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Photograph, Bull, Hugh Jones, 1897-1993, Tennis player Fred Perry, Kooyong
... Fred married four times, firstly to Texan actress Helen Vinson. His final marriage to Barbara Riese in 1952 lasted until his death. ...Fred married four times, firstly to Texan actress Helen Vinson. His final marriage to Barbara Riese in 1952 lasted until his death. ...
Tennis champion Fred Perry backhands the ball at Kooyong, 1934
“I didn’t aspire to be a good sport, “champion” was good enough for me.”
Fred Perry (1909-1995) was an English tennis champion who won eight Grand Slam titles including Wimbledon in 1934, 1935, 1936 and the Australian Open in 1934.
Australian sports journalist Alan Trengove remarked, “When Perry walked out to play in his crisp white flannels and matching white blazer, thousands of female hearts missed a beat!”
In 1935, Fred and Dorothy defeated Harry and Nell Hopman in the Wimbledon mixed doubles, and in 1936 they won against America.
Fred started a successful sportswear brand in 1952, which continues today. Fred initially wanted a smoking pipe as the emblem as he was an enthusiastic smoker, but was talked out of it because it wouldn’t appeal to women. The familiar laurel was used instead.
Featured in "Newsworthy: Melbourne in photographs 1933-1936" exhibition at East Melbourne Library, October to December 2023. Exhibition caption by project volunteer Fiona Collyer.
Photographer notations on slide: "F. Perry 1934 Action B42"
Photograph taken at Kooyong, Melbourne, but used in article about Wimbledon 1934.
Published: The Age 7 July 1934 p 13
Published title: "THE FINAL STAGE."
Published caption: F. J. Perry (England)
Trove article identifier: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205525840
Research by project volunteer Fiona Collyer:
Frederick John Perry, 18 May 1909 to 2 Feb 1995
Fred Perry was an English tennis and table-tennis champion. He won eight Grand Slam titles – Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Singles, US Open three times, Australian Open and French Open once each. Fred had natural hand-to eye co-ordination, solid strokes and a devastating forehand that he used soon after the ball bounced. His fierce competitiveness and unabashed confidence gave him the winning edge.
Fred was born in Stockport, Cheshire in 1909. His father, Samuel, a committed socialist, was a cotton spinner who became Secretary of the Co-Operative Party and later a Labour and Co-Operative Party M.P. When Fred was nine years old the family moved to Ealing, London.
In 1929, at the age of 19, Fred became the World Champion at table-tennis – a new international sport at the time. He then decided to switch from table-tennis to tennis after his father told him to stop spending so much time in the smoke-filled halls that held table-tennis events. “You look like death warmed up.” he said.
In the tennis world, Fred was regarded as an upstart intruder, and was the victim of snobbery and prejudice for his working class background. Fred trained with Arsenal Football Club in defiance of the LTA (Lawn Tennis Association) which had a dim view of extra-curricular exercise. His sarcastic toff-baiting call of “very clevah” when an opponent played a good shot and his habit of vaulting over the net whenever he won a match made Fred compelling to watch.
Fred’s prize for winning Wimbledon was a £25 shopping voucher and a replica trophy. There was no on-court presentation; instead it was the custom to offer congratulations in the dressing rooms.
One of the defining moments of Fred’s career came on the day he won Wimbledon for the first time in 1934. He was in the bathtub after the match when he over-heard former tennis player Brame Hillyard, a committee member of the All-England Club talking to Australian runner-up Jack Crawford. “This was the one day when the best man didn’t win.” Hillyard had brought a bottle of champagne and an All-England neck-tie, which was official recognition of Fred now being a member of one of the sporting world’s most elite clubs. Instead of a formal presentation to Fred, Hillyard draped the tie unceremoniously over his seat in the dressing room, handed Jack the bottle of champagne, and left. “Instead of Fred Perry the Champ, I felt like J. Fred Muggs the Chimp!” he said.
When Fred finally went professional, an official at LTA told him he would never wear the club sweater again. Fred said “I made sure he wouldn’t have to worry about that, I sent a sleeve to him as a present!”
In 1935, RKO offered Fred a contract for two movies at $50,000 each, but he had to turn down the offer as it would be in breach of LTA rules and he would lose his amateur status.
In 1935, Fred married American film actress Helen Vinson in Harrison, New York, waking up a registrar at five minutes to midnight to avoid being married on Friday the thirteenth – “To be on the safe side” they said.
In 1936, having been world number one tennis player for three years, Fred quit amateur tennis and moved to America. He joined tennis players Ellsworth Vines and Don Budge on a professional tennis circuit, travelling around US cities and receiving a share of the gate receipts. The All-England Club removed his honorary membership and the tie that went with it – “After all the trouble they’d gone to presenting it to me.” he quipped acidly.
Despite being a three-time Wimbledon champion, Fred was barred from playing on LTA affiliated courts, so when he held his pro-tour through the UK in 1937, the matches had to be played on a portable wooden court, transported around by truck to football grounds.
Fred was co-owner of the Beverley Hills Tennis Club. The exclusive membership consisted of Hollywood actors, directors, writers and studio heads. At the launch of the re-branded club in 1937, Fred played a doubles match with Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx and Ellsworth Vines, which he won with Charlie. Watching on was a Who’s Who of Hollywood actors including Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, the Marx Brothers, Errol Flynn, and Ronald Coleman to name a few. Fred was romantically linked to Hollywood actresses Marlene Dietrich, Jean Harlow, and Bette Davis, and was engaged to British actress Mary Lawson. In 1939, he became a US citizen and in 1942 enlisted in the US Air Force.
Fred wore medical gauze around his right wrist while playing to stop sweat from flowing onto the handle of his racket and to wipe sweat from his brow. He paired up with former footballer Austrian Tibby Wegner to develop an anti-perspirant device. The prototype towelling sweatbands were given free to players at tournaments and proved popular.
In 1952, Fred Perry Sportswear began and the trademark slimfit white polo shirt with embroidered laurel wreath on the left breast was born. The laurel wreath was inspired by Wimbledon’s original emblem and is the ancient symbol for triumph and victory. Fred was an enthusiastic pipe smoker and wanted a pipe to be the logo, however he was persuaded that it wouldn’t appeal to women. Years after the brand started, French tennis champion and sportswear designer Rene Lacoste and Fred were interviewed together for TV. Lacoste said ”I made the shirt and you made me a great compliment doing the same thing.” Fred responded “You made the back of it longer than the front – so between us we revolutionised it, didn’t we?”
After Fred retired from competition tennis in 1956, he worked as a BBC tennis commentator for TV and radio and wrote columns for British newspapers. He also coached at Beca Raton Club in Florida and was director of golf at Runaway Bay in Jamaica.
In 1984, 50 years after his first title, Wimbledon erected a statue of Fred. “I never thought I’d live to see the day when a statue was put up to the son of a Labour M.P. inside the manicured grounds of Wimbledon,” he said.
Fred married four times, firstly to Texan actress Helen Vinson. His final marriage to Barbara Riese in 1952 lasted until his death. They had two children, Penny and David.
Fred died in the Epworth Hospital, Richmond, Melbourne after falling in his hotel bathroom while visiting for the Australian Open. His ashes are in an urn near his statue at Wimbledon.
- In 1975, Fred was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
- In 2002, the Fred Perry 23 km walking route was opened in Stockport.
- An English Heritage blue plaque was attached to his Ealing house where he lived in from 1919-1935.
A letter to The Times…
In 1932, Dr Daniel Prenn and Gottfried Von Cramm of Germany beat the formally dominant Great Britain team of Fred Perry and Bunny Austin in the Davis Cup. Prenn was not selected for the 1933 Davis Cup Team after Chancellor Adolf Hitler announced his “Aryan only” agenda for Germany’s sporting bodies. Dr Prenn, a Jew, was born in Vilnius (then part of Russia), and in 1920 his family fled to Berlin as refugees after the pogroms. On 15 April 1933, Fred Perry and Bunny Austin (a member at the Oxford Group, a Christian anti-war movement), wrote a letter of protest to the London Times:
"Sir, We have read with considerable dismay the official statement which has appeared in the Press that Dr D.D. Prenn is not to represent Germany in the Davis Cup on the grounds that he is of Jewish origin. We cannot but recall the scene when, less than twelve months ago, Dr Prenn before a large crowd at Berlin won for Germany against Great Britain the semi-final round of the European Zone of the Davis Cup, and was carried from the arena amidst spontaneous and tremendous enthusiasm. We have always valued our participation in international sport, because we believed it to be a great opportunity for the promotion of better international understanding and because it was a human activity that countenanced no distinction of race, class or creed. For this reason, if for none other, we view with great misgivings any action which may well undermine all that is most valuable in international competitions. Yours faithfully, H.W. Austin, Fred Perry.”
Daniel Prenn emigrated to Britain in 1935.
References:
Fred Perry: British tennis legend, Kevin Jefferys, Pitch Publishing, 2017
'Fred Perry: The hero from the wrong side of the tramlines', Paul Newman, tennis correspondent, The Independent, 21 November 2015 https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/fred-perry-the-hero-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tramlines-a6743721.html.
'Fred Perry: the radical of Wimbledon', Bob Holman, Socialist Worker, 26 June 2009 https://socialistworker.co.uk/comment/fred-perry-the-radical-of-wimbledon/
'Daniel Prenn (1904-1991) – A little-known Jewish German tennis player', newmark401, Tennis Warehouse forums, 12 May 2011 http://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/daniel-prenn-1904-1991-–-a-little-known-jewish-german-tennis-player.379780/Photographer notations on slide: "F. Perry 1934 Action B42".tennis, 1930-1939
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