Divorce Court

The ride's getting rougher in that tunnel of love. Bruce Springsteen's actress-wife, Julianne Phillips, filed for divorce yesterday, claiming "irreconcilable differences" with The Boss. They were married May 13, 1985, in her home town, Lake Oswego, Ore. A Springsteen spokeswoman has denied previous reports that he and Phillips separated over the issue of starting a family. The one-page petition filed in Los Angeles Superior Court seeks unspecified spousal support and says property rights will be determined later, said Phillips' attorney, Arlene Colman-Schwimmer.

WE COULD HAVE sworn that Ted Haggard's 15 minutes were up. Unfortunately, the ex-evangelist still feels the need to proclaim to the world that he's a repentant straight man. But where to go when you've already blabbed about your bi-sex life to Oprah, Larry King and an HBO documentary, and your former flock still isn't flocking? The answer: "Divorce Court. " We really thought that this was a joke when copy editor Karin Berry informed us of the pastor's plans, but, alas.

Here comes the judge! OK, here comes the family-law attorney and former judge pro tem, Mablean (say it Maybelline) Ephraim, who will take up the gavel for the reincarnated Divorce Court, premiering today on Fox Philadelphia at 11 a.m. Ephraim may not be a judge, but 10 minutes in her presence could convince any jury that she's more than qualified to play one on TV, to render binding judgment to the troubled couples who will come before her....

"Divorce Court," the half-hour show that debuts today at 4 p.m. on Channel 10, often profiles cases where dirty family laundry is laid bare before millions of people. Through it all - 180 shows a season - sits Judge William B. Keene, an attractive, fatherly type who invariably appears perplexed that two adults are actually asking him, a stranger, to make a decision that will drastically change their lives. "Stay out of divorce court," advised Keene during an interview here last week.

Every weekday at 12 o'clock sharp, George John Voegele pulls up his rocker in front of the television, leans his good ear (the right one) forward, and flicks on his favorite show: "Divorce Court. " "Some of it's ridiculous," said Voegele, "but I get a kick out of it. " He should. George John, who'll be 90 on Sunday, and his bride, Catherine Marie, who was 90 last November, recently celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. For George, a day without "Divorce Court" is a day without "kicks.

The blood, the melodrama, the plunge toward genteel poverty - this is not the kind of life that Charlotte Fedders envisioned for herself. "It just blows me away," she says. "I never could've imagined it. " A mere half-decade ago, she was still being beaten up by her husband, a Reagan administration law-enforcement watchdog. Back then, she would accompany John Fedders to Washington cocktail parties, and everyone would swarm to his side. He was the top cop of the Securities and Exchange Commission, 6-foot-10 and 230 pounds, and they'd think he was so charming and brilliant.

Beginning Monday, Philadelphians can see marriage from two sides - The Newlywed Game on Channel 3 and Divorce Court on Channel 10. Divorce Court becomes the weekday lead-in to the 5:30 p.m. local news on WCAU-TV, switching places with Magnum, P.I. The half-hour Court will air at 5 p.m. and the hour-long Magnum will begin at 4. "The court genre is very successful," WCAU vice president and station manager Gordon T. Hughes said in announcing the...

Questions called in to Dr. Michael Broder's talk show on WCAU (1210/AM) used to be mainly about sexual performance, or such common problems as how to get the boss off your back, or to resolve conflicts with a spouse. Now, says Broder, a psychologist, the most frequently asked questions revolve around dating or, as Broder put it during a recent interview, "the whole issue of being single with AIDS looming in the background. " Another hot topic is divorce, said Broder, who has been hosting the weekly show (on Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m., and 10 p.m. to midnight)

Philly guy Bradley Cooper visited Boston Marathon bomb victim Jeff Bauman , recovering from amputation surgery, Thursday. Bauman's family has Philly and South Jersey roots.   Celeb split-ups galore! Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne , now noisily separate in various posh L.A. sites, deny - Deny! - that they will reconcile. At last! On Friday, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries signed a divorce agreement. K-Hump wanted an annulment cuz K-Kard married him for P.R. purposes only ( perish the thought!

Betty A. Thompson, 88, who became one of the most prominent family-law attorneys in Virginia and who was instrumental in modernizing the commonwealth's divorce statutes, died Monday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington. She had suffered a stroke, said Laura Dove, a lawyer at Ms. Thompson's Arlington County-based firm. After graduating from George Washington University's law school in 1948, Ms. Thompson became one of the first female lawyers in Arlington, Va. She made a short-lived bid for the General Assembly in 1957 as a pro-segregationist candidate but in later decades reversed herself as "very open-minded" on equal rights.

Philly guy Bradley Cooper visited Boston Marathon bomb victim Jeff Bauman , recovering from amputation surgery, Thursday. Bauman's family has Philly and South Jersey roots.   Celeb split-ups galore! Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne , now noisily separate in various posh L.A. sites, deny - Deny! - that they will reconcile. At last! On Friday, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries signed a divorce agreement. K-Hump wanted an annulment cuz K-Kard married him for P.R. purposes only ( perish the thought!

Betty A. Thompson, 88, who became one of the most prominent family-law attorneys in Virginia and who was instrumental in modernizing the commonwealth's divorce statutes, died Monday at George Washington University Hospital in Washington. She had suffered a stroke, said Laura Dove, a lawyer at Ms. Thompson's Arlington County-based firm. After graduating from George Washington University's law school in 1948, Ms. Thompson became one of the first female lawyers in Arlington, Va. She made a short-lived bid for the General Assembly in 1957 as a pro-segregationist candidate but in later decades reversed herself as "very open-minded" on equal rights.

All the celebrisphere is abuzz with the sad yet long-expected news. Katie Holmes, 33, and Tom Cruise, 49, are divorcing, according to People mag and their reps. Reports from the front say she's hired a lawyer, filed the papers on Thursday — five days before the guy turns 50 — and wants sole custody of their daughter, Suri, 6. That renewed the notion, passed along by TMZ.com, that Katie didn't want Suri to get involved in Tom's Scientology (to which, BTW, Kate did convert). Poor Tom. He was evidently clueless about Katie's intentions, according to TMZ As evidence, the Web site ran pics of the two strolling hand in hand in Iceland just two weeks ago, with smiles that suggest no impending nastiness.

Divorce Court There are two formidable obstacles for Frank McCourt to overcome in his bid to continue to own the Los Angeles Dodgers after he and his ex-wife Jamie reached a binding agreement Friday in their less-than-amiable divorce. Obstacle No. 1: Frank McCourt must receive MLB's approval of a 17-year TV contract with Fox reported to be worth up to $3 billion. Under the settlement, McCourt would receive $385 million upfront, most of which would be used for Dodger-related expenses.

IT'S NICE TO SEE that Charlie Sheen has grown up. The once-troubled actor spent the better part of Christmas Day in a Colorado jail cell and it doesn't seem to have been due to either drugs or hookers. Unfortunately, Charlie was in the klink because he was booked for investigation of second-degree assault and menacing, both felonies, along with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. The person he allegedly assaulted and menaced was his wife, Brooke Mueller, who called 9-1-1 from their house in Aspen.

Bonnie Sweeten's husband wants out. The Bucks County mother whose bizarre, racially tinged abduction hoax became national tabloid fodder, is headed for divorce court. Sweeten, 38, had no clue it was coming, her lawyer said yesterday; she found out only when a reporter called. Her second husband, Richard L. "Larry" Sweeten, calling their marriage "irretrievably broken," filed for divorce late Wednesday afternoon in Bucks County Court. He also seeks custody of the couple's 11-month-old daughter.

WE COULD HAVE sworn that Ted Haggard's 15 minutes were up. Unfortunately, the ex-evangelist still feels the need to proclaim to the world that he's a repentant straight man. But where to go when you've already blabbed about your bi-sex life to Oprah, Larry King and an HBO documentary, and your former flock still isn't flocking? The answer: "Divorce Court. " We really thought that this was a joke when copy editor Karin Berry informed us of the pastor's plans, but, alas.

WHEN SOME girlfriends of mine meet an eligible guy over, say 40, who has never been married, their eyes immediately narrow. "You see it all the time," said Frank Cavalier , 55, an independent transportation consultant who lives in Mayfair and has never married. Cavalier, who has held a succession of jobs over the years, isn't bitter about it. "Women are judged unfairly most of the time, too. I understand that. I accept that," he said. "But once I state my case, then I move on. " But Carl Weisman , another longtime bachelor, chafed in light of such characterizations of never-married men. So, the 49-year-old writer set out to discover the real reasons why older fellas defy what can be intense social pressure from friends and relatives and stay single.

Tim Donaghy agrees with his wife that their marriage is unsalvageable, but he's not going to give up his $1.35 million Florida home without a fight. In court papers filed Monday, the former NBA referee asked for "temporary and permanent exclusive use and possession" of the six-bedroom house on the King's Dune course at the Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club in Bradenton, Fla. Kimberly Donaghy filed for divorce last month in Manatee County Court, stating that her husband's "voluntary actions have resulted in his loss of income.

ELISABETH Kubler-Ross has her five stages of grief. Tattle has our eight stages of being a starlet: Canoodling. Breaking up. Busted. Pregnant. Dieting. Marrying. Divorcing. Dying. Follow a female celebrity through the gossip mags long enough and she invariably hits almost all of the eight. With the trends now being pregnancy and weight loss, nearly all the big names have been covered either for being big around the middle - Julia, Jennifer and Nicole all have been photographed sporting "bumps" - or bony everywhere.