No. Judge Judy is married to Judge Jerry Sheindlin, a former Judge of the Supreme Court of New York.
Judge Judy
Judge Judy was born Judith Susan Blum on October 21, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York. She attended American University in Washington D.C., graduating in 1963. She continued her education at American University's Washington College of Law, where she was the only woman in a class of 126 students. She finished her law degree at New York Law School in New York City, where she moved with her first husband Ronald Levy in 1964.
Judy's professional success, though, was being achieved at a high private price. In 1976, she left her first husband after 12 years of marriage. She struggled to be present for her children, even while handling her heavy workload of emotionally draining cases in the family courts.
Three months after her divorce, Judy met attorney Jerry Sheindlin; within a year, they were married, in 1978. By 1982, Judith Sheindlin's growing reputation for assertiveness in court inspired Mayor Ed Koch to appoint her to a seat as a judge in family court just six months later. As a judge, she continued to blend sympathy for the underdog with withering contempt for the arrogant or devious. Four years later, she was promoted to the position of supervising judge in the Manhattan division of the family court.
In 1990, Judy's father, Murray Blum, died at age 70; his death took a remarkable toll on her marriage to Jerry. They divorced, and a year later, feeling the tug of family ties—aside from her two children and his three, they now had two grandchildren—along with the tug of terrible loneliness, Judy and Jerry remarried. Afterward, Judge Sheindlin settled firmly into a renewed mission to dispense justice firmly and fairly.
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Judge Joseph Wapner
Joseph Wapner was born on November 19, 1919, in Los Angeles California to Jewish parents who immigrated to the United States from Romania. He attended Hollywood High School.
When Wapner was a student at Hollywood High School during the 1930s, he spotted a fellow student who happened to be “the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.” A friend introduced the young beauty to the future judge, and he asked her out on a date. The girl introduced herself as Judy Turner, but the world remembers her better as movie bombshell Lana Turner.
Unfortunately for Wapner, the romance got off to a rocky start. He asked Turner to join him for a Coke at a neighborhood drugstore, only to realize that he didn’t have any money in his pockets. Turner ended up footing the bill. After that debacle, Wapner’s chances weren’t so good, but he did manage to get one more date. He later told The New Yorker, “The following Saturday, we double-dated at a dance. That was the beginning, middle, and end of our acquaintance. She dropped me.”
Wapner served in the South Pacific during World War II. He was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star during his time in Cebu. He was honorable discharged from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant.
While on Cebu, an island in the Philippines, he was wounded by shrapnel from a grenade, according to the Washington Post. He also risked his life to save a wounded soldier from machine gun fire, according to the Post.
Before heading to serve in World War II, Wapner attended the University of Southern California, graduating in 1941. When he returned from the war, he went to USC Law School, graduating in 1948.
He worked as an attorney before being appointed to the Los Angeles Municipal Court as a judge in 1959 by Governor Pat Brown. He moved on to the Los Angeles County Superior Court two years later, and served as a judge there for 18 years before retiring.
Wapner’s career as a TV judge began in 1981, two years after his retirement from the Superior Court bench.
Wapner died on February 26, 2017. He is survived by his wife of 70 years, Mickey, and his two sons, David and Fred. His daughter, Sarah, died of heart disease in 2015 at the age of 56.
Both of his sons became attorneys, and his son Fred also became a judge in Los Angeles County in 1997. David has worked as an environmental consultant in Israel. Wapner and his wife met in 1946 while he was in law school at the University of Southern California and she as a journalist, according to People.