Attack on Aissa Brings Terror to Pilar Wayne

Up until the moment the police called, Pilar Wayne had been a stranger to terror.

The exotic-looking former actress had lived a carefree life. Formerly married to movie legend John Wayne, she thrived in secure, glamorous surroundings, wore expensive clothing and was catered to by servants.

But on Tuesday she was frightened. “Why would anybody want to harm Aissa?” she asked. “She’s the most angelic thing to walk the face of the earth.”

Monday afternoon, she learned that Aissa, 32, her first-born daughter, and Roger Luby, 52, Aissa’s boyfriend, had been beaten and slashed by intruders, who then threatened to kill them.

The attack came as two gunmen followed the couple through the electronic gates into Luby’s $3-million Newport Beach mansion.

Tuesday morning, Pilar Wayne wept as she spoke over the phone from La Roca, her Newport Beach home that is filled with mementoes of her life with Wayne and their three children.

“I feel terrible. How will this affect our lives?” she asked. “I will be worried each second of the day.”

She is not alone.

Newport Beach socialite Beverly Thompson said her burglar alarms are set. “But then, they always are. In a monied community like Newport Beach, you’re crazy not to be cautious.”

Thompson said she was “shocked, terrified” by the attack on the couple. “Roger and Aissa are the most gentle people you will ever meet. They would open the door and let a fly out rather than swat it on the wall.”

Jo Anne Mix of Newport Beach agreed. “I’m stunned. I really am,” said Mix, founder of the Cover Girls, a society klatch that has Pilar Wayne as one of its members. “Roger is the sweetest man in the world, pleasant to everyone. And Aissa is so quiet and lovable.”

The couple made their last significant public appearance Sept. 4 at the wedding of Aissa’s younger sister, Marisa, at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. Luby and Aissa, popular in social circles, rubbed elbows with guests at the posh champagne reception at the Center Club in Costa Mesa.

The affair marked one of the few times that they had been seen in public as a couple. In recent years, both had made the social scene with their respective spouses. Luby is separated from Sandra (Sassy) Luby, whom he met at the Balboa Bay Club, where she resides. And Aissa Wayne, a mother of three who has been married twice, is separated from Dr. Thomas Gionis, an orthopedic surgeon with offices in Upland, Indio and Palm Springs.

Pilar Wayne said she has known Luby “for years, and knew Sassy before they got married. I think he’s a very pleasant person. Aissa is very much in love with him.”

She said that she and her daughter played tennis regularly with Luby at her La Roca court. “We play a lot of bridge. Four or five nights a week. We play here or at Roger’s house,” she said.

For now, Aissa Wayne will recuperate with her family, as everyone tries to make sense of the tragedy.

Said Pilar Wyane: “It’s something you read in the paper and you never think is going to hit your family.”