Imelda Marcos

Called the 'Steel Butterfly,' Imelda Marcos was the beautiful wife and confidante of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The Marcos regime (1965-86) was marked by notorious corruption, political repression and gross financial shenanigans, acts to which Imelda was almost certainly privy. The Marcoses were finally deposed in 1986 and fled to Hawaii, where Ferdinand died in 1989. Imelda Marcos later returned to the Philippines and, despite everything, was elected a legislative representative from her native district of Leyte. In 1998 she was arrested and charged with corruption and amassing a fortune of up to five billion dollars illegally during her husband's regime, but her conviction was later overturned. In 2008 she was acquitted of longstanding charges of graft and hiding skimmed money in Swiss bank accounts. In later years she has pled poverty while still living well and managing to remain in the public eye.

Extra credit: Imelda Marcos was voted Miss Leyte in 1953. She married Marcos, then a Congressman, the next year... After the Marcos regime was overthrown in 1986, opposition forces found thousands of pairs of high-fashion shoes in Imelda's closets; the shoes became a symbol of her life of luxury amid the poverty of most Filipinos.