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    Waiting for my invite

    Prince Harry's upcoming nuptials will have nothing on this celebrity wedding

    Ken Hoffman
    Feb 13, 2018 | 9:49 am

    The big wedding of 2018 — unless Larry King goes for No. 9 — will be Prince Harry and Meghan Markle swapping vows at Windsor Castle in May. They're expecting about 800 guests, only "friends and family." The plan is, no celebrities.

    I've got to figure a way in.

    Still, Harry and Meghan may as well be a shotgun wedding at a drive-through chapel in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, compared to the over-the-top nuptials of Robert Goulet and his business manager Vera Chochorovska Novak, back in the '80s. It was a spectacular event, with glitz, glamour, megastar power — and me — that stopped Las Vegas in its tracks.

    At the time, I was just making a little headway in my newspaper career, my long hard climb to the middle. But when I heard that Wayne Newton would be the best man, veteran actor Glenn Ford was giving the bride away, and Lola Falana was going to sing "If Ever I Should Leave You" — I had to be there. I got Goulet's agent on the phone. Looking back, it's possible that I overstated my position as a "society columnist" (I was covering comedy clubs at the time) and begged an invitation to the wedding reception.

    Hurry, got to get a (cheap) suit. And, a present for the happy couple...

    Greatest. Celeb wedding gift. Ever.
    I went to Walgreen's and bought a two-slice toaster.

    My color choices were Harvest Gold and Avocado, the hot kitchen motifs of the day — at least in pharmacies. I went with Harvest Gold. I stuffed the receipt in the box in case they wanted to exchange it for Avocado. The bonus of buying a wedding gift at Walgreen's, you can buy a card two aisles over. I made a reservation for a cheap hotel, $19 or something a night, in downtown Vegas.

    The wedding ceremony was held at the Little Church of the West in Las Vegas. Mickey Rooney got married there, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Redd Foxx, too. The church should have a sign, "Your fifth one's on us!"

    With crowds cheering on the sidewalk, the newly minted Goulets rode a horse and buggy down the Vegas Strip to their reception at the Dunes Hotel and Casion, where Goulet was headlining the main room. The opening act was ventriloquist Willie Tyler and Lester. According the famous Dunes sign, the buffet was $2.95, and you could get a "NY Steak Dinner" with potato and salad for $3.25.

    See if you can spot Ken at the Goulet wedding:


    The Dunes Hotel, where Sin City legends like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Liberace, and Phyllis Diller once sparkled, was imploded in 1993. The Bellagio now stands in its place. You know what the headline act at the Bellagio is now? It's one of the 200 Cirque du Soliel shows (hard to tell them apart) currently playing the strip. The dinner buffet is $42.99. There is no "4 for $4" value menu at the Bellagio.

    "And you are...?"
    I put the toaster on a table outside the reception hall and walked in to find my table, you know, like I wasn't an impostor. The place was packed. Vegas columnists and TV reporters put the attendance at 1,400 guests. Some of the comments were snarky. One columnist noted that "some of the guests could even pronounce the bride's middle name." Very disrespectful.

    Really, 1,400 guests? I think these columnists now work as parade crowd estimators for the City of Houston.

    (Time out for an off-topic compliment: Saturday night I was watching Channel 13's coverage of the Mardi Gras parade in Galveston, and anchor Tom Koch admitted that the crowd was "sparse, probably due to the weather." It was the first time I've heard a Houston TV personality give an honest assessment of a parade crowd.)

    The Goulets' wedding reception was star-studded, with Wayne Newton, Norm Crosby, Richard Dawson, and many others. I think I saw Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, but it was hard to tell from Siberia. My table was near the kitchen, sitting with low-level Dunes executives. A couple of them asked me, "And you are ...?"

    After dinner (I had the beef), Goulet took the center of the dance floor and sang "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" to his bride. It was very sweet. And they did stay married until Goulet's death in 2007.

    The reception ended early. Many of the guests had tickets for shows, others had shows to perform. I grabbed a few desserts and scooted for the exit. I had a early plane in the morning.

    ---

    CultureMap does not officially endorse drugstore toasters as wedding gifts.

    Prince Harry will marry Meghan Markle in May.

    Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
      
    Getty images
    Prince Harry will marry Meghan Markle in May.
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    game, set, zina.

    Best of Ken Hoffman: Interviewing Houston's greatest tennis icon

    Ken Hoffman
    Aug 29, 2024 | 12:30 pm
    Zina Garrison, tennis player
    ITATennis
    Garrison, a tennis legend, is now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation.

    Editor's note: After the sudden death of beloved columnist Ken Hoffman on July 14, CultureMap is republishing some of our favorite "Hoffman's Houston" columns. In honor of the U.S. Open, here's Ken's interview with Houston tennis legend Zina Garrison; it was originally published on June 27, 2022.

    As a child, Zina Garrison learned how to hit a tennis ball on the public courts at MacGregor Park during the 1970s and became, simply, the most accomplished player ever from Houston.

    She developed into a Grand Slam champion, a Top 5 ranking in the world, Wimbledon finalist in 1990 with 20 tournament titles, Federation Cup captain, and Olympic gold medal winner and later Olympic coach.

    Now Garrison is back where she started, only this time she’s devoted to making Houston a great place to learn and play tennis … again. Like she did.

    “I am now the tennis director of Houston Parks and Recreation,” Garrison tells me. “I’m over all the public tennis programs and facilities. The job came open recently and I applied for it.”

    Wait... she’s the greatest champion this city has ever produced — and she had to apply for that job?

    “To be honest, I was more interested in the benefits than the money. As you get older, you start thinking differently,” she shares.

    Unlike the major sports leagues in America, tennis doesn’t provide any healthcare insurance or assistance once a player, even a legend, retires.

    “They’re working on it,” Garrison, 58, notes. “But as of now, nothing.”

    Garrison said her first priority as Houston’s tennis director is to repair the public courts.

    “I want to bring the public tennis facilities up to where I’d be proud, where everybody would be proud, to bring people to use our courts. There are cracks in the courts. Nothing’s really been done in the last 20 or maybe 30 years,” she says.

    “I’ve traveled to Florida and some other places and they have really nice public courts. Tennis in Houston was really thriving for a while and we had nice courts and people could play in the parks. We had junior programs. We flourished. That’s my main goal.”

    While I had Garrison on the phone, I served up some questions:

    CultureMap: Wimbledon is on. You’re familiar with that tournament, right? Who are your picks to win the men’s side and women’s side?

    Zina Garrison: Yes, I’m familiar with Wimbledon. I have my alarm set for the early morning so I can watch. I have a weird pick, a more personal pick, for the men.

    I would love to see Rafael Nadal keep going on, but it’s going to be tough for him. The guy from Italy, Matteo Berrettini, I watched him play a couple of weeks ago and I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people. And I am absolutely in love with that little guy, Carlos Alcaraz, from Spain. He’s made me watch tennis again.

    On the women’s side, I don’t think it will be Iga Swiatek. I think it’s just too hard to keep a streak like hers (35 matches in a row including the French Open title) going in today’s game. It’s really wide open. I don’t really have a pick, it’s just who comes in and plays well at the right time.

    CM: What do you think about Natela Dzalamidze, the doubles player from Russian who switched her nationality to Georgia so she could play Wimbledon, which has banned players from Russian and Belarus this year?

    ZG: I don’t like that she was able to do that. I was just on the phone with (former pro turned broadcaster) Chanda Rubin talking about what’s going on in tennis these days.

    First of all, there is the human rights stuff that’s going on in Russia and Ukraine. We have to start forcing accountability for actions. A lot of people didn’t agree with what Wimbledon did, but I think they had to take a stand.

    CM: The women’s GOAT is easy — it’s Serena. But who do you think is the men’s GOAT?

    ZG: Wow, that’s a hard one. If you had asked me earlier this year, I would have said Roger Federer because of everything he’s accomplished. But right now I’m going to have to go with Nadal. Nadal has taken tennis to a whole ‘nother level, of getting people to watch, coming out of the pandemic, where he has matches and you think he can’t come back and he’s still grinding no matter what.

    For me, he is the epitome of what we need in this world right now: Never give up but not be selfish about helping others. I know it sounds clichéd, but that’s what I’m going through right now.

    CM: When I first met you, you were painfully shy. It was hard to get an answer out of you. Now you’re a TV commentator and a regular chatterbox. What happened?

    ZG: I was an introvert but I had always been intrigued by people of wisdom. A lot of it came as I developed confidence in myself. I had always been told at a very young age, if you really knew me, I spoke a lot. If you didn’t know me, I would be quiet. I would only speak about things that I was extremely passionate about.

    As I’ve gotten older, because of my experiences. I feel like I can help people so I’m not afraid to say what I want to say.

    CM: Starting the week after Wimbledon, coaches will be allowed to communicate with men players during matches. Up to now, that’s only been allowed in the women’s game. Every other sport allows coaching. Do you think tennis should allow coaching, too?

    ZG: I don’t think coaching should be allowed. That’s one of the great things about tennis. That’s a part of the sport, that you grow and figure things out. You learn to think for yourself.

    There’s always been little signals from coaches, but now you have these full blown conversations. Another bad thing about allowing coaching is it gives the players the opportunity to blame a loss their coach. That’s not good for the sport.

    CM: You were known for wiggling your butt when receiving serve. Did you know you were doing it? Did you do that on purpose?

    ZG: It started off as kind of a joke with my coaches. They said, we need you to move your feet. I said, you mean like this?

    So, it started as a joke but I realized that it helped get my feet moving: Okay, I’m going to keep doing this.

    I’ll never forget that year after I got to the Wimbledon finals, 1990, I went over to Japan and there were 1,200 people there … and all of them started wiggling!

    CM: What was the first extravagant thing you bought for yourself when the tennis prize money started rolling in?

    ZG: It was 1982, and I bought a candy apple red Volkswagen convertible with a white top.

    CM: You were on the Biggest Loser, the show where contestants compete against each other to lose weight. Let’s just say you didn’t win. Are you happy you went on that show, or do you regret it?

    ZG: I was one of the first who had to leave the competition. (No, you were THE first.) It was an experience, but I probably shouldn’t have done it. I think I regret going on there. It wasn’t what I thought it was.

    It was reality TV and at the time I didn’t know what reality TV was .I was more ready to get out of there than anything else.

    CM: Now here’s the big question, Zina. For years, I’ve had a running disagreement with ESPN 97.5 FM morning host John Granato about which is a more demanding, tougher sport – golf or tennis?

    Granato says it’s golf, because the tournament winner has to beat every other player that week, while in tennis the winner just has to beat seven players at most. And, each week, golfers have to contend with a different course.

    But, I say it’s tennis because players have to be in top physical condition, while nearly anyone in any shape can win a golf major.

    Plus, in golf, players have a caddy helping them make decisions. In tennis, players are on their own.

    In golf, you can have a bad day on Thursday and still win the tournament. In tennis, if you have a bad day in the opening round, you’re on a plane out of there.

    In golf, it’s the player against the course. There’s no defense in golf. In tennis, there’s a human opponent trying to beat you.

    In golf, the ball is lying still. In tennis the ball is coming at you at 140 mph.

    So which is the tougher sport, golf or tennis? I’m right ... right?

    ZG: Are you serious? Who is this guy who says golf is harder? The answer is tennis and it’s not even close.

    You’re playing against someone. You’re only controlling the ball when it’s on your side of the net. You can’t control what the other player is doing. It’s almost like a boxer coming at you.

    You have to have both the physical and mental capacity to win. In golf, if you have a bad day, it’s because you’re having that bad day. There’s no opponent competing with you. So, I’m saying it’s tennis.

    CM (note to John Granato): I win. Granted, it might have been the way I asked the question. Also, Garrison is a former tennis pro.

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