Born Billie Jean Moffitt on November 22, 1943 in Long Beach, California, United States she is considered to be one of the greatest tennis players and female athletes in history.
In 1965 she married Mr. Lawrence King and since then has been better known under her husband’s family name. Billie Jean King won the triple crown for singles, doubles, and mixed doubles in the US and Britain, and in 1972 received Sports Illustrated magazine’s ‘Sportswoman of the Year’ award. She is also credited with being one of the first female athletes to speak out against sexual inequality in organized sports . In what was billed as The Battle of the Sexes, she defeated 55 years old Bobby Riggs on September 20, 1973 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 before 30,492 spectators in the Houston Astrodome (reportedly the largest ever live audience for tennis) as well as television viewers in 37 countries. She scooped winner-takes-all $100,000 for the match.
Billie Jean King is the only woman to win U.S. singles titles on all 4 surfaces on which it has been played (grass, clay, indoor, and hard.) She is one of only 8 players to hold a singles title in each of the Grand Slam in tennis events. Billie Jean King was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island in 1987. In 1990, Life magazine named her one of the “100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century”.
