Male-imony: A Reverse Support Case : The Joan Collins-Peter Holm Divorce Trial Stirs Interest Over His Demand for a Monthly Payment of $80,000

When Joan Collins filed for an annulment of her 13-month marriage to Peter Holm, the news was not unexpected in Hollywood, famed for its here-today, gone-tomorrow romances. But when Holm announced he wanted Collins to pay him $80,000 a month in alimony, eyebrows were more than just raised. They were arched in disbelief.

Holm’s request is the largest on record of a man asking for alimony from his wife, according to family law experts around the country.

“This is not just a figure I’ve thrown out to be outrageous. It was very simple mathematics with the computer,” Holm told The Times in his first interview about the divorce case.

“I know it sounds extravagantly obnoxious. But if you knew my devotion to making this marriage work, you would think it was perfectly justified.”

His First Marriage

Holm, who will be 40 in June, and Collins, 53, were married at a Las Vegas wedding chapel Nov. 6, 1984. It was the fourth marriage for Collins and the first for Holm, a Swedish former rock star who became his wife’s business manager.

Marvin Mitchelson, the well-known Century City divorce attorney who is representing Collins and speaking on her behalf regarding the case, doesn’t think Holm is entitled to any alimony. “I heard he was going to be asking for support, but I was shocked by the amount,” the lawyer said. “It’s the largest I’ve ever heard of anyplace. I think it’s outrageous.”

Mitchelson promised that it will be “hotly contested.” On Thursday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge will hear Holm’s request for a $150,000 advance to tide him over until the July 20 alimony hearing.

The Collins-Holm divorce is receiving more than the usual notoriety that accompanies any trial in which a TV star is involved.

It is being seen as an ideal test case of how far the courts will go to carry out gender-neutral alimony laws.

“You can ask for male alimony all you please. But if there’s no deep pockets to shoot at, what’s the point?” commented Harvey Golden, a Columbia, S.C., family law specialist for 32 years and chairman-elect of the family law section of the American Bar Assn. “That’s why this case is so interesting.”

Male alimony, or male spousal support, wasn’t officially recognized until 1979 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Alabama’s alimony law because it discriminated against men in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

At the time, a total of 11 states, including New York, had laws requiring that only wives can receive alimony payments. And it was widely regarded by courts in other states that men who asked for alimony were wimps, losers or gigolos for wanting to live off the earnings of their spouse.

High Court Ruling’s Impact

But the Supreme Court decision on Orr vs. Orr meant that, for the first time in those states, men as well as women would have the chance to prove they are entitled to spousal support on the basis of individual need rather than gender.

While the Supreme Court ruling had no direct effect on California, which has always had so-called gender-neutral alimony laws, it nevertheless gave the idea a real psychological boost here and elsewhere. “I think the courts jumped on Orr vs. Orr because it shrieks of fairness,” Golden explained.

There are currently no national statistics to show how many men have requested or received alimony.

But, based on anecdotal evidence, experts believe that many more men have been asking for it since 1979--and many are getting it.

Indeed, the issue is still so new that a 1983 Newsweek cover story entitled Divorce American-Style did not even mention male alimony, though it covered such hotly debated topics as prenuptial agreements and grandparents’ rights.

Subject of ABA Gathering

But the subject was discussed last month at an ABA alimony enclave held in Austin, Tex., by the woman who organized the symposium--Louise B. Raggio, a Dallas, Tex., matrimonial law expert and a past chairman of the ABA’s family law section.

Most discussions about alimony, Raggio said, still center on men who pay alimony, not receive it.

One reason is that, despite the Supreme Court ruling, it is still rare for a judge to award permanent or even temporary alimony to a man.

“It’s harder with a man,” declared Raggio, who has been asking for alimony for her male clients for the past 30 years.

Even Mitchelson, famed for his representation of women in celebrity divorces, has asked for alimony for some of his male clients. “But,” he cautioned, “it’s really a hard sell.”

Robert D. Arenstein, a New York City matrimonial attorney who is chairman of the ABA’s research committee for family law issues, has noticed that the courts are still reluctant to side with men on this issue. “There is definitely a prejudice by some judges against awarding men support.”

Though alimony is rarely questioned if a man is disabled, the situation is “fuzzier” when lawyers try to get spousal support for a man who’s out of a job or who’s a “househusband” or who’s not as wealthy or successful as his wife, experts say.

Raggio currently is seeking alimony for a prominent Texas oil man who is getting divorced from a Texas woman with a large inheritance. (Though Texas is the only state in the country that has no provision for permanent alimony for either sex, a spouse can receive it through an out-of-court settlement.)

In this case, Raggio said, the oil man is asking for “rehabilitative” alimony because he’s down on his luck, out of money. “A lot of Texans who made a fortune a few years ago are totally out of money now because of the downturn in the oil and real estate economies,” Raggio explained.

Her client is asking for $4,000-a-month support while he trains himself in a new field. “I strongly believe in alimony in cases like this,” she said. “It’s only right.”

At the heart of the subject of male alimony, most experts agree, is the basic issue of whether men and women should be treated equally in the eyes of the law when they still occupy unequal positions in the labor market.

Harvard sociologist Lenore J. Weitzman, for example, studied 3,000 California divorces when she was teaching at Stanford and found that husbands fared substantially better than wives after a divorce.

Specifically, she found that the men’s standard of living increased by 42% in the first year after divorce, while living standards for women and children decreased by 73%

Indeed, many surveys are showing that in a country where one out of every two marriages end in divorce, divorced women who are also single-parent heads of households are becoming the so-called “new poor.” By contrast, divorced men who have custody of their children are better able to maintain the financial health of their families.

One expert with strong feelings on the subject is Harry Brod, an assistant philosophy professor in the program for the Study of Women and Men at the University of Southern California. Brod is also national spokesman for the National Organization for Changing Men, a men’s support group that describes itself as pro-feminist and pro-gay.

Brod believes that asking for male alimony “is sort of like putting the cart before the horse.”

“On the one hand, one wants gender neutral laws and applications. That’s a goal,” he noted. “On the other hand, people think the feminist revolution has arrived, when it in fact hasn’t.”

Unequal Incomes

Brod feels it’s “unfair” to ask women to share their incomes equally with men when women still don’t have access to making equal incomes.

Experts also agree that the issue of male alimony is tied into the future of the feminist revolution. As women get more financial rewards at work, most feel they must also shoulder some of the financial penalties in divorce suits.

“If a woman is working for $4 an hour, obviously she’s not going to be made to pay alimony,” Arenstein asserted. “But I think male alimony is going to be more prevalent as women earn more”

There are still other factors--that have nothing to do with the law--which stop men from asking for alimony, experts agree.

First and foremost, there is the embarrassment factor. “Let’s face it, a man is ridiculed for publicly acknowledging he needs his wife’s money to live on,” said Brod.

Golden acknowledges that men have “centuries of social conditioning” to overcome in asking for alimony. “Lawyers generally have to persuade their male clients to ask for alimony,” he noted. “And they have a lot of trouble persuading a macho man.”

Agrees Mitchelson: ‘It’s a stigmatizing thing socially.’

Holm said his first clue that Collins wanted out of the marriage was after he met her for lunch at the Studio Grill and returned home: “One minute, everything was hunky-dory and nice, ‘I love you,’ and all that. And the next thing I knew, about 10 guards, some of them armed, and two lawyers were standing in front of our house and saying, ‘You can’t come in.’

“So I was out with not even a toothbrush. Nothing at all.”

Holm says he initially rejected the idea of asking for alimony when it was suggested by his attorney, Frank Steinschriber of Sherman Oaks.

“First of all, I felt we should try to work things out. And I didn’t want to do anything at all against her in the beginning because I didn’t want her attitude to harden,” Holm explained.

So, for the first month and a half after Collins filed for an annulment Dec. 8, “I didn’t speak to anyone at all and I didn’t even go out,” Holm said. “I was quite devastated.”

But then, Holm said, he realized that he had had no time to prepare himself financially for a separation from the actress, who had been providing him with a lavish Beverly Hills life style and livelihood.

‘Didn’t Want to Get Crushed

“I thought, ‘No, damn it, I’m not going to just sit back and be walked all over by Joan’s lawyers.’ I’d dealt with the big guys before and I didn’t want to get crushed.”

Holm said some of his initial reluctance to ask for support stemmed from the fact he knew he would become the butt of Hollywood abuse, which would “damage my reputation and soil my name,” he said.

Johnny Carson especially took great delight in making jokes about Holm’s request for temporary support since Carson’s own wife had originally demanded $220,000 a month when they separated in 1983 after a 10-year marriage. It was the highest alimony sum ever asked; Joanna Carson was awarded $44,600 monthly until the divorce was final.

But Carson’s net worth is estimated at many times what Collins’ is. And Holm, who as her business manager is in a position to know, claims the actress earns $400,000 a month. So, taking that into account, he drew up a request for temporary alimony that could continue the life style he enjoyed with Collins during their marriage, as the law allows, he said. “After all, there is a standard to maintain,” he argued. “ Anybody can eat hot dogs every day on $100 a week.”

His $80,000 request includes $16,500 a month for rent, $7,000 for household salaries, $12,000 for clothing and accessories, $6,000 for entertaining, $7,295 for car expenses, $4,000 for travel and hotels and $3,000 for computer equipment and supplies.

Holms maintains there are other reasons why his request for support is so large. Foremost, he said, is that “I can’t do anything to make money for the moment. That’s the problem.”

Since he no longer acts as his wife’s business manager, Holm explained, his livelihood has been taken away. “And I don’t have any legal status for doing that sort of work here for someone else.” (While Collins is a British citizen with permanent residency status in the United States, Holm will have to return to Europe unless he can get a work permit.)

However, legal experts point out that mitigating against such a large alimony award is the fact that Holm and Collins weren’t married that long, even though they lived together for 2 1/2 years beforehand. In fact, Holm and his attorney are currently considering the filing of a separate palimony suit.

Right now, Holm and his attorney claim the one-time rock singer has a “zero” income. “I know it’s hard to feel sorry for him,” Steinschriber said. “But according to what he showed me yesterday, he has $34 in the bank.”

Mitchelson said Collins will oppose giving alimony to Holm when the issue comes before the court on July 20 because over a 13-month period he was paid $1.2 million for his management services, plus another $800,000 in bills that she paid.

“They keep saying that Holm doesn’t have any money, but I don’t think it’s possible,” Mitchelson said. “He’s made a bundle from her and now he wants $80,000 more a month. There is such a thing as overreaching.”