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Catching Up With . . .
Rod Gilbert, New York Rangers right wing
January 30, 1967
Posted: Tue April 14, 1998
In
the three decades since his appearance on
SI's cover, right wing Rod Gilbert has become the New York
Rangers' alltime leading scorer (406 goals from 1960 to
'78), been named to the Hockey Hall of Fame, played himself
on a steamy daytime soap and been married at the United
Nations by the mayor of
New York. Compared to those highlights, being on a magazine
cover wouldn't seem to be a big deal. "Oh, no, I can't
forget it," says Gilbert, now 56 and the director of
community relations for the Rangers and Madison Square
Garden. "That cover got me
engaged."
A week after Gilbert's mug hit the newsstand, he made an
appearance at a fan dinner attended mostly by men and boys.
"In walked the most stunning woman I'd ever
seen," says Gilbert (pronounced jhil-BEAR). "Long
black hair, dark eyes, dressed to the
nines. I went
whoa! inside, and I asked her what the heck she was doing
there." The woman, Arunee Leeaphorn, was a Bangkok
native studying at Columbia. She had a copy of
SI tucked under her arm. "I wanted to see if you looked
the same in person as you do in this," she told
Gilbert.
They were engaged two years later. "What a wonderful
relationship we had," says Gilbert, though the pair
split amicably in 1970. By then Gilbert, a French-speaking
native of Montreal, had found another love, New York City.
He has lived in Manhattan
since 1964 and after retiring stayed visible by opening an Upper
East Side restaurant. In '82 he did two episodes
of One Life to
Live in which he had a dalliance with a TV
reporter trying to make her husband jealous. "He was
with Miss Globe, she was with me," says Gilbert.
"I figured that was about
right."
In 1989 Gilbert read a newspaper story commending Wayne
Gretzky for running a hockey clinic in Harlem. Gilbert
seethed at the notion that a player from another team—the
Great One was with the Los Angeles Kings at the time—might
win over fans in Rangers
territory. He took the clipping to Jack Diller, then
executive vice president of the Garden. "You can let
this happen right under your nose?" asked Gilbert.
Responded Diller, "You want to help me do something
about it?" With that Diller hired Gilbert,
who expanded the Rangers' clinic program and today runs a
network of team-sponsored charity events.
Gilbert married Judith Christy, an advertising executive,
in 1991 at the Church Center for the U.N. David Dinkins,
then New York's mayor, officiated. "This is such an
amazing
city," says Gilbert. "Life here has been full of good times
and great
surprises."
—by Kostya Kennedy
Cover photograph by Tony Triolo
Issue date: April 20, 1998
Past Editions of Catching Up With...
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