GLADYS
MEDALIE HELDMAN
Country: USA
Born: May 13, 1922
in New York, New York
Died: July 2003
Gladys Heldman was a prime mover in the stimulation and development
of American tennis through the pages of World Tennis magazine,
which she founded and served as editor and publisher. The magazine first
appeared in 1953, having been published originally for five years under
the name Houston Tennis. (She sold the magazine to CBS Publications
in 1972.)
Heldman was a key organizer of the Virginia Slims Tennis Tour, the first allwomen’s
tennis circuit. Rushing in “where wise men feared to tread,” Heldman
underwrote the 1959 National (U.S.) Indoor Championships when the United States
Lawn Tennis Association
decided that such an undertaking for the Association was financially unsound.
The entire Heldman family—husband Julius, and daughters Julie and
Carrie—has played a prominent role in American tennis. Daughter Julie,
ranked number 2 in the United States in 1968 and 1969, fifth in the world in
1969. She won the Maccabiah Games Singles, Doubles with Marilyn Aschner, and
Mixed Doubles with Ed Rubinoff
in 1969.
Phi Beta Kappa and first in her class at Stanford University (BA 1942), with
a masters degree at the University of California Berkeley (1943), Heldman was,
herself, a promising tennis star. She ranked No. 1 in the State of Texas and
No. 2 in the Southwest in 1954, and that same year played in the early rounds
at Wimbledon.
In 1979, Heldman was elected to the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
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