SR-02-12-2013-13AFebruary 12, 2013
CITY CLERK'S OFFICE - MEMORANDUM
To: City Council
From: Councilmember McKeown
Date: February 12, 2013
13 -A: Request of Councilmember McKeown that the Council direct staff to explore
ways in which the memory of Santa Monica native and world- famous tennis
pioneer Gussy Moran might be commemorated at our municipal tennis
facilities.
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February 12, 2013
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Gussie Moran, a Tennis Star Who Wore a Daring Wimbledon
Outfit, Dies at 89
Gussie Moran, who as a ranked American tennis player in 1949 caused an international
stir and gained worldwide fame for competing at Wimbledon while wearing a short
skirt and lace - trimmed underwear, died on Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles. She
was 89.
She had recently been hospitalized with cancer, Jack Neworth, a tennis writer and
friend, said.
Moran s daring outfit worn in a bastion of English propriety won her more renown than
her tennis playing, though she was ranked as high as No. 4 in the United States, won the
United States women s indoor championship in 1949 and reached the quarterfinals that
year at Wimbledon.
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year was 1951, not 1952. (The tournament's name was changed to the United States
Open in 1968, when professionals were first allowed to compete.) Because of an editing
error, the obituary also misidentified. WMGM in New York, where Ms. Moran was at
one time a sportscaster. It was a radio station, not a television station.
Gussle Moran, Tennls Star, 0les at 89 — N"nors.com 1124/13 32:48 PM
home of Wimbledon, accused Moran of "bringing vulgarity and sin into tennis."
Although Moran did not wear the lace panties for the rest of the tournament, the sensa-
tion they caused made her one of the biggest attractions in women s tennis. She made a
cameo appearance in the 1952 sports movie "Pat and Mike" with Spencer Tracy and
Katharine Hepburn. The newspapers reported on her romantic life. And her underwear,
soon christened "Gussie panties;' started a trend. Women began taking to the court in
lace panties, T- shirts and plunging necklines.
"Gussie was the Anna Kournikova of her time," the former tennis champion Jack
Kramer told The Los Angeles Times in 2002, referring to the Russian star and sometime
model. "Gussie was a beautiful woman with a beautiful body. If Gussie had played in
the era of television, no telling what would have happened. Because, besides everything
else, Gussie could play."
But there were negative repercussions, too. Wimbledon banned short dresses from the
tournament. By 1950 there were grumblings among the tennis elite that the attention
Moran had received was unmerited, in light of her being ranked seventh among Ameri-
can women at the time. In 1951 the United States Lawn Tennis Association banned lace
panties and low - neckline attire from its tournament in Forest Hills, Queens, that would
become the United States Open.
Tinling had to resign as official Wimbledon host and was not to be welcomed back until
1983, seven years before his death. In the meantime he had designed tennis wear for
players like Chris Evert, Evonne Goolagong, Martina Navratilova and Virginia Wade.
Tennis wear evolved as well, rendering Moran s outfit relatively tame by today's stan-
dards.
"Gussie wasn't a revolutionary," Tinling once told The Times. "She wore the dress for
two reasons. She wanted to look good, and the shorter dresses allowed her to move
more freely on the court "
Gertrude Agusta Moran was born on Sept. 8, 1923, in Santa Monica, Calif., and grew up
in a grand Victorian house overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Her father, Harry, was a
sound technician at Universal Studios, and her mother, Emma, was a housewife.
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ESPN - Photos - Recalling Gussle Moran, the gorgeous and tragic
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Friend's love kept tennis star Gussy Moran in the game to the end
Everyone deserves life with dignity in their final
years, whether you dug ditches or played tennis on
the world's most famous stages.
Gertrude "Gussy" Moran did the latter. She also got
that deserved dignity because of the extraordinary
kindness of a woman possibly as quirky as Moran
was herself — this other woman wears a $15,000
Rolex that she painted purple with nail polish to hide
the gold. .
American tctmis player Gemude'Gussie' Moran
snetches... (Keym,e, / Getty Image,)
We shall call her Levey Jurgen, because that's what
she will allow us to call her. Nothing else. No bending. No exceptions. The Los Angeles ten-
nis community knows who she is and everybody else only needs to know that her story is
true and exceptional.
Twelve years ago, Jurgens got an email from Mark Winters, an official at the Southern Cali-
fornia Tennis Assn. Winters knew that Jurgen, then in her late 40s, was a woman of means
and somebody who played tennis, taught it and cherished the idea of preserving its memo-
ries. The email said that Gussy Moran, the famed "Gorgeous Gussy" of Wimbledon lace -
panties fame, was within 36 hours of being evicted from her small apartment near Para-
mount Studios in Los Angeles.
"Can you help ?" the email asked
Jurgen was there in 30 minutes and has been back to the small apartment with the "1/ 2" in
its address thousands of times in those 12 years. Her last trips were Thursday and Friday,
when she cleaned it out for the final time. Moran, 89, had died there Wednesday night.
"There is a big hole in my heart;' Jurgens says, 'but being with Gussy was worth every
ounce of energy I used and every penny I spent."
Moran was written off years ago by many in the Los Angeles tennis community, especially
by those who didn't care enough to make the effort to really know her, as a hopeless
recluse. She was a world -class tennis player in her prime -- she got to one doubles final at
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