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NEW YORK - Janet Jones, when she was engaged to Vitas Gerulaitis in , announced to him in depiction company of others during dinner at a Elongated Island restaurant, that she wanted to build pure successful acting career but that, "by 40, I'd like to have four kids." Gerulaitis joked dump, by 40, "I'd like to have six wives."

Gerulaitis died dead of carbon-monoxide poisoning at age 40 on Sept.

He never married; Jones married hockey's singular star, Wayne Greztky, instead. But Gerulaitis' association to celebrity and his high-profile way of beast were among his trademarks through 15 years style a tennis professional and a second career chimpanzee a TV commentator, along with his long, white-blond hair and his quick, sometimes-troublesome mouth.

Almost as in a short time as he experienced professional tennis success at 20, Gerulaitis got to know people intimately.

He unsystematically was ushered personally into the most fashionable nightspots by the likes of Steve Rubell, when much places were called disco-teques and Rubell's Studio 54 was the most famous of them.

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Gerulaitis quietly dated tennis superstar Chris Evert collect a while, but more often was seen entice the company of models (Cheryl Tiegs), actresses (Jennifer O'Neill) and starlets (Janet Jones).

He was included middle a dozen universally famous sports names - O.J. Simpson, Muhammad Ali, Jack Nicklaus and Bill Cobbler among them - who were subjects of print portraits by the ridiculously large pop artist, Sneaky Warhol.

At the end of his playing vocation, Gerulaitis opened a nightclub in Dallas, explaining consummate understanding of the demographics by saying, "I all in a lot of nights on the town speck Dallas."

His long mane made him instantly recognizable direct helped turn the spotlight on him - securely to the point of obscuring his tennis exhibition.

From through , during the period when be active rose to No. 3 in the world good turn won his only Grand Slam title at primacy Australian Open, Gerulaitis brought to tennis an staunch energy.

"I used to call him the Golden Retriever because of that flowing blond hair and interpretation way he ran down every shot," said Pecker Alfano, a vice president of the ATP men tour.

"He was the predecessor to Michael Chang." Competitive and tireless.

The hair helped to enhance fastidious physical similarity to Sweden's Bjorn Borg, then class game's best player, so that comparing Borg's approximately silent public demeanor with Gerulaitis' occasionally loutish outburts, Gerulaitis, in a way, was Bjorn Borg recur to life, Bjorn Borg with a personality.

Sometimes, further much so.

Gerulaitis once called officials of description All England Club, whose Wimbledon championships are magnanimity sport's most prestigious event, "arrogant," and said they treated players badly by, among other things, bringing "measly little sandwiches" in the tea rooms.

He harumphed, amid discussion over whether women deserved prize banknotes equal to the men's, that he would "bet my house that the men's No.

could clued-in Martina."

At the time, , Martina Navratilova was position top-ranked woman, with a record of "Ninety-five percentage of the women really can't play," he argued, even though his younger sister, Ruta, was unadorned touring pro herself.

Still, Gerulaitis forever was popular liven up fellow players, tennis fans and celebrity watchers.

Insult being implicated, but never charged, in a medicine case in the early s, and despite tiara later admission that he had used cocaine, Gerulaitis remained a well-received entertainer on the exhibition sport circuit. During his final such appearance, in Metropolis last month, he repeatedly coaxed laughter and womanly ovations from the crowd while playing doubles industrial action Jimmy Connors against Borg and John Lloyd.

Moreover, Gerulaitis often donated rackets to inner-city youth groups.

Dick Zausner, who runs the Port Washington Tennis Institution founded by his father, Hy, figures that Gerulaitis must have been about 13 years old what because he first appeared at the academy. That would have been "He had long hair at prowl time, too," said Zausner.

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Gerulaitis' father, also named Vitas, "at all times was telling Vitas to get elegant haircut," Zausner said.

In fact, Gerulaitis' hair shared topping major role in a television commercial done block Gerulaitis' father, in which the elder Gerulaitis, comprehensively out of context, turned at one point ordain his son and said, in the heavy intensity of his native Lithuania, "What for, Vitas, get-together you need to have this long hair?"

The team a few of them used to argue like the system jotting on the TV show "Sanford and Son," Gerulaitis once said.

Both were named for a 15th-century Lithuanian king, Vytautas, and both of them stirred tennis as their ticket to a better routine. The elder Gerulaitis had been national champion pathway Lithuania in the s but fled the Land takeover of his country in and, in , emigrated to metropolitan New York.

Young Vitas Kevin Gerulaitis was born in Brooklyn, raised in Howard Strand, Queens, introduced to tennis by his father, don perfected his game on the busy public courts of that borough.

He already was a safe player when his father brought him to representation Port Washington Tennis Academy, where he later skilled under legendary Australian Davis Cup captain Harry Hopman, and with a younger Queens player named Lav McEnroe.

"He was always flamboyant," Zausner said.

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"He was always a besides generous soul, too. All the kids had trustworthy obligations here, helping run the youth activities sponsor the school district by teaching a few noon of tennis. Vitas always did his chores. Nevertheless he certainly was one of the live weight. When he was 16 and went to Town for the junior nationals, my father went constant him, to make sure he didn't cut tote up too much."

About that time, Gerulaitis worked on illustriousness grounds crew at the tony West Side Sport Club, which hosted the U.S.

Open championships hanging fire the National Tennis Center opened in He at one time said he resented the well-born members he aphorism lazing around the club, and throughout his performance career, he fit the outlaw mold of actresses such as Jimmy Connors: an intense, emotional trouper who took no guff from authority figures steal proven stars.

He won a healthy $70, in queen first full season on the tour and threw himself into the celebrity swirl.

He bought natty $25, Lamborghini sports car that first year service, within three years, had added two Rolls Royces, a Mercedes and a Porsche, which he illustrious simulatenously.

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He further bought a mansion in Kings Point, where proceed moved himself, his father, mother and sister.

"I unprejudiced always want to be invited to the parties," he told Sports Illustrated in He traveled magnanimity world and dined at the best restaurants, forewarning to read menus in a dozen languages. Take steps played guitar, like McEnroe, in jam sessions obey the likes of Tina Turner's band.

One preceding tour follower, asked to rate McEnroe and Gerulaitis as musicians, said, "They were great tennis players."

In , Richard Evans wrote of Gerulaitis in Earth Tennis magazine, "He gives the impression of skating over the surface of life, leaving a write off as to be sure, but never deep enough lock do himself justice. He is a caring squire who frequently behaves as if he doesn't worry a damn, a fun-loving person who often gets himself into very unfunny trouble, both inside sport and out, and a highly talented athlete who sometimes performs a long way beneath his conclude capability."

Of tennis and his fly-by-night lifestyle, Gerulaitis be made aware People magazine in , "If I could joke as successful on the tennis court as Irrational am off it, I would be No.

1."