fund child." She and Tarcher hit it off ("I thought he was the most elegant man I'd ever met — he's so elegant he doesn't even go to bed barefoot," Lewis told PEOPLE in 1976), but he sometimes felt intimidated by her success. Though he was well-educated, Tarcher didn't share Lewis's drive to succeed, which led to some hiccups in their relationship. Still, the two tied the knot less than a year after meeting. Kino Lorber By then, Lewis was already a successful puppeteer, having introduced Lamb Chop on the morning children's TV showCaptain Kangarooin 1957. "You can't open one of the doors without being conked by a rabbit or an elephant," Tarcher toldCuemagazine in 1958, perCBS News. "It's like being married to Fibber McGee." (Fibber McGee was a popular radio and TV character from 1935 to 1960 who was famous for hisoverstuffed closets.) The couple welcomed daughter Mallory in July 1962, as they worked together onThe Shari Lewis Show. After it concluded in 1963, they struggled in their marriage as Tarcher explored new-age ideologies. "The New Age movement was the antithesis of my mother, but she loved her husband, and so she made an attempt to encourage and support," Mallory, 63, explains in the documentary. Ron Galella Collection via Getty The two experienced hard times through Tarcher's experimentation with drugs and lack of drive to match Lewis's professional success. He did, according to the 1976 PEOPLE feature on Lewis, enjoy some success as a publisher of nonfiction and celebrity books, including Johnny Carson'sHappiness Is a Dry Martini. "The thought of not working has never occurred to me," Lewis says in archival footage in the documentary. "I do not understand not working. If I didn't perform, I would do something else. I would write. I'd work in an advertising agency." Despite difficult periods, Lewis and Tarcher worked things out and remained together until her death in 1998 from uterine cancer at age 65. Tarcher died in 2015 at age 83. Shari & Lamb Chopis now playing in select theaters. Read the original article onPeople