Sport: Tomboy Turns Pro

At 14, Alice Marble could play baseball as well as her brothers. She shagged flies after school for the slick San Francisco Seals. “Look here,” said her brother Dan, a San Francisco policeman, “baseball is no game for a girl. Look at Helen Wills and Helen Jacobs. Why not lead the swell life they do—go round the world in style and just play a few tennis matches every day.” Brother Dan bought his kid sister a racquet, shoved her off to Golden Gate Park’s public courts.

Alice was quick to catch on. She hit a tennis ball like a man, and nearly as hard. Within two years she had won the California girls’ championship. At that point a keen eye noted her. Eleanor Tennant, a graduate of Golden Gate Park nearly two decades before, had been third ranking U. S. woman player when she turned teacher in 1920. Now she was the foremost woman tennis coach in the U. S. Though she got $1,000 a month from Cinemactress Marion Davies, Teacher Tennant offered to take on young Marble for nothing.

More than that, Miss Tennant invited good-natured, green-eyed Tomboy Alice to share her Los Angeles home, became her teacher, manager, mother, mouthpiece. Under her guidance, Alice Marble developed into the hardest-hitting woman player in the U. S. Just as Brother Dan had suggested, she went “round the world in style.” She was presented to England’s Queen Mary after winning the Wimbledon championship last year; she became a nationally famed designer of women’s tennis togs, a football commentator, women’s-club lecturer, a nightclub singer.

Last week 26-year-old Alice Marble, four-time U. S. Singles champion, undefeated in 28 consecutive tournaments, did what most perennial tennis champions eventually do nowadays, if they get a chance: signed a contract to play for pay. She will devote four and a half months to the promotion of Wilson tennis racquets, will play in 50 U. S. cities, starting in Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden Jan. 6. Her fellow troupers: Don Budge, Bill Tilden and a co-ed partner (probably Mary Hardwick, England’s No. 1 ranking player). Her first year’s guarantee: $25,000 and a cut of the gate.

Miss Tennant, who goes everywhere that Alice goes, to coach, counsel or console, will go too. Said she last week: “I will be surprised if Alice makes less than $50,000.”