Howdy. Been up to my ears, booking flights for Roland Garros and Wimbledon, editing a Tennis Life column, doing expense reports for my recent tournament trips. Why have I always hated – and put off - doing expense reports, when I’m being reimbursed for spending my own money? You’d think people would leap right into doing their expenses after a trip, but I have yet to meet someone who does. It's one of the great mysteries of life.
Because of a conflict, I was unable to attend a preview the other night for the HBO sports documentary, Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer. In my stead, the magazine was represented by our ranking expert on women’s tennis (and world-class bird watcher and hiker), Associate Editor “Tennessee” Tony Lance.
Tony reports that the turnout of tennis journalists was impressive – among others, he bumped into Jon Wertheim of SI Mailbag fame, Johnette Howard, Newsday columnist and author of The Rivalry, Frank DeFord, author and Sports Illustrated legend, Andre Christopher, editor of Tennis Week, Cindy Shmerler frequent Tennis contributor. The guest of honor couldn’t make it – apparently, BJK’s father is ill and she was at his bedside.
After woofing down some meatball and dumpling appetizers (the joint had a fully stocked open bar; how come it’s always just beer or wine when I go to these things?), Tony settled in to watch the 60-minute special. At the end, the audience rose in a spontaneous standing ovation. Tony says it was that good.
Billed as an exploration of the “personal and professional life of the landmark athlete and activist”, the documentary will debut on April 26th on HBO, with other playdates to follow. Apparently, the producers relied on a very small cast of commentators on King’s life; they included Billie’s parents and brother, former major league pitcher Randy Moffit, her partner and World Team Tennis officer Illona Kloss (a South African who played a fetching serve-and-volley game back in the day), her former husband Larry King and Chris Evert.
Tony told me there’s tons of exclusive family footage from Billie’s childhood and teen years, and some great stuff from Wimbledon the year Billie won the doubles there with Karen Susman. “There were things I’d never seen before,” Tony said, “And I thought I had seen it all.”
Apparently, the documentary isn’t fawning, and it doesn’t hype BJK as, in Ted Tinling’s famous construction, “Madame Superstar.”
“The story is sufficient,” Tony said. “What struck me most was how the struggle to establish women’s tennis, the general struggle for women’s liberation, all that basically paralleled what was going on in Billie’s life. It’s a very frank and honest treatment. It even has Billie admitting that in the 1970’s, she was ‘a mess.’”
It's hard for me to imagine anything on Billie Jean breaking new ground unless it was a revisionist treatment, challenging her iconic status. That would have to be something along the lines of that Ira Berkow New York Times column of a few years ago, in which he accused BJK of being a puppet of, and mouthpiece for, to tobacco industry (the Virginia Slims connection).
To me, the further you go afield from the game, the less interesting BJK becomes, and lest you think that's some kind of slight to her real - or presumed - impact as an "activist", I feel the same way about Muhammad Ali.
I'd love to know how you all feel about BJK. Is she "just another" former champ? A revered icon whose life and times resonate with extra-athletic significance? Do you love the main focus of her life these days, World Team Tennis? Wither Billie, in the pantheon of your own mind?