Magnolia Pictures via AP
Linda and Burt Pugach in 1974. She died this week at age 75, still married to the man convicted of hiring hit men to throw lye in her face.
By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News
Linda Pugach, the real-life co-star of one of New York City's craziest love stories, died this week -- still married to the man who was convicted half a century ago of hiring goons to blind her with lye. She was 75.
Then known as Linda Riss, she became a household name in 1959 when she was attacked on the street and her married ex-lover, lawyer Burt Pugach, was arrested for orchestrating the ambush.
Linda, blinded in one eye and scarred, became a fixture on the front page of the city papers, her pretty face always obscured by dark sunglasses.
Burt was convicted of masterminding the attack and spent 14 years in prison, where he indulged his obsession with Linda by writing her love letters.
After his release, he divorced his first wife, began wooing Linda, and proposed to her on live television.
They had been married for more than 20 years when he was in trouble again, charged with threatening a mistress who jilted him by warning he would make it "1959 all over again."
He beat the rap with a little help from ever-loyal Linda, who took the stand and explained that heart surgery she had in 1990 -- which left her blind in her other eye -- led him to cheat.
"I was not able to have sex with my husband. I was so terribly weakened I was at death's door," she told the court.
Their bizarre romance later became the basis for a well-received documentary, "Crazy Love."
?Did they love each other?? said Dan Klores, who directed ?Crazy Love.?
?I think they needed each other. Some definition of love, maybe, but certainly not the traditional view," he said.
"Each of them fulfilled a big need in the other: She had to be cared for and he tried to rationalize what he did. She needed to be viewed as the beautiful little teenage girl that she was?and he represented the one man that still wanted her.?
Burt Pugach, 85, told the Associated Press that Linda went into the hospital on Dec. 26 and died Tuesday. She was being laid to rest Thursday in a crypt where he plans to be entombed when he dies.
"I don't know how I'm going to go one without her," he said. "This was a fairytale romance."
He maintained he had nothing to do with the 1959 attack.
"If I had told anyone to throw lye at her, would she have married me?" he asked the AP. "A monster does that."
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