People Magazine, July 18, 1988 - Summertime, and the Loving Is Anything but Easy for Lionel, Melvin and Stephanie

• July 18, 1988 Vol. 30  No. 3

Summertime, and the Loving Is Anything but Easy for Lionel, Melvin and Stephanie

By Michael Neill, Angela Blessing, Tina Johnson, Dianna Waggoner, Maria Wilhelm, Cathy Nolan

 Maybe adults get bored in the summer and should go away to camp. Maybe it's piña colada poisoning. Or sunscreen abuse. Whatever the cause, this has been a season of marital restlessness for some well-known celebrity couples. The three-year union of Bruce Springsteen and Julianne Phillips has unraveled, and the Debra Winger-Timothy Hutton marriage is on the rocks. Come Labor Day, there are certain to be some sheepish responses to that old question, How did you spend your summer vacation? The answer may be depressing, liberating or both for the following duos: Singer Lionel Richie, 38, and his wife, Brenda, 35, who were involved in a violent domestic dispute that shattered the nighttime calm of a Beverly Hills neighborhood; Princess Stephanie, Grace Kelly's 23-year-old rebellious daughter, who ended a tempestuous 20-month affair with French-born gadabout Mario Oliver (né Jutard), 36; and San Francisco super-lawyer Melvin Belli, 80, who filed to divorce wife Lia, 39, and claimed that she has had numerous affairs during their 16-year marriage. (She denies the charges and complains that after a recent shooting attempt on her life in their home, Belli, who was away at the time, was more concerned about the fate of his four dogs than with his wife's safety.)

And Labor Day is still seven long weeks away.

Velvet-voiced Lionel Richie didn't have to ask, "Hello, is it me you're looking for?" when his wife, Brenda, suddenly materialized shortly after 2 a.m. on June 29 in the Beverly Hills apartment of Diane Alexander, a friend of the couple's. According to police, Brenda found her husband with Alexander and promptly drop-kicked him sharply in what everyone is delicately referring to as the "stomach area." MORE

 On Montagu:

"When Belli got back to San Francisco on July 2, he was armed with his own ideas about who had taken a shot at his wife. Belli's prime suspect is Alexander Montagu, Viscount Mandeville, the Australian-born son of the 12th Duke of Manchester. (Montagu later provided police with an acceptable alibi.) Lia did call the cops about the viscount back in April, after he pulled a knife on her at Michael Jackson's L.A. estate. But she says now that she "overreacted," and both she and Montagu, 25, deny they are lovers.

According to Alex, Lia took him under her wing when he was 7 or 8 years old. "I love her like a mother," he says. "There's no sex involved at all. That would be like what the Australians call grab-a-granny."

Lia vigorously denies any sexual involvement with Montagu and, in a written statement to police, claimed that her husband's charges of extramarital affairs—including liaisons with South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Zsa Zsa Gabor and the Bellis' gay housekeeper—were wild and unfounded. "In 16 years of marriage," Lia declares, "I have not had an affair with a man, a woman or a goat." Belli, for his part, bleats that he never accused her of involvement with Zsa Zsa or Tutu".