Friday, May 2, 2003

FOREVER LOVELY: I'm tired of reporting on wrestling-related deaths. Too many, too often.

Elizabeth A. Hulette, known to wrestling fans nationwide as The Lovely Elizabeth, valet to then-husband Randy "Macho Man" Savage, died this morning at the age of 44. Cobb County (Ga.) police have not yet determined whether it was a suicide, death from natural causes, or a drug or alcohol overdose. They have apparently ruled out foul play, however.

Police received a call for assistance early Thursday morning from the residence Hulette shared with former wrestler Lex Luger (Lawrence Pfohl), who was arrested later in the day for a controlled substance found in the home. Draw your own early conclusions.

Full details, to the extent that they're know, are here.

Elizabeth was a wrestling valet during an era in which women in sports entertainment were not asked to pose nude for Playboy, not asked to risk their bodies wrestling, not asked to degrade themselves in pools of mud. What she did was act, and act well: her on-screen love-hate-love relationship with Savage made for the most compelling drama of the WWF's 1980's boom, and her live "wedding" to Savage was the kind of stuff Vincent K. McMahon did best -- over-the-top campy melodrama. Elizabeth did it all with class and dignity, not words one often hears in the world of sports entertainment.

You don't hear every-other month about former baseball players dying. Or football, or hockey, or even boxing. Why can't wrestling organizations prepare their employees for a life after the sport?

No comments:

Post a Comment