An Invasion Of Privacy

When not pursuing art, the young McEnroe was sometimes pursued by artists. "In the late '70s, no matter what party I went to, the same guy would always follow me around with a camera," he recalls. "It was annoying, especially since I was trying to pick up chicks. Finally I asked, 'Who is this weird-looking guy?' And somebody said, Andy Warhol.' " Years later, when McEnroe was married to O'Neal, they commissioned a Warhol silkscreen portrait of themselves. McEnroe keeps two prints in storage. "I'm saving them for my children," he says. "I figure they're the only ones in the world who'd want them."

It was only after McEnroe and O'Neal separated, in 1992, that he got the idea to deal art. Adrift and rudderless, he volunteered to help in the gallery of an artist friend. So absorbing was the apprenticeship that McEnroe converted his SoHo loft into a gallery. His first exhibition, in December 1993, showcased Bruno Fonseca's Goya-like oils about war. Since then McEnroe has mounted about three shows a year, including exhibitions of German expressionists, 20th-century nudes by various artists and sculptors, and, most recently, paintings by British figurative artists.

"I wasn't fond of a couple of pieces in my last show," McEnroe says, wincing again. "Basically, a sculptor can give you a urinal—like Duchamp once did—sign his name to it and call it art." He shakes his head. "If you want to make money, you've got to deal with dead guys. Live artists can be tough to deal with. They look at dealers like tennis players look at agents: not as equals but as necessary evils."

McEnroe the art dealer is still mastering the art of the deal. "The gallery is a nonmoneymaker," he says. "I'm looking to break even." He may be open to accusations of dilettantism, but what pensioner with millions in his pocket isn't? Of McEnroe's exhibits, his artist pal Eric Fischl has said, "What impressed me was how fast he put together a consistent collection, one that has quality and shows he has vision."

In his private collection McEnroe has narrowed his vision to 20th-century figurative artists—Basquiat, Fischl, Phillip Guston, Alice Neel. "I like art with morals and messages," he says. "I don't get the abstract expressionism of the '50s, or minimalism. What's the point of painting 22 layers of white on white? Maybe that shows my naiveté, but I'd rather look at a nude."

In the snobbish world of art dealing, McEnroe is regarded as a weed in a gilded garden. "He needs to establish credibility," says Ann Freedman, president of New York's venerable Knoedler Galleries. "A gallery's name recognition should be about the artists it exhibits, not the dealer." Yet McEnroe's name recognition has its advantages. "As a dealer you hope to attract people, and people are curious about John McEnroe," Freedman says. "They're interested in seeing another side of him—his eye, his taste, his sensitivity."

Until now, sensitivity was the last thing anyone looked for in McEnroe. Maybe Freedman is referring to his delicate drop volley. "I always liked it when people called me an artist on the court," McEnroe says. "It was as if they were saying my style was something they couldn't really relate to and they had to look at the game through me."

Someone once suggested that wrapping McEnroe in a CBS Sports blazer and setting him in a TV booth was like putting Faulkner in a Gap ad. Surely no tennis color commentator rivals McEnroe in sound and fury. His style is personal and pouncing; at times the words fly so fast that they turn into a blur of buckshot. At the 1994 U.S. Open, during a match in which Richard Krajicek led 6-0 in a tiebreaker, McEnroe blurted out, "If Krajicek loses this set, I'll stand on my head." Sure enough, the Dutchman dropped the tiebreaker 10-8. The following day McEnroe called a match upside down—"until the blood rushed to my head," he recalls—for about 30 seconds.

"On TV, I try to stay positive," McEnroe says stoutly. "It's only when I see a player tanking that I say anything negative." Off TV is another story. "John can be very charming or very moody," says a producer who knows him well. "One day he'll seek you out, shake your hand, ask you about your family. The next day he'll brush past you as if you were invisible."

The buzz at NBC, for which McEnroe also does tennis commentary, is that he prodded the network into demoting Bud Collins, the longtime Boston Globe columnist and NBC analyst, from the booth to the sidelines during French Open and Wimbledon telecasts. "I feel a barrier with Bud," McEnroe says, his mouth tightening, "because he's a journalist." Perhaps McEnroe still hasn't forgiven the cornball Collins for accosting him after his July 4, 1981, Wimbledon victory and crooning, "Stuck a feather in his cap/And called it McEnroni."