Courtly
Love
People
Magazine (Sept 4, 2000)
As they munched their pizza one
evening last September, Pete Sampras and his
pals were bemoaning the lack of women in
their lives. So perhaps it wasn't too
surprising that the flick the L.A. bachelors
picked to catch that night was the black
comedy Love Stinks. But one look at the
film's stunning blonde star Bridgette Wilson
and Sampras's interest was piqued. "As
we were leaving the theater, Pete was joking
around that because of my job, I can just
make a phone call and get whatever I
want," recalls Sampras's close friend
John Black, director of public relations for
the L.A. Lakers (whose access to great seats
makes him a very popular guy). "He said
sarcastically, 'You've got to fix me up with
that girl. We'll see how powerful you really
are now.'"
Black's magic worked, and
subsequently so did Sampras's. Nine months
after the couple's first date..a meeting for
drinks that stretched into dinner--Lakers fan
Sampras decided to skip the opening game of
the NBA finals for a more pressing
engagement. After calling Wilson's parents to
ask for their blessing, he proposed at his
home. The next day the pair flew off to
England, where Sampras, 29, would defend his
Wimbledon title and, on June 20, announce his
personal love match. His friends weren't
surprised. "He was crazy about her right
from the beginning," says Black, who
reports that after only a few weeks of
dating, Sampras told him, "Not only is
she beautiful but she is so sweet, nice and
smart, and she's funny and she's fun to be
with." Adds Sampras's brother Gus, 32:
"He'd been checking out my wife's ring,
so I kind of got the idea he was getting
close."
The woman of Sampras's dreams
grew up in Gold Beach, a coast town of 2,200
in Oregon. The younger of two sisters,
Bridgette, now 26, was an athletic tomboy who
would fish and chop wood with her father, a
manager with the local power company. Even
while maintaining a 4.0 average in high
school, she played basketball and volleyball
and ran track--but was never interested in
tennis. She won the Miss Teen USA contest in
1990 and went to Hollywood the following
year.
Wilson got her
first showcase on the NBC soap Santa Barbara
in the early '90s--about the same time that
Sampras became the youngest player ever to
win a U.S. Open--and made her feature film
debut in 1993 as Arnold Schwarzenegger's
daughter in The Last Action Hero. But despite
a string of subsequent roles, in movies
including I Know What You Did Last Summer and
Billy Madison (as Adam Sandler's love
interest), Wilson's fondest aspirations
apparently remained closer to home. "I
know I want to have a family and be a
housewife," Wilson, whose mother is a
full-time homemaker, told a reporter in 1993.
"That's really the most important thing
with me."
Clearly that outlook struck a
chord with Sampras, whose last serious
romance was a two-year relationship with
actress Kimberly Williams. The
second-youngest of four children in a close
Greek-American family, Sampras, who grew up
in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, still
prefers a backyard barbecue at his Benedict
Canyon home to the party circuit. (Bridgette
continues to share a Brentwood condo with her
sister and good friend Tracy, 28, also an
actress.) "Him seeing how important her
family is to her really attracted him,"
says brother Gus. "I think Pete and
Bridgette clicked because they both enjoy
doing similar things--such as movies, dinners
and hanging out at the house," observes
Sampras's sister Stella, 31, women's tennis
coach at UCLA. "They are comfortable
with each other. They want to have a family,
and she has the qualities that will make her
a good wife and mother."
Although the couple have yet
to make wedding plans--"when the kids
tell us what they want, then we'll begin that
process," says Wilson's mother,
Kathy--Bridgette already looked very much at
home at Wimbledon as she cheered her fiancé
on to his record 13th Grand Slam singles
championship. "Obviously I'm very happy
and very excited with what's happened,"
said Sampras. "I'm ready for the next
chapter in my life to begin."
TIDBITS
From
Shav Glick LA Times column, August 27
Pete Sampras talks about his
fiancee, actress Bridgette Wilson, in the
September issue of In Style.
"One thing I love about
Bridgette is that she is very attractive, but
she doesn't walk around like she is,"
the tennis champion said. "You see
arrogance all the time, especially in L.A.,
and she's just very humble. I'm looking
forward to being home with the kids when
she's out working. We joke that I'll be
Mr. Mom."
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