Mark Phillips
From Freepedia
There is also an association football (soccer) player named Mark Phillips.
Mark Antony Peter Phillips (born September 22 1948), former Olympic gold-medal-winning horseman, was the first husband of Anne, Princess Royal.
Mark Phillips was educated at Marlborough College and Sandhurst, following which he was commissioned into 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards in 1969.
In 1972, he was a member of the British three-day event team, which won the gold medal at the Munich Olympics. He won the Badminton Horse Trials in 1971 and 1972 riding Great Ovation, in 1974 on Colombus, and in 1981 on Lincoln.
It was through his equestrian activities that he met Princess Anne, and they were married on November 14, 1973 at Westminster Abbey. As is customary, The Queen is believed to have been offered him a peerage on his wedding day, which he turned down. This may also have been the specific wish of Princess Anne, who is also said to have refused The Queen's offer to create her grandchildren Princes and Princesses under letters patent. They thus become the first grandchildren of a sovereign to carry no title.
Since leaving the Army he has continued to style himself Captain Mark Phillips.
According to Kitty Kelley's book The Royals, the royal family required Phillips to provide a semen sample prior to his marriage, to confirm that he was capable of producing an heir. Two children were indeed born to the couple: Peter (born 1977) and Zara (born 1981).
However, rumours of a stormy relationship were rife, and their home life at Gatcombe Park was the subject of much unwanted media attention throughout their marriage. It was alleged in the press that the British royal family had nicknamed Mark Phillips "Fog", because he was so 'thick' (i.e. stupid).
Mark Phillips is the father of an illegitimate daughter named Felicity Tonkin (born 1985) who lives in New Zealand. The girl's mother is Heather Tonkin, an art teacher, and daughter of Dr. Shirley Tonkin, a renowned expert in Sudden Infant Death Syndrome [1]. Heather Tonkin lodged the paternity suit with a court in New Zealand in 1991, and DNA testing later confirmed that Mark Phillips was indeed the father of her child [2].
In 1992 Mark Phillips was divorced from the Princess Royal. In 1997 he remarried, to a woman named Sandy Pflueger. The couple have a daughter named Stephanie (born 1997).
Mark Phillips remains a leading figure in British equestrian circles and serves as Chef d'Equipe of the United States Eventing Team.
Reference
- "Phillips faces paternity suit" (The Times, Friday, 22 March 1991)
- United States Equestrian Federation
Another Mark Phillips, September 13, 1974, is a serial inventor in the realm of digital audio. Mark invented the first portable multi-codec media player and 4 years later invented the widest used audio sampling sytem.
