Gladys Heldman

And Billie Jean King would not let that stand.

So she went to this woman named Gladys Heldman.

And I love Gladys Heldman as a character.

She's a former tennis player who became the founder of this magazine called World Tennis.

And she's just like the Kris Jenner of women's tennis.

$1 is all you need to be a professional.

So that's what they did.

And the contract was with Gladys Heldman and Virginia Slims.

She's the most transcendent female tennis player of all time from any nation, certainly from the United States.

And what she did in terms of playing such a pivotal role in launching a women's tour in 1970 that was started by the promoter Gladys Heldman, and helped tremendously by Joe Coleman of Phillip Morris, who got the sponsorship from Virginia Slims, and a, a tour was born.

And, and by 1971 they had a full-fledged circuit.

Uh, Billie Jean in, in so, in multifaceted roles is a great champion and just a great women's leader.

I would say Tilden is high on the list.

Jack Kramer must be high on the list, because he, he wore more hats, and did, a- a- again, multifaceted achiever in terms of great amateur champion who turns pro and dominates pro tennis.

Goes on to become the, the, uh, first exec- uh, uh, pro promoter.

He promoted the tour after he played it, and that was c- critical.

It was the year, Clare, in which the first seeds of the revolution were planted.

And we hear often about the Original Nine, a group of nine players, including Billie Jean King and Rosie Casals, who signed symbolic $1 contracts with a promoter called Gladys Heldman, and then competed in an unsanctioned Virginia Slims Invitational event in Houston.

Uh, not without some risk because it didn't go down well with all the tennis authorities of the time, to say the least.

That led to a circuit of events in 1971, and then to the formation of the WTA tour in 1973.