The Wimbledon Final That Never Was – Sydney Wood excerpt

Written by: Staff on 18th November 2011

The Wimbledon Final That Never Was - Sydney Wood excerpt |

The following is an excerpt from the newly-released book THE WIMBLEDON FINAL THAT NEVER WAS by Sidney Wood ($15.95, New Chapter Press) available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0942257847/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=tennisgrancom-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0942257847&adid=02ABCPC16RGAMRWDSGQ9&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldtennismagazine.com%2F)

Shooting it up with Gary Cooper

Apart from being an inveterate tennis devotee,

Gary Cooper, the Academy-award winning tough-guy

actor, was an enthusiastic gunslinger. His ravishing wife Rocky

wasn’t bad either, having been numero uno in California skeet

shooting for five straight years. So it was no surprise, visiting

them in Tucson, to have Gary march out a brand new pair

of pearl-handled pistols and head for an orange grove to try

them out.

A Coke bottle was set up on a branch, and Gary and Rocky

fired away without success. I was never better than a poorish

pistoleer so when Gary handed over one of the guns, I didn’t

bother to take aim and fired away from the hip. My first shot

blasted the bottle to smithereens. Gary and Rocky were agape,

but I just blew into the muzzle and handed the gun back to

Gary and was smart enough to refuse all demands to repeat

my Calamity Jane performance.

The trip wasn’t a total success because I was less lucky

in purchasing a pair of hard-starched Levis to go bareback

riding, the only way I’d done it in my earlier Arizona homesteading

days. But that was ten years before, and I ate dinner

standing up.

In those days (late 1930s and early 1940s), Hollywood was

a relatively small community where everyone in the film industry

and its fringes knew one another on a nickname basis.

My mining offices were on Sunset Boulevard, just where the

then existing Beverly Hills bridle path began, and since my

street level co-tenant was Jack Morgan’s much-in-vogue Cock

‘n Bull restaurant, I had quite few visitors around lunch hour.

One day, Gary came by and wished he hadn’t. Our office

staff was about to have a coffee-break softball game on a

neighboring lot and Gary came along. He was handed the bat

and proceeded to hit a slow grounder toward first base. When

the first baseman (our bookkeeper), whose name I mercifully

omit, saw the God-like Cooper descending on him, he completely

blew his cool and hurled the ball at Gary, blasting him

right between the eyes. Gary went down like a felled oak, and

we thought for a moment that it was bad news. Thankfully,

he wasn’t seriously hurt, but I doubt if either our demoralized

accountant or Coop had any inclination to play baseball for

a spell.

When Gary later starred as Lou Gehring in Pride of the

Yankees, I asked him if he were ever haunted by his earlier

beaning. He just gave me one of those quirk-mouth Cooper

looks.

When my first wife Edith and I would pick up Gary and

Rocky (a girlhood schoolmate of Edith’s) to go out for dinner

and dancing, the ladies would repair to the boudoir to

prink up; and Gary, who was no boozer but appreciated male

conviviality, would pour us a healthy belt of scotch and say,

“Here’s to sin.” This was unfailingly the same Gary you see on

film and always game to try anything that looked like fun.

One time, when a couple of our new, brightly emblazoned

Budge-Wood Service trucks (yes, that was my Sidney Wood,

Don Budge Laundry, etc. enterprise) were delivered to our

Manhattan plant, Gary happened to be visiting me. I said,

“Let’s go,” so the boys loaded up one of the trucks and Gary

and I took off, with Gary making front door deliveries to some

incredulous clients.

Topics: 10sballs.com, Sydney Wood, Wimbledon

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