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Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, as anyone who watched Winning Time or knows anything about the NBA, has lived a pretty amazing life.
Beginning as the general manager of a professional tennis team at age 19 to owning a professional roller hockey team to being president of the Great Western Forum to vice president and then president of the Lakers, Jeanie Buss has seen and done a lot. (Oh yeah, she is also now a co-owner of the Women of Wrestling promotion.)
So, when Buss, now 62, agreed to sit down with Graham Bensinger for an in-depth interview which debuts in broadcast syndication across the U.S. this weekend, there was plenty to talk about.
For example, Buss, who posed in the May 1995 issue of Playboy magazine, says she still gets requests from people asking her to sign the photos every week.
“I spoke to Jimmy Connors’ wife Patti McGuire – she was Playmate of the Year in I think 1976 or ’77 – and I asked her about the experience before I ever pursued it,” Buss tells Bensinger. “And she said, ‘It’s a great experience.. but always be prepared wherever you are, somebody’s gonna approach you with the magazine to sign it… when you least expect it. The pictures never go away.’
“And so now this is the early ’90s, really before the internet takes off. And so, like, never dawned on me that these pictures would have a life on the internet of their own and will always be out there.
“And when you pose you accept that that’s part of the program, except the internet has made it that I literally, probably receive five to 10 requests a week where people have printed the pictures and asked me to sign them. And they send a postage paid envelope for me to send it back.
“And I always sign them because I don’t regret taking the pictures. It’s a little bit like, ‘Wow, it really doesn’t ever go away.’ But, the idea that the pictures are kind of legendary.”
Pretty much everything about her life is legendary.