Sunday, August 25, 2002
9
SectIon
- --,..
.---
it,
.,..
';;$'
~
~
~
Makethe
t
-~~Jit~-~
""-
"
.'
~~
~'. ",'?i.,.
-
"'~.)'
i:~
The breakups of the couples above were
ranked by top matrimonial lawyers from
around the country. Here is how they
fared. (They are listed from left to right.)
A+ Howard and Alison Stern, Christie
Brinkley and BillyJoel, Cindy Crawford
and Richard Gere.
c Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, Nicolf
Kidman and Tom Cruise, Tom Green
and Drew Barrymore.
F Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff, Angelina
Jolie and
Billy Bob Thornton,
Donna Hanover and Rudolph Giuliani.
By ALEX KUCZYNSKI and LIND.A LEE
EW YORK's divorce action du jour is that of Nina
Griscom and Dr. Daniel Baker, who went their separate ways after 11years of marriage. Friends reported that Pepe Fanjul, a weU-connected businessman,
had considered leaving his own wife, Emilia May, for Ms.
Griscom, but then changed his mind.
It could be a recipe for languid August news days:
take one blond former model with a piquant tongue and a
socially prominent bloodline (Ms. Griscom). Add one husband and one paramour, the first a prominent plastic sur.
geon (Dr. Baker) and the second a sugar baron (Mr. Fan.
jul) known for his showy displays of wealth and for his dE'voted wife. Sprinkle through gossip columns and fashion
N
and Richard
'. "",'
"..
magazines, and fan over dinner tables. Presto! A bubbling
summer cobbler of a story, ready to dish.
But the chance for the Griscom-Baker breakup to become one of those five-course New York divorce-a-thol1$years of turmoil marked by tabloid battles, a conga line of
lawyers and outlandish
com and Dr. Baker acted has some people
demands
for pet care
-
seems
to
have passed safely. Robert Stephan Cohen and and Thomas
P. Puccio, the opposing lawyers for Ms. Griscom and Dr
Baker, said last week that the couple reached an agreement
and signed papers recently. The divorce could be final in as
little as 30days, once the court receives the paperwork
Gere, Deml Moore and Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton
and Angelina
JoUe, Donna Hanover
-
the kind who
like to watch water churning and imagine sharks
- gnash-
ing their teeth andwondering,Just howis it that some highprofilecouplesprevent their divorcedu jour from becomingthe divorcedu decade? "Societyis stillprimarily based
Continuedon Page 6
Illustration by Daniel Pelavln; photographs by Mitchell Gerber/CorbIs (Howard and Alison Stern). Associated Press (Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel, Nicole KJdman and Tom Cruise, Tom Green and Drew Barrymore. Ronald O. Perelman
(Cindy Crawlord
. ;....
".i('
"
,
"Neither Nina nor Dan really had any animosity towards each other," Mr. Cohen said, adding that "I think
they both wanted to see this happen quickly" for the sake of
their daughter, who is in elementary school.
Painful, to be sure, but quick. Short if not sweet. And, it
should be noted, advantageous for all. The gossip will be
over before the daughter goes back to school. And as one
friend pointed o'ut,Dr. Baker will not have alienated any of
Ms. Griscom's set who may be among his clientele.
The swiftness and decisiveness with which Ms. Gris-
Not everyone can part peacefully, the way
Nina Griscom and Daniel Baker did.
'
and Reuters
\
and Patricia Dulf)
and Rudolph W. Giuliani)
J8.
.
. -"t
\. P
:$.
r
" ,. J'"
,I
~
~:,
f ,
'"
'.
"
'.
/
~_...
*
.
Why Few Big BreakupsMake the Grade
marriage's end. If either does not-want a
divorce,the other must showthat the unwilling partner 'was at fault through cruel and
inhuman treatment, abandonment, imprisonment or adultery. This assignment of
blame requires more time and dollars
Continued From Page 1
*
..on a code of etiquette," said Jill Brooke, the
:editor of Avenue Magazine. "And people
-!ippreciate when it's adhered to. The social
:arbiters do Jiot]ook favorably on a conten-tJous divorce. It's not genteel. It's ugly."
.
Matrimonial lawyers are in general
.agreement about how to handle the uncou'plings of the well-to-do, the scrutinized and
after every other option,
:the famous
mcluding counseling, has been exhausted.
-ItULE1 Think of divorce as a Band-Aid. The
:faster it comes off, the better. Preferably in
-l!rivate.
: . "You inflict pain by dragging it out, by
'le~ing to the tabloids and by being nasty,"
:said Mr. Cohen, who is a co-author of "Reconcilable Differences: Seven Essential Tips
to Remaining Together From a Top Matrimonial Lawyer" (Pocket Books, 2002). A
divorce that stretches on for years typically
becomes a public mud bath with very little
upside, he said.
Judith Regan, the Fox News talk-show
host and ReganBooks publisher, said her
'divorce from Robert Kleinschmidt, which
tbok six years, was particularly brutal.
"The secret to a good divorce is, Put away
.all the emotional stuff," she said. "You can't
'tie Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff. You
have to be a grown-up, and just eat it."
The 1993divorce of Michael R. Bloomberg
and Susan Brown Bloomberg is generally
considered the gold standard for high-pro'file couples. Mr. Bloomberg wrote in his
.memoirs that his 1976marriage to the Brit'ish-born Ms. Brown simply dissolved as
they developed different habits. Afterward,
.they remained so close that she worked on
his mayoral campaign last year. "It was so
quiet, most people don't even know he was
divorced," said Stanford G. Lotwin of Blank
.
.
-
-
-
than a divorce where there is no fault
RULE2 Don't trade in one spouse for the next
overnight, as if you were changing outfit~.
"It looks bad, and the settlement will
show it," Mr. Lotwin said. Pointing to the
divorce of Rudolph W. Giuliani and Donna
Hanover, he said, "F minus." Ms. Hanover
received $6.8 million in a settlement, a fi~ure that was based in part on his anticipated
earnings and was tax-free because it was
considered to be "equitable distribution"
a division of the couple's assets, rather than
alimony. (Alimony is subject to tax.)
The impending divorce of John F. Welch
Jr., the former General Electric chaIrman
and chief executive, began with an in-yoU!face affair that could ultimately help hl~
wife, Jane Beasley.Welch, and amplify the
settlement she receives, according to lawyers not involved in the case. "It started In
much too public a way," Mr. Cohen said.
"And for two solid weeks, all anybody wa~
talking about was that divorce."
-
Patrick McMullan
HAPPIERDAYS Nina Griscom and
Daniel Baker, pre-split, in 1998.
Dr.
Rome Tenzer Greenblatt, who represented
Donald Trump in his divorces from Ivana
Trur:np and Marla Maples.
.
Pamela Paul, the author of "The Starter
Marriage and the Future of Matrimony"
(Villard, 2002), said the Bloombergs' 1993
divorce could have spilled over into the kind
of public acrimony that would have haunted
the mayor-to-be. "But during the election,
no cineeven associated him with a'wife or a
divorce," she said.
Stretching out a divorce can be especially
imprudent in New York, where by law, one
partner must be assigned blame for the
Mr.
Welch's
prenuptial
agreement
-
which limited a financial settlement in caSf
ran out six months before he
of divorce
left her, so Mrs. Welch stands to receive half
of his considerable asset!:>.
On the other hand, acquiring a new significant other after the divorce can be an Imagr
enhancer. Richard Gere and Cindy Crawford, for example, both moved on to happIer
relationships, Mr. Gere with the actres~
Carey Lowell, and Ms. Crawford with Randf
Gerber; a nightclub entrepreneur who is
now her husband.
Ms. Paul gives the Crawford-Gere split-up
an A plus. "Their divorce was totally quiet,"
-
she said, "and then she managed to create
the perfect follow-up marriage with two
photogenic children."
RULE3 Seal the documents,
In extreme cases - where the couple are
very famous or very wealthy, or there is
press attention
-
lawyers can sometimes
persuade the judge to "superseal" the divorce papers. For example, when Christie
Brinkley and Billy Joel were divorced in
Don't wrestle for years in a
public mud bath, a lawyer says.
1994,only a handful of people had access to
the documents during the trial: the coupl~,
their legal teams and the judge.
Similar conditIons applied to Geraldo RIvera's dIvorce from Sherryl Rivera and to
that of Howard Stern from Alison Stern. Mr,
Lotwin, who was Mr. Stern's lawyer, said
the case was scarcely covered in the new~
media. (At one point, Mr. Stern was asked
about his divorce by a caller to his radio
program. He called it "the biggest failure of
my life" and said nothing publicly afte~
that.)
RULE4 Don't be petty or outrageou~.
When Mrs. Hanover demanded $1,140 a
month for the care of Goalie, the family
Labrador retriever, she was ridiculed.
SometImes, pettiness can descend into
eomestlc minutiae. At two fancy stationery
purveyors, Mrs. John L. Strong and Dempsey & Carroll, for example, it is not uncommon for dIvorcing couples to fight for custo.
dy of the costly engraving plates.
Signs that the marriage of Billy Bob
Thornton and Angelina Jolie was not founded on the bedrock of common sense were
plentiful. This was his fifth marriage, and
her second, but they maintained that they
would be together forever and said that they
wore vials of one another's blood around
their necks. Mr. Thornton also said he liked
to wear his wife's underwear.
But two years later it was over. "Sometimes you don't see things coming, even
though they are happening," Ms. Jolie told
Us magazine. "It was a real deep connection, a deep marriage. . . , "
"It was typical for Hollywood," said Manley Freid, a matrimonial lawyer in Los
Angeles. "Awful by the standards of the rest
not surprising here."
of the country
In line with those prevailing Hollywood
community standards, few people were surprised at the swift courtship, the sudden
marriage and the quick-as-a-blink divorce
of Tom Green and Drew Barrymore.
RULE5 Protect the children.
In the case of Griscom v. Baker, Mr.
Cohen said both parties wanted the divorce
to take place quickly for the sake of their
child, and it did. And the breakup of Tom
Cruise and Nicole Kidman, which started
out looking as if it might become the divorce
of the century, slowed to a simmer after the
couple reached agreement on the custody of
their two children.
"They worked out custody first thing,
instantly," Mr. Freid said
RULE6 One good divorce leads to another.
"In society divorces, it's a lot easier to be
genteel," Ms. Brooke of Avenue said, "be.
cause both sides usually have money." (Ms.
Griscom, for example, is the stepdaughter
of Felix G. Rohatyn).
And a good previous divorce can be an
indication that the next dIvorce will be scandal-free, too. "People who want to keep their
dirty linen in the closet know how to do it,"
said Mr. Cohen, the lawyel
-