Lee Hart, the wife of former presidential hopeful Gary Hart, dead at 85
Lee Hart, who stuck with one-time presidential hopeful Gary Hart through thick and thin, has died. The 85-year-old former educator passed away Friday in Colorado, where her husband was a senator, The New York Times reported.
Hart famously stood by her husband in 1987 when rumors of his alleged affair with a model from Florida named Donna Rice torpedoed the popular Democrat’s bid for his party’s presidential nominations. The front-running senator withdrew from the race after a photo of himself and Rice surfaced in which she’s sitting on his lap and he’s wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Monkey Business Crew.”
That is the name of a yacht upon which the pair reportedly traveled on.
“I know Gary better than anyone else,” Hart said at the time. “When Gary says nothing happened, nothing happened.’'
Rice told ABC News in 2018 that she didn’t realize the Harts were married when she met the senator. She also said that years later, the disgraced politician reached out to apologize. Rice said she told him he’d already been forgiven.
The Times reported that the Harts married in 1958 and worked through separations in 1979 and in 1981. When the senator tried unsuccessfully to relaunch his political career post-scandal, he did so with his wife at his side.
“I’m doing what I always wanted to do... traveling with Gary,” Hart said of her husband’s efforts.
Hart — born Oletha Ludwig in Lawrence, Kansas — is a former English teacher who graduated from Bethany Nazarene College the year she and her husband married.
The Denver Post reports Hart died in a Lakewood, Colo., hospital after battling an unspecified brief illness. She is survived by Hart, 84, who served as a U.S. special envoy to Northern Ireland during the Obama administration. He is also an author. The pair had two children.
