Burt & Linda: A bizarre
love story passes the acid test

Robyn’s Hood
By Robyn McCloskey

There is a movie in theaters that I am dying to see. It’s called Crazy Love, and it’s a documentary that falls into the you-just-can’t-make-this-stuff-up category.
It’s the true story of Burt and Linda Pugach, your typical everyday couple who recently celebrated 34 years of marital bliss, sort of.
They began dating amid the New York social scene of the 1950s. They didn’t marry until quite a few years later, though. Seems they had some issues to work through. He was older and rich. She was younger and not so rich. He was a married lawyer. She was an unmarried receptionist. He had a special-needs daughter, which is ironic since Linda eventually became Burt’s special-needs wife.
That’s how it was when Linda was disfigured and blinded by lye thrown in her face, the nasty work of a couple of thugs who happened to have been hired by dear Burt to commit this heinous act, a rather extreme way of saying, "If I can’t have her, no one can."
Apparently Burt was none too happy when his little Linda broke off their relationship and eventually became engaged to another guy. Hence the thugs, hence the lye, hence the disfigurement.
But unlike O.J., Burt did not get away with his crime, which leads me to wonder if things would have gone his way if he were a rich and revered football star instead of just a rich lawyer. Burt was sentenced to 30 years in prison but was released after just 14 because of his good behavior.
At some point Burt’s wife divorced him, and I can’t say I blame her. Burt stayed in contact with his beloved Linda while in prison, and, upon his release, publicly proposed to her during a television interview since the terms of his parole stated that he could not be within 15 feet of her. Linda accepted, and the rest, as they say, is dysfunctional history.
I know I shouldn’t be so intrigued by their story, but I can’t help it. It’s like driving past a car accident and you know you shouldn’t look, but you do. Or when the expiration date on the milk carton has long passed and yet you smell it anyway, just to make sure.
That’s how I feel about Burt and Linda. So when they made some recent talk-show appearances to plug their movie, I couldn’t help myself and watched as Matt Lauer lobbed some softball questions to the two lovebirds.
Personally I think Jay Leno would have done a better job. He could have started with the same question he asked Hugh Grant after the actor and a prostitute were caught in a car in Hollywood 12 years ago: "What the hell were you thinking?"
Linda swears, and I quote, "If it weren’t for Burt here, I’d be dead."
Linda, sweetheart, if it weren’t for Burt there, you’d be able to see.
Apparently love is not just blind. It’s deaf and dumb . . . and getting dumber. And it never ends.
Surely you haven’t forgotten the bizarre saga of Lisa Nowak, the shuttle astronaut jettisoned by NASA and now awaiting trial on allegations that she tried to pepper spray and kidnap a rival for the affections of astronaut William Oefelein. Lisa has been the butt of many jokes ever since it was reported that she wore diapers to minimize potty breaks during her 900-mile drive. Actually, it sounds like good time management to me.
So as we’re gliding to the end of Burt and Linda’s salacious story, we’re getting revved for the start of Lisa and William’s. If Lisa ultimately ends up doing some jail time, though, it’s not the end of the world.
She should just take a page out of Burt’s book and continue her pursuit of Billy — get out of jail, write that tell-all book, sell the movie rights and chat it up on talk shows, where Lisa too can publicly propose to William, since she’ll no doubt be hindered by the kind of restraining order that made things so tricky for Burt.
So who knows what the future holds for these two crazy space kids?
Stranger things have happened. Part of the thrill is being there to watch. ••
Robyn McCloskey’s column appears each week in the Northeast Times. She can be reached at crmccloskey@verizon.net