From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Madeleine Blais, the
dramatic and colorful story of legendary tennis star and
international celebrity, Alice Marble In August 1939, Alice Marble
graced the cover of Life magazine, photographed by the famed Alfred
Eisenstaedt. She was a glamorous worldwide celebrity, having that
year won singles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles tennis
titles at both Wimbledon and the US Open, then an unprecedented
feat. Yet today one of America’s greatest female athletes and
most charismatic characters is largely forgotten. Queen of the
Court places her back on center stage. Born in 1913, Marble grew up
in San Francisco; her favorite sport, baseball. Given a tennis
racket at age 13, she took to the sport immediately, rising to the
top with a powerful, aggressive serve-and-volley style unseen in
women’s tennis. A champion at the height of her fame in the late
1930s, she also designed a clothing line in the off-season and sang
as a performer in the Sert Room of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New
York to rave reviews. World War II derailed her amateur tennis
career, but her life off the court was, if anything, even more
eventful. She wrote a series of short books about famous
women. She turned professional and joined a pro tour during
the War, entertaining and inspiring soldiers and civilians
alike. Ever glamorous and connected, she had a part in the
1952 Tracy and Hepburn movie Pat and Mike, and she played tennis
with the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Marlene Dietrich, and her great
friends, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. However, perhaps her
greatest legacy lies in her successful efforts, working largely
alone, to persuade the all-white US Lawn Tennis Association to
change its policy and allow African American star Althea Gibson to
compete for the US championship in 1950, thereby breaking
tennis’s color barrier. In two memoirs, Marble also showed
herself to be an at-times unreliable narrator of her own
life, which Madeleine Blais navigates skillfully, especially
Marble’s dramatic claims of having been a spy during World War
II. In Queen of the Court, the author of the bestselling In These
Girls, Hope Is a Muscle recaptures a glittering life story.
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