Books

The late Marble, America’s top woman tennis player in the late 1930s, had a singularly eventful life. Writing with former SPUR magazine features editor Dale Ann Leatherman, she tells of her roller-coaster court career, shepherded by her tyrannical mentor, Eleanor Tennant. A Californian and beautiful, Marble was taken up by the movie community and, as a frequent guest at William Randolph Hearst’s castle, met the big stars, becoming close friends with Carole Lombard and Clark Gable. Raped at age 15, she avoided sexual situations until an affair with a Swiss banker, which Tennant broke up. During WW II she married an Army officer who was killed in Germany shortly after she had miscarried their child. Marble then became a spy, and by assignment renewed the affair with her Swiss lover, who was a suspected conduit for Nazi money sent out of the Third Reich. But her mission was thwarted by a double agent. There is nary a dull moment in this fast-moving, glamorous tale.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Marble, who died in 1990, is probably not well known today, but in international tennis and social circles of the 1930s, she was in demand.

Film star Carole Lombard and tennis star Alice Marble in the 1930s

She was the top-ranked female tennis player in America from 1936-1940, winning five Wimbledon and 12 U.S. Open titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. Her public life was filled with success. However, her private life was another matter. Fatherless at six, raped at 15, and diagnosed with tuberculosis at 19 right at the threshold of her tennis career, Marble thought she had finally found happiness with her marriage and pregnancy. But within months of one another, she miscarried due to an auto accident and lost her husband in World War II. Amazingly undaunted, Marble used this loss to spur herself into spying for the U.S. Army, seeking out a past lover in order to learn the names of high-ranking Nazis. The anecdotes will satisfy celebrity gossip mavens; Marble’s hair-raising exploits as a spy will please those who like Countess Aline and Beryl Markham; and the inherent melodrama of this remarkable woman’s life will lure lovers of romance.
– Rosellen Brewer, Monterey Cty. Free Libs., Seaside, Cal.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A tennis champ from the Thirties serves up memoirs, which include on-court action, movie-star friends, and intrigue. The jockish Marble was the mascot of a San Francisco baseball team until her brother gave her a tennis racquet and she found her true gift. Under the tutelage of Teach Tennant, coach to the stars, Marble became a national-caliber player, but on a trip to Europe, she collapsed on the court. She was diagnosed as suffering from TB and told she would never play again. But encouraged by Teach and another of Teach’s pupils, Carole Lombard, Marble learned to walk, then play, again. She went on to win Forest Hills in 1936, and then, after a long losing streak, hit her stride in the late Thirties, winning all the major titles in both singles and doubles until the advent of WW II put an end to the competitive tennis circuit. Her first romance, with a dashing Swiss banker named Hans, ended in disaster when Teach insisted that love and tennis couldn’t mix. Marble was approached by US Army Intelligence and asked to go to Switzerland, where perhaps she could reconnect with her old beau Hans, suspected of aiding the Nazis in hiding their wealth. She went to teach clinics in Geneva and, sure enough, Hans contacted her; within days, she moved into his chateau. Best of luck, he drunkenly told her not only about the treasure in his vault, but where the key was hidden. She sneaked into the vault, photographed the conveniently available ledgers, and escaped–after a car chase and a shootout. (Sixteen pages of b&w photos) — Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Caribbean Escapes

A luxury travel coffee table book, Caribbean Escapes explores exclusive travel options in 25 Caribbean destinations and to more than 100 distinctive resorts. It is a compendium of articles by 20 outstanding travel writers who specialize in the Caribbean, accented by the images of award-winning photographer Greg Johnston. The book also provides informative features on the region’s best golf, spa, adventure, wedding and honeymoon locations, shopping and more.

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