SCOTT LINNETT / Union-Tribune
John Aylesworth and Anita Rufus enjoy playing Scrabble in their Loma Portal home. The couple crossed paths on a 1985 New Year's cruise. |
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Anita Rufus and John Aylesworth met on a 1985 New Year's cruise to Acapulco on The Love Boat. “How truly tacky is that?” says Anita, now 65.
She tipped the maitre d' to seat her at a good table. “By a stroke of luck, I ended up at John's.”
After that, the whole table hung out together. John and Anita were having so much fun that he persuaded her to remain on the ship for a second week. Six months later, the couple were living together in Palm Springs.
“Needless to say, after that amazing cruise, every girlfriend I had planned a cruise the following year,” Anita says.
The Loma Portal couple officially have been married eight years, but they've been celebrating their “anniversary,” usually with a Princess cruise on New Year's, ever since they met.
It's the fourth marriage for both of them. “We finally got it right,” Anita says.
The two have had varied and successful careers. John, 77, started his in the early '50s in Toronto as a TV performer and writer. He moved to the States in 1958 to write the last season for “Your Hit Parade.”
Then he wrote for a number of TV variety shows for the likes of Judy Garland, Perry Como, Mel Torme, Julie Andrews, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams and Dolly Parton. He produced “The Jonathan Winters Show.” John also helped create and produce “Hee Haw.” Currently, he's working on a book of humorous anecdotes about the people he met and worked with over five decades.
Photo courtesy of Anita Rufus
Anita Rufus, John Aylesworth and hand puppet Moogie have been on many cruises together.
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Anita is a credentialed mediator and has set up a practice specializing in end-of-life conflicts and the legal battles over the right to die. She recently finished law school.
One of her claims to fame is having run for Congress in 1996 against Sonny Bono. She lost.
But she's proud of her successes. “I went from being an L.A. welfare mother, with no support from my ex-husband, to a small-business owner to co-founder and VP of a telecommunications company that, she says, eventually became Sprint.
She has been on the board of the National Organization for Women and is past-president of Americans for Death With Dignity. In the mid-'90s, she had her own radio show in Palm Springs – “Rap With Rufus, the Lovable Liberal.”
John is a father of six. Anita has three children, including a set of boy-girl twins. One of her sons, which she had given up for adoption when she was 18, recently found her and they have been “very happily reunited.”
John has one grandchild; Anita has five, including a set of twins.
“John was, perhaps, the first man I ever met who gave me more room in which to be myself than I could even fill,” Anita says. “His skewed, humorous perspective on the world amazes me. He is smart, talented, kind and incredibly tolerant.
“We share the same political views and love the same kinds of entertainment.”
He says he was attracted to Anita because she's like a cornucopia: “More is always spilling out.” And she makes him laugh.
Now that the Aylesworths think that they have marriage figured out, she advises: “Set the ground rules going in so that you are not stuck in roles that the other person has mapped out for you. Don't sweat the small stuff. Always make your needs known: Don't expect the other person to just know what you need.”
John adds, “Have a wonderful time together.”
Marsha Kay Seff is a Union-Tribune staff writer and editor of the San Diego Eldercare Directory at
www.SanDiegoElderCare.com. If you want to share the story about how you met your spouse, e-mail Marsha at
marsha.seff@uniontrib.com. Please include your phone number.
