Nadia Comaneci's year living in Montreal

Stefu and Comaneci in Montreal in 1990

   Romanian sensation Nadia Comaneci was 14 when she absolutely blew up the Montreal Olympics in 1976 but lesser known is the fact that she returned to live here for a while around the time she turned 30.
   After her amazing Olympic performance, Comaneci returned to a miserable life under the reign of dictator Ceausescu who denied her visas to compete outside of the country, supposedly because he was jealous of her fame.
   On November 25, 1989 -with the help of $5,000 and Constantin Panait, a Romanian American roofer and father of 4 - she snuck into Hungary. They went to the States where journalists accused her of being a homewrecker. She claimed that he was beating her up and keeping her enslaved, along with his wife Maria's help.
   Comaneci arrived in Montreal in March 1990 and stayed with Robert Miller and his Romanian wife Margaret Miller for about three weeks in the old Charles Bronfman Westmount mansion. (Robert Miller is a reclusive Montreal billionaire known for giving Money to the Quebec Liberal Party. He's generous to friends, owns the West island based Future Electronics and has never been seen in a published photograph. Miller keeps his photos locked up in the basement because he's scared of kidnapping, even though his two sons - one brainy and ambitious, other less so - are adults. He's around 70, health conscious, wants to be cryogenically revived later if possible and had a nose job about six years ago.
   Nadia Comaneci then moved upstairs from Alexandru Stefu, who owned a triplex in Rosemont. He was a fellow Romanian immigrant and rugby coach. He corroborated Comaneci's claims that she had been beten by Panait.
   Comaneci scored a contract to be spokeswoman for underwear-making Jockey Canada but she was flabby and overweight and was an odd sight on buses dressed rocking the Communist Bloc flabby, pale, too-much-makeup look.
   I was told that she lived in Rosemount on Louis Hebert near Beaubien although I've not seen evidence for a Stefu around there in the Lovells directory.
   While living in Montreal she traveled often. She went to Reno where she hosted a live show called The Mystery and Majesty of Nadia.
   She visited Pope John Paul II and attended a Quebecois gala where she received a two-minute standing ovation. She was gym buddies with then-vedette Veronique Beliveau.
   Comaneci was supposed to write a book with a local author Georges-Hebert Germain, but never did. She could speak a little French, but her English was good even back then.
Stefu, 47, drowned while scuba diving and spear fishing alone in Lake St. Francis near Valleyfield on Labour Day 1991. 

   But by then Comaneci had developed a romance with gymnast Bart Connor and moved to Florida probably by that time.
   She now lives with Connor in his hometown of Oklahoma City.