THE LOVER

Someone handed him a pen. Giovanni went to the board where attorneys hang their exhibits and began writing.

His handwriting was excellent. His memory was even better. Long before the spectators began appearing for the afternoon session of the trial, Giovanni had written down what appeared to be 100 different names.

I'm not sure how many names he actually wrote on that blackboard. I think it was probably close to 105. I don't remember that anyone ever bothered to count them. I do recall, however, that Giovanni filled every bit of blank space before returning to his seat at the defense table.

How many people do you know who, under pressure, could write down the names of even 105 people they had met in their entire lives?

Vigliotto was an unusual fellow. He told many fantastic stories about himself and they not only made him famous but also contributed to the 34-year sentence he was handed at the end of the trial.

It was a remarkable trial and a remarkably stiff sentence. And Giovanni played his part of the injured innocent to the hilt. Day after day he infuriated not only Judge Coulter but the jury as well.

He did so with such panache that the jury needed only 24 minutes to decide he was guilty of every one of the 34 counts of bigamy and fraud.

I wasn't surprised at the verdict. Neither was Giovanni. I think he secretly wanted the sentence that for him turned out to be for the remainder of his life.

He spent eight years in the Arizona State Prison at Florence. During that time, various accounts of Giovanni's escapades made their way into the daily newspapers.

He was writing a book about his life that would become a television special. He was signing up with a chemical company who would pay him $1 million to lend his name to a potency drug. A group of women banded together to declare his innocence and attempt to win him a new trial.

Ultimately, nothing ever really developed from any of these things.
Every once in a while, I remember how it was that day in the courtroom when they finally led Giovanni away to spend the final years of his life behind bars.

Giovanni walked away proudly, even arrogantly. He held his head high.
I have always wondered about Giovanni and his 105 marriages. Suppose it wasn't true. Suppose that Giovanni had falsified his claim in order to achieve record status.

There is a real possibility that he had made up this fantastic tale about being the world's biggest bigamist.

Was it worth spending his final years in prison just to be memorialized in the Guinness Book of Records?

Each time he met a woman he asked for her hand in marriage. Unfortunately for him, the woman always said yes.

Giovanni looked terribly vulnerable. It was this very look of pain that probably made so many women want to marry him and mother him.

"I love women!" he said, his voice rising. "And I think I love them because they bring me out of myself.