Queen of the Court — (not Serena) Suzanne Lenglen
by Anita Rosenberg
Born in Paris — weak and frail with chronic asthma, her father thought it would be a good idea for her to compete in tennis to gain strength. In 1919, she played in front of 8,000 spectators at Wimbledon — including King George V and Queen Mary. She won. Tennis player, Suzanne Lenglen (1899–1938) garnered much attention in her time for showing bare forearms and short skirts. She even shocked fans by sipping brandy between sets. As the first major female tennis star to turn professional, she was paid $50K by American entrepreneur Charles C. Pyle to tour the United States. During this tour in 1926, my great-uncle Manuel Rosenberg sketched and interviewed her at the Ohio National Guard Armory for the Cincinnati Post newspaper.
My Great-Uncle Manuel Rosenberg was the chief artist for the Scripps-Howard chain of newspapers and the art editor of the Cincinnati Post from 1918–1930. He was recognized as “one of the greatest newspaper sketch artists of his time.” In the first three decades of this century, my Uncle Manuel interviewed and sketched almost every famous personality including actors Groucho Marx, Theda Bara, Rudolph Valentino, Liberace, and Debbie Reynolds — opera stars Caruso and Galli-Curci — spiritualist Swami Yogananda — and even attended a seance with Harry Houdini. Manuel knew and sketched every U.S. President from Theodore Roosevelt to Warren G. Harding and Dwight D. Eisenhower. He even had audiences with most of the kings, popes, and dictators of Europe. His personal collection of over 20,000 personally autographed celebrity drawings — was the largest collection ever. According to Manuel, “The artist will find people whom he sketches glad to sign his pictures. Thus in a short time, one can accumulate a most interesting collection of souvenirs.”
My quest to learn more about my great-uncle Manuel Rosenberg began with his collection of 300 original drawings in the Rare Archive Library at Columbia University. On a rainy day in 2016, the plan was to view my Uncle Manuel’s artwork — take a quick peek — and then head off to lunch. I had no idea I would spend the next five days immersed in his boxes of drawings from opening to closing of the library.
Within that historic collection of sketches, newspaper clippings, and interview notes were these drawings of champion tennis player Suzanne Lenglen. Having lived one hundred years ago, she was a trailblazer in the sport of tennis. Through my uncle’s drawings, I wanted to reintroduce her to a new generation.
I regret that cannot delight you with a drawing by Susanne Lenglen, the Worlds foremost tennis star. Susanne like most French stars is very temperamental and during our conversation, she hinted that she too could draw, “un peau”. So I struck up a bargain with her. She was to make a drawing for me and in exchange, I would give her the original I drew of her. “Bien.”
All was well and agreed upon and Suzanne in her best English amused me while sketching with a few snappy stories that were just a bit too risqué to print when she suddenly asked what I might do with the drawing. “Ah, I do not draw well enough for publication,” she hastily informed me — and nothing — nobody — not even her burly masseur who handled her always minus silk gloves could get her off her temperamental determination not to show her “lack of ability”.
Manuel Rosenberg — Wikipedia page
*Anita is currently working on a visually exciting reimagining of the 1920s through the lens of her Uncle Manuel Rosenberg‘s extraordinary life.