REMEMBERING GUSSY AND THINKING ABOUT BEING ALL “GUSSIED UP” DURING THIS FRENCH OPEN

Written by: Staff on 4th June 2014

REMEMBERING GUSSY AND THINKING ABOUT BEING ALL "GUSSIED UP" DURING THIS FRENCH OPEN |

Gussy Moran in front of her family home on 1323 Ocean Ave. Photo by Francisco Resendiz.

The following was published in the June 22, 2004, edition of Tennis Week Magazine and entitled “Saved in the Knickers of Time: Tennis Reaches Out to One Of Its Stars” and written by Mark Winters on the classic champion Gussy Moran:

Two years ago, Tennis Week profiled the legendary Gussy Moran and told of the spate of bad luck that had befallen her, including the loss of her home. Now on the 55th anniversary of her rise to stardom for wearing lace panties at Wimbledon, we provide this update.

Gertrude “Gussy” Moran, living in Hollywood, a place full of dreamers hoping to be discovered, has found contentment in going unnoticed. Proud and intelligent, she does not crave the attention one might expect from the woman who was the Anna Kournikova of her time, the woman who, quite possibly, was the inspiration for the phrase “getting gussied up.” Having lost her home in 1986 to foreclosure, she was a landlord’s decision short of eviction from her apartment last October. Indeed, it seemed she had been forgotten, just like the tennis panties she popularized. (When was the last time you saw a women’s player actually wearing tennis panties and not shorts beneath their tennis dresses?)

But people in the Southern California tennis community had not forgotten. Nor are they willing to let her go completely unnoticed.

“The time I spent with Gussy was amazing,” says one friend. “As a student of the game, her memory is phenomenal. I feel blessed to have had a chance to see things through her eyes.”

After learning of Moran’s plight, a small group of benefactors (who wish to remain anonymous) stepped in to insure that she didn’t become a Southern California bag lady. First, they secured her apartment, no easy task since Moran has an affinity for cats and an abundance of cats was what brought her to the brink of eviction last fall. (She is allowed only two cats in her apartment.)

The next step was developing a source of income for Moran, who is not looking for a handout, as the “payback” checks to those who have helped out financially over the years will attest. Moran, a voracious reader and active note writer, doesn’t freely mention that she doesn’t own a car, travels around Los Angeles on the bus and lives month-to-month on Social Security checks. Neither does she call attention to spending much of her income on the cats. On occasion, she boards them at a kennel (another expenditure), to keep her landlord at bay.

This spring, an idea was hatched for finding a way for Moran to take advantage of being “Gorgeous Gussy.” Wearing lace panties on the tennis court — a design ably assisted by the late Ted Tinting — made her famous. Perhaps lace panties could restore a bit of that fame. Appreciation in the tennis memorabilia market, combined with eBay as a means of capitalizing on that market, could make Moran-autographed tennis balls and panties, similar to those she wore in 1949, a realistic source of revenue.

“She is certainly a person who stands out in tennis history,” says Ken Benner, owner of Ken Benner Fine Tennis Antiquities, the only exclusively tennis memorabilia dealer in the United States. “She gets more notoriety for her panties than her career. I specialize in autographed memorabilia. Any item tied to Gussy, such as panties, a racquet (she had her own) or programs from the 1949 Wimbledon or the U.S. Nationals would be quite collectable.”

Benner adds, “When Don Budge was nearing the end of his life a man called him and asked if he would mind signing a few things. He paid Budge tor the day. It worked out well for both Budge and the collector.”

Admitting that the memorabilia market is a bit flat, Benner is optimistic about the market’s future. “It’s hard to say how much a pair of panties would bring,” Benner says, but I would guess somewhere in the $300-$500 range. Obviously, if she signed a lot, the value would come down.”

That Moran has been willing to sign the panties at all — and she has, at her own pace — might come as a shock to those who knew her in her prime. In his autobiography, “The Game: My 40 Years in Tennis,” Jack Kramer says, “Gussy wasn’t looking to be a sexpot; she wanted to be a tennis champion. If anything, she wanted to play down all the lace-panty stuff.”

But having such a storied background, Moran is a tennis asset. She will be 81 in September and understands today’s game. Were opportunities available to her, Moran could provide intriguing insight … if and when she wanted to. “We used to talk every six months,” says former Wimbledon doubles champion and Hall of Famer Gardnar Mulloy, who jovially takes credit for having made Moran famous by practicing with her at Wimbledon in I949 and putting up a lob that made her jump (” … and there were the lace panties.”). “Last fall we were talking, and I don’t know what happened, but she hung up. Then I received a Christmas card. Years ago, when she was working at the Los Angeles Zoo, I offered to help her raise funds for work they were doing and she turned me down. It wasn’t like I was giving her $1,000.”

When asked why more people in the tennis community had not become involved, one of Moran’s benefactors says, “People are aware. But Gussy remembers everything and is very direct. They are afraid of her because of all she knows. They are glad she remains hidden.”

Gussy Moran in front of her family home on 1323 Ocean Ave.

Depending on her mood, Moran will reminisce about the family house on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, Calif., which was built around 1887 in the Queen Anne style. She lived at the city historical landmark location and taught tennis on the backyard court until the property was repossessed. Today, it is a nondescript business office between two chi-chi restaurants: the Ivy and the Shangri-La.

Over the years, Moran has expressed a desire to return to her roots in Santa Monica, the town where she learned to play tennis. “Birdie (Florence) Sutton, Dodo Cheney’s aunt, taught me to play at Lincoln Junior High,” Moran remembers. “She volunteered and she was a great teacher. Some of the girls were already taking lessons from Birdie’s sisters, Violet Sutton Doeg and Ethel Sutton Bruce. I liked the Sutton sisters. They were very stimulating. They all liked to teach, except Dodo’s mother May Sutton Bundy. She just wanted to play. (May Sutton was the first American to win a Wimbledon title.)

What does the future hold for Moran? “Hopefully, she will be able to go on taking care of her cats,” her benefactor says, “along with continuing to read the L.A. Times from cover to cover, each day. She likes watching “Ellen”and the (Jay) Leno show. She saw Andy Roddick or “Saturday Night Live.” Gussy is simply Gussy; an individual the game should have treated much better.”

Topics: Gussy Moran, Mark Winters, Tennis, Tennis News

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June 4, 2014 at 7:33 pm

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ititennis says:

June 4, 2014 at 7:37 pm

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