I was inspired to read Billie Jean King’s autobiography, All In, after listening to a terrific interview with eighty-year-old BJK on the Wiser Than Me podcast.
Other than the highlights, I did not know much about BJK, being a self-absorbed teenager when she was tearing up the courts and the tabloids. But what a life and legacy.
A product of the public tennis courts in Long Beach, CA, BJK won the 1961 Wimbleton Ladies doubles title at seventeen years-old. Like all the participants, she played as an amateur. USLTA did not recognize professional tennis players until 1968, by which time BJK had won five major singles championships but struggled to pay her rent.
Even when tennis changed from a hobby sport to a professional one, the women’s prize money was substantially less than the men’s. One of BJK’s signature achievements was the establishment of The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) which gave the women a united platform from which to negotiate.
The other big BJK moment was the 1973 Bobby Riggs “Battle of the Sexes” match, which in hindsight seems silly, but the stakes for legitimizing women’s sports were huge. Title IX, the federal law that mandated equal opportunities for men and women at federally funded institutions, only passed in 1972, and women still had miles to go for equal prize money and equitable treatment.
Furthermore, Bobby had already decisively defeated top player Margaret Court in an earlier exhibition match despite being twenty-four years older and two inches shorter than she. The pressure on BJK was tremendous. She trained exhaustively and beat Bobby 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.
In attendance at the Riggs match as well as every other major BJK match was BJK’s husband, Larry King. The two met in college and married in 1965. Larry was an early and staunch supporter of BJK’s career and later a partner in every BJK initiative and enterprise. In 1972, she had a short-lived affair with hairdresser Marilyn Barnett, which became public only when Marilyn sued for damages almost ten years later. BJK won the galimony lawsuit, but all her sponsors dropped her immediately. She estimated that she lost $500,000 of endorsements and marketing deals overnight and was the only major tennis player in the world without a sportswear contract. BJK was outed in the most public way possible, but fearful of further retaliation, she stayed married. She and Larry finally divorced in 1987. Larry remarried, and BJK and her wife, Ilana Kloss, are godparents to his two children.
With her playing days over, true to form, BJK is as active as ever. She is an advocate for women athletes, the LGBTQ+ community, gun control, and human rights. She is past member of the board of the Elton John AIDS Foundation and of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition.
A winner of a read!