A life marked by crisis controversy, contradiction

Press, 14 September 1988, Page 19

A life marked by crisis controversy, contradiction

With just days to go before the start of the twenty-fourth Olympic Games in Seoul, Television One is screening a mini-series designed to whip up Olympic fever. “King of the Olympics,” beginning tonight at 8.30, is the story of Avery Brundage, the visionary

leader of the Olympic movement for more than 50 years, whose life and career were embroiled in crisis and controversy. He was branded a fascist, scorned by Stalin, and thrown out of the White House by Franklin Roosevelt. An Olympic athlete

whose pentathlon career ended with World War 1, Brundage vowed that neither commercial opportunists nor warmongering . politicians would ever stand in the way of the Olympics again. Brundage’s unyielding, Victorian public virtues contradicted his private life. A man of enormous wealth, prestige and sensuality, Brundage was married twice (to a Chicago socialite and a German princess), carried on impassioned affairs, and fathered two illegitimate sons, who were kept hidden from the outside world until the day he died. “King of the Olympics,” part two of which screens on Friday at 8.30 p.m., will uncover the hidden mysteries behind this powerful man arid reveal the public and private life of Avery Brundage — a story that has never before been told. David Selby, known to New Zealand viewers as Richard Channing in “Falcon Crest,” has the lead role of Avery Brundage.