Pete and chicks

[gern blanston <gernblanston67@hotmail.com>]

Here's little news item I just found on a Fox news site. So what's the 
status of Pete's marriage?

Mook



The Agony and Ecstacy
Of Loving a Celebrity
12.53 p.m. ET (1653 GMT) June 3, 1999 By Hallie Levine
NEW YORK — "I never felt like I'd been swept off my feet," recalls Lisa 
Marsh, 32, a Manhattan-based public relations executive who had an affair 
with Pete Townshend of The Who for four years. (They broke up in 1997 and 
Townshend remained married to Karen Astley throughout).
Sparks first flew between the couple in March 1993 at a post-party for 
Townshend's Broadway musical, Tommy. Even though Marsh had a boyfriend 
visibly in tow, Townshend, there without his wife, gazed at Marsh across a 
crowded room.

At the time she was a magazine fashion editor and was used to this sort of 
attention at celebrity-filled parties.

"At first glance, I thought he was good-looking, but that's not what drew me 
to him," she says. "I was attracted to the [obvious] way he was attracted to 
me. Finally I said, totally joking, to my boyfriend, I'm going to go up and 
kiss him. I'll be right back."

The fact that Townshend was 20 years older than her didn't worry her in the 
slightest. She and Townshend started talking about a book project on which 
he was working. Marsh, who was also working on her novel-in-progress, was 
entranced.

"We stayed out so late talking, we closed down Lucky Strikes at 4 a.m.," she 
recalls. "I kept thinking, 'I haven't had such a cerebral conversation in 
years.'"

Casual Beginnings

They became friends and went out only as part of a larger group of people. 
But when Marsh broke up with her boyfriend a few months later — "It died 
naturally," she says — she began dating Townshend. Throughout their time 
together he told her he was living in a different building from his wife. 
Now, she says, as far as she is aware, they live in different towns.

In one sense, Marsh says, she and Townshend had a perfectly normal 
relationship. "Since he [Townshend] was doing a solo tour in the United 
States, he was in New York for at least 10 days out of the month. People 
were never congregated outside doors waiting for him. We'd sit in 
restaurants by ourselves having dinner or walk up Sixth avenue, and no one 
would approach us."

He never once, she says, made her feel in any way inferior thanks to her 
non-celebrity status. "If anything, he made me feel like the celebrity, the 
special one in the relationship."

But she couldn't help feeling ill at ease whenever Townshend was on tour. 
"The first time I ever left a concert with him at Beacon Theater, we walked 
outside to find a total mash of people screaming and pushing all the way 
down to Lincoln Square," she recalls. "We were literally surrounded by 
security guards. It was surreal for me."

Although Marsh occasionally took a long weekend to tour with Townshend, her 
work schedule usually forced her to stay in New York. But she never 
questioned his fidelity — "I knew there were always going to be women 
throwing themselves at him, but we had a strong level of trust in our 
relationship."

Marsh declined to discuss her sex life with the rock star, saying, "I wasn't 
just some girl in New York for him — we really came from the same place 
emotionally. If we hadn't, our relationship never would have lasted as long 
as it did."

No Lazy Love in the Afternoon

Still, it was never what you'd call a "normal" relationship.

She says: "We were hardly ever in a situation where we would do normal 
things together, like lie around on a Sunday afternoon doing laundry or cook 
dinner together in my apartment.

"Everything we did was glam and fab — sipping champagne in his hotel suite, 
attending parties until 4 a.m., attending a Broadway show's opening night. 
We'd go to bed at 3 a.m., and I'd get up at 8 a.m. and leave his hotel room 
to head into my office. After a while you long for the comfort of everyday 
ordinariness."

It Ended, and She Was OK With It

Eventually they split — amicably. Marsh attributes the end of the 
relationship to the age difference and the fact that Townshend's ultimate 
roots were in London.

But she has few regrets. "My experiences with him exposed me to a world I 
might not have seen otherwise," she explains.

"After we broke up I went to work in public relations and started doing big 
promotions dealing with celebs. My experiences with him gave me a very good 
foundation to build on — I understood the psychology of celebs a lot more 
than if I'd just been Lisa Marsh, fashion editor."



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