Friday, October 02, 2009

Is It Wrong To Laugh At A Divorce?



Getting divorced, huh? Yeah, what a surprise for that swivel-head Chris Evert!

From my prior post - Greg Norman - The Way Of The Shark:

Now the last subject on Greg Norman that I want to address is on the gossipy side - his personal life.

Almost thirty years ago he hit on a flight stewardess (how cliché!). They wed and had two kids. In the photo section of his book there are pics of his son and his daughter, but none of his oft-discussed wife. Right there I knew something was afoot. Throughout his autobiography, the way Greg was running all over the world chasing dollars I couldn't help but see a parallel to General Electric's Jack Welch. What kind of marriage and family life is possible when Dad is always elsewhere? Not a very pleasant or enduring one in my vicarious experience. Welch incidentally has been thrice married. Many athletes retire so they can spend more time with their family but Greg simply replaced one all-consuming passion (golf) with another (business). Seemingly, even when Greg wasn't building golf courses he was off on extended hunting and fishing trips. Most normal guys who merely hit the bar on the way home (for french fries) get an earful from their wives. Highly ambitious men and women simply aren't conducive to family life. They and their spouses simply grow apart.

My hunch was confirmed way back on page 291 where Greg mentioned his impending divorce from Laura, his flight stewardess wife of 25 years. It turns out, Greg was bopping his neighbor, tennis legend Chris Evert who's now 54 (pictured above). Chris was married too so a couple of marriages were ruined from this sordid affair. As of this post, Greg and his new love interest are supposedly engaged.

Now I don't know why any guy would marry Chris Evert with her record. Sure she was married to current husband Andy Mills for quite some time (by celebrity standards) but she was a "player" on and off the tennis court for decades. Her little black book is quite extensive: Jimmy Conners, Burt Reynolds, Geraldo Rivera, Adam Faith, Vitas Gerulaitis, Pat Boone, and John Gardner "Jack" Ford, son of U.S. President Gerald Ford. Then she married and divorced tennis pro John Lloyd before marrying skier Andy Mills the latest cuckold.

I guess one of the most prescient acts of the past century was Chris Evert keeping her maiden name upon marrying John Lloyd. Otherwise she'd be now known as "Chris Evert Lloyd Mills Norman"!!!


And wasn't it just over a year ago that everyone, i.e. Big Media, was saying how positive of an influence Greg's new bride (Chris Evert) was? Implying that somehow this coupling helped Greg almost win the British Open at the age of 53? See the beginning of this post.

Now that I think about it, I probably laughed when that first legal invert marriage fell apart as well...

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