Names and faces

Saturday, January 25, 2014

ABC News reporter Elizabeth Vargas has publicly acknowledged that she’s an alcoholic and said it took her years to admit it. In an interview aired Friday on Good Morning America, Vargas said hiding her problem from others was exhausting. “Even to admit it to myself was admitting, I thought, that I was a failure,” said Vargas, who noted that she had reported several 20/20 specials on drinking but couldn’t acknowledge her own alcohol dependency. She said her husband, singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, wasn’t fooled. “You have a problem. You’re an alcoholic,” she said he told her. His words “made me really angry, really angry. But he was right,” she said. Last fall, Vargas spent several weeks in a treatment facility and is now in Alcoholics Anonymous. She told Good Morning America co-anchor George Stephanopoulos in the interview taped Thursday that she’s proud of confronting her problem. She said she’s “learning to accept that I’m human, that there’s nothing wrong with failing, that there’s nothing wrong with feeling anxiety.” Vargas, 51, has worked in network news since 1993, first with NBC and then ABC, which she joined in 1996. “Is it hard not to drink?” Stephanopoulos asked her. “Yeah,” Vargas replied.

Captain and Tennille, the popular 1970s married pop duo that sang of sharing forever and of love keeping them together, are splitting. Cathryn Antoinette Tennille, better known as “Toni,” has filed in an Arizona court to end her 38-year marriage to Daryl Dragon, or “The Captain.” The two already are listed as ex-husband and ex-wife on their website, which says that though their marriage appeared to be rock-solid, “almost all people naturally evolve over time, (and) sometimes hidden feelings start to be uncovered.” The divorce petition says the couple’s marriage is irretrievably broken. They were married the same year their hit song “Love Will Keep Us Together” earned a Grammy award for record of the year in 1975. Tennille’s attorney declined to comment Thursday, and a call to Dragon’s number in Prescott, where the couple retired in 2008, went unanswered. The two have no children.The divorce petition asks that any community property, debt and obligations be equitably divided. It also states that neither Tennille, 73, nor Dragon, 71, is entitled to or in need of spousal support. Captain and Tennille had 14 songs on the pop singles chart, with half of them in the Top 10. Their songs included “Muskrat Love,” “Do That To Me One More Time” and “Shop Around.” The duo also briefly hosted a variety show.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 01/25/2014