Tennis Hits the Books
Alice Marble is one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of tennis. She was a tennis superstar whose dominance on the court put her in a position to hobnob with some of the biggest names in Hollywood and society. Her private life is the subject of legend and sometimes venture well past the mark of “too good to be true.” The mystery only increases her allure.
The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery is the product of an ambitious examination of Marble’s life by Robert Weintraub. He is thorough and meticulous in his research as evidenced by the bibliography that runs a full 21 pages. He also draws extensively from two books written by Marble, The Road to Wimbledon and Courting Danger. Paradoxically, Marble is sometimes the most unreliable source to her own story.
Marble got her start in tennis on the courts of the Golden Gate Park and was one of the pioneers of tennis players to emerge from outside the ecosystem of the idle rich. That hardscrabble environment likely contributed to her play, which was a unique brand of aggression and athleticism. She stood in sharp contrast to what Weintraub calls the “artificially trained players” of the well-monied country clubs.
Marble’s story is inextricably linked with that of Eleanor “Teach” Tennant, the coach who brought her to prominence. In fact, The Divine Miss Marble is the most detailed biography of Tennant I have come across to date. Tennant provided tennis instruction and a disciplined training regimen that propelled Marble to greatness. She also served as her business manager and the initial connection to the elites of Beverly Hills. Their relationship was complex and the subject of much speculation. Weintraub himself neatly summarized it using the contemporary concept of “co-dependency.”
Marble was a fashion icon and even launched her own line of clothing at one point in time. The fashionista media wrote glowingly about her designs, and clothiers competed for her attention and rights to attach her name to their own work. Surprisingly, she was also one of the first players to wear shorts while competing in tennis, which was scandalous. The shorts were more revealing than the contemporary tennis dresses revealed considerable more of her legs.
The Divine Miss Marble details the struggles of Marble as she emerged from poverty in the pre-Open “shamateurism” era. She frequently ran afoul of the USLTA’s amateurism policies. In fact when she was retained by the Waldorf hotel as a lounge singer, the USLTA threatened to revoke her amateur status. It was no surprise that she was one of the first players to sign a professional contract for an exhibition tour along side Don Budge and Bill Tilden.
The most enigmatic part of Marble’s life is associated with World War II. She was deemed unfit to serve by the US Military due to a tuberculosis diagnosis earlier in life, but ironically was engaged as a public fitness coach. She claimed a wartime marriage, but researchers can turn up no evidence of the union or even the man she claimed to have wed. Her book Courting Danger recounts even more fantastic stories from that phase of her life.
Arguably Marble’s most impactful writing was the editorial she penned for American Lawn Tennis lobbying the USLTA to permit Althea Gibson to compete in the United States Championships, the tournament that later became the US Open. The Divine Miss Marble provides a richness of historical context that illuminates why Marble would feel so compelled to take up her cause. Marble herself was not a fan of the insular culture of the USLTA.
Alice Marble was instrumental in the development of the teen-aged Billie Jean King. In addition to tactics and technique, King credits her time with Marble as instilling a sense of what it was like to compete and win on some of the sports most hallowed grounds.
Alice Marble is firmly ensconced as the best female tennis player in history up until that time. She was a force of nature, but in life was consistently swimming upstream against powerful currents that shaped both her life and destiny. The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery is the most comprehensive resource for understanding one of the most influential and transformative tennis players to ever play the game.
 | The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery |
