GMA: NYC Mayor's Divorce Drama

N E W   Y O R K,   May 18, 2001 -- The cast of characters in New York's operatic saga is long and complex.

It includes an ailing mayor with an extramarital appetite and an infamous temper; the spurned wife with Hollywood ambitions; the girlfriend with no fear of the spotlight; and, finally, the celebrity divorce lawyer with a habit of saying nasty things about his client's wife.

"Apparently, they're going to have to pull her kicking and screaming from Gracie Mansion," says New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attorney, Raoul Felder, referring to his client's estranged wife. "But somebody somewhere has to say to her: 'Get a life.'"

It wasn't always this way. When Giuliani was first elected mayor, his marriage to Donna Hanover seemed to be on solid ground: He was the straight-talking former prosecutor; she was the comely former news anchor.

A Very Public Affair

But then came rumors that the mayor was having an affair with his communications director, Cristyne Lategano. He denied them.

When Giuliani ran for re-election in 1997, Hanover refused to say for whom she would vote.

And then last spring, Giuliani announced in quick succession that:

A: He had prostate cancer;

B: He was separating from his wife;

and

C: He was opting out of the Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The problem with (B) was, he hadn't told his wife before he told the media.

Soon they were holding dueling press conferences.

"Today's turn of events brings me great sadness," Hanover told reporters after learning of the separation from the media. "I had hoped to keep this marriage together."

A Very Good Friend, Indeed

At around the same time, Giuliani also started cavorting about the city with his "very good friend" Judith Nathan, a wealthy divorcee.

She accompanied him to public events. She got police protection. Tabloids reported that he slept at her apartment.

In October, Giuliani filed for divorce.

The court case — somewhat curiously titled Anonymous vs. Anonymous — remained anonymous for roughly a nanosecond.

And last week, Hanover asked a judge to bar Nathan from coming to the mayoral residence, Gracie Mansion, where Hanover and the two children still live. Her lawyers call it (with a straight face), the "Paramour Access Motion."

"Rudy came back and said, 'This is ridiculous,'" says Andrea Peyser, a New York Post reporter. "'She's never been to the bedroom, she's never been to the living room, she's been to the reception rooms with hundreds of other people, and you have no right to tell me to do that.'"

A ‘Stuck Pig’ and Impotency Reports

His attorney went ballistic: "Her agenda is to embarrass the mayor, to embarrass his friend, to make life difficult, to denegrate the mayor of the city of New York and to help her career," Felder said of Hanover. "Everything else falls somewhere below."

Hanover's attorney fired back. "This is a man who has been flaunting his mistress," said Helene Brezinsky. "Look at that if you want to know who wants publicity."

Felder responded with a Mothers' Day salvo, saying Hanover is "howling like a stuck pig."

In a move apparently designed to garner sympathy for the mayor, his side leaked accusations that Hanover was indifferent to his cancer, making him sleep in a guest room, where he often spent nights vomiting from his chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

In defense of His Honor's honor, the mayor's camp also revealed that the medications have left Giuliani impotent.

"Let me see if I can get this straight. The mayor wants us to feel sorry for him not only because he can't have sex, but because he can't have extramarital sex in the house he still lives in with his wife and kid?" asked Linda Stasi of the New York Post.

Even the Press Is Impressed

The New York press corps is positively giddy — which is rare in their been-there, done-that ranks.

"I've never seen anything like this!" said Stasi. "I get down on my hands and knees every day and I thank God that I'm a journalist and working at a tabloid."

Local tabloids are having a field day with headlines like "Cruella de Hanover," "Don't Dis Donna" and "Get Her Out of My House!"

And just when it looked like the melodrama is about to wane, People magazine put the love triangle on its cover, prompting the mayor to come to his girlfriend's defense.

"I feel very bad because my relationship with Judith Nathan is an adult one," says Giuliani. "It's a mature one. It's one that's gone on for two years and I hope it's going to go on forever."

The mayor has now muzzled his lawyer. But as Anonymous vs. Anonymous degenerates from a private fight into a public farce, the softening of tone may be too late to erase what many say is irreparable damage to his legacy.