Something looked different about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who looked tired even as he forced a smile and gripped the podium top with a hand on each side. It was more than the county seal on the front of the podium and the name imprinted above it: Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.
It took a moment and maybe it only became obvious if you were looking for the smallest of tale-tell signs.
His
left hand was missing the
distinct gold wedding band that
his wife Corina picked out for
him and which he has worn for
most of the past 19 years.
The date was Jan. 16, 2007, a
week before the mayor’s
birthday. He would commemorate
turning 54. But the nagging
question raised by the missing
wedding band was whether he and
Corina would celebrate their
20th anniversary later in the
year.
At
City Hall, Villaraigosa denied
the absence of his wedding ring
signalled any problems in his
marriage. His office said
Villaraigosa stopped wearing his
ring because he had recently
lost weight and had not had time
to have the ring resized.
But there are strong indications that the mayor's marriage is on the rocks -- and, in fact, that his wife has not lived at Getty House, the official mayoral home, in several weeks and possibly months. She has been regularly seen at the couple's Mount Washington home by neighbors.
"I think she's living there," said one neighbor who asked not to be identified. "I saw her at the supermarket and asked her why she's spending so much time at this home, and she said they're were remodeling it."
At least two city officials, one of them a prominent member of an important commission, said they do not believe Corina has lived at Getty House since last last year. One of them said he thought she might have never moved to the house.
"There is no sign of her or that she is living at Getty House or has ever lived there, beyond the wedding reception they had there for the mayor's daughter's wedding."
Historically, the coverage of
marital troubles in the
marriages of Los Angeles
politicians has made for queezy
stomachs among local mainstream
journalists.
The
2003 breakup of then Mayor James
K. Hahn, for instance, received
scant coverage and apparently
was first reported in a dot-dash
column of The Wave, a community
weekly in South Los Angeles
which had long been a Hahn
family stronghold.
“If
Los Angeles worked like New York
City, competitive pressures
already would have flushed out
any gossip involving the mayor,”
Jewish Journal senior editor
Howard Blume wrote at the time
in his publication.
“Why is it in Los Angeles that
the personal life of actor
Robert Blake looms more
newsworthy than the mayor’s? Is
it a reflection of Los Angeles’
civic culture that the mayor
barely seems to qualify as a
public figure?”
Although reporters at the Daily
News refused to pursue the
story, Ron Kaye, then the
managing editor and now editor
of the paper, wanted to report
the story and told Blume:
“If
you’re going to step on the
stage, you risk being totally
exposed or revealed. I think the
public should know fully the
story of who Hahn is. And what
his life is like and what
happened to it. I think we have
a right to know.
“Why do we talk about the
personal lives of presidential
candidates? It’s not because
it’s the most important thing.
We’re interested, and it becomes
a form of symbolic language.
When you step into the role of
mayor in the media and glamour
capital, you become part of the
conversation.”
Today, says media ethicist Kelly
McBride of The Poynter
Institute, the issue is one
“most editors in traditional
newsrooms would say (that) if
there is a legitimate public
interet in a public official’
marriage, we’ll cover it.
“Who’s living in governor’s
mansion, who’s accompanying him
to public functions? Are there
allegations of immoral behavior?
How will this affect his ability
to do his job?
“Who’s the first lady of the
city or of the state if he were
to run for governor? A
candidate’s spouse is often the
subject of scrutiny because
politicians run as a package. So
that would be of legitimate
public interest.”
If not wearing your wedding ban
that you’ve worn for years is an
indication of problems in a
relationship, the Villaraigosa
marriage hit the skids sometime
late last summer, a little after
a year after the mayor took
office.
A
review of photographs from
several image services indicates
that the mayor was last seen
wearing his wedding ban last
Sept. 5, at a major Los Angeles
campaign rally for Democratic
gubernatorial nominee Phil
Angelides.
Hundreds of photographs of the
mayor prior to that date showed
him wearing a wedding ban, and
photographs since that date show
him without one.
And
the last time the mayor and the
city’s First Lady were
photographed together was last
May 26, when they appeared with
then Mexican President Vicente
Fox and his wife Marta Sahagun
while they were in Los
Angeles.
In
the months afterward, at the
58th Annual Primetime Emmy
Awards Aug. 27 the mayor arrived
with 13-year-old daughter
Natalia and at the 75th annual
Hollywood Christmas Parade --
where the Villaraigosas rode
together in the grand marshal’s
car the previous year -- the
mayor appeared with only his
daughter and 17-year-old son
Antonio Jr.
It
was never a storybook marriage,
though the news media’s
retelling of how they combined
their respective last names into
a new one that would become
historic in Los Angeles politics
would give it a romantic
fairy-tale aspect all its own.
In
1987, Antonio Villar, then a
labor organizer, had proposed to
Corina Raigosa, a 30-year-old
Montebello school teacher, whom
he described in a 2005 interview
as the woman “I pursued
relentlessly because I knew she
was the woman I wanted to
marry.”
“I
was planning to take his name,”
Corina later recalled. “I was
planning to become Corina Villar.
(But) he said, ‘Really? You’re
going to take my name? But
Raigosa is your name.’”
Corina thought about it and
decided to keep her name, but
also add his name, connecting
them with a hyphen.
“I
figured he was right,” she said.
“This was my name. I had it for
30 years. This is who I am.”
Antonio mulled her decision for
several days, then came up with
another idea.
“I’ve been thinking about it,”
she recalled him telling her,
“and why don’t we combine our
names to make one name? If you
are willing to take my name, I
should be willing to take
yours.’”
In
feminist circles, especially,
the story became a political
plus.
But
by the time, Antonio emerged as
a household name in Los Angeles,
the story of his marital
infidelity leading to Corina
fililng for divorce had become
as well-known as the account of
how they had combined their last
names.
In
1994, on the weekend leading up
to Antonio’s first election to
public office, Corina
Villaraigosa learned of an
affair her husband was having
with the wife of a Latino judge,
who once had been Antonio’s
study partner for the bar exam
-- and who was helping raise
money for Villaraigosa’s
campaign.
Corina, who had been recovering
from cancer surgery and
treatment, filed for divorce
just one day after Antonio won a
hotly-contested election to the
state Assembly. For the next two
years, they lived apart before
Corina, faced with the prospect
of raising their two young
children, took her husband back.