LGBT Book, Film & Video Blog

A TERRIBLE SPLENDOR

A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played

By Marshall Jon Fisher

Illustrated. 321 pp. Crown Publishers. $25

One afternoon in late July 1937, an American redhead and a German aristocrat graced the noble lawn of Wimbledon, spinning an unforgettable spectacle. Tennis was never so civilized — or so it seemed.

Don Budge, the son of a truck driver from California, and his friend Baron Gott­fried von Cramm, a dashing blond, dueled toward dusk in the last match of the Davis Cup semifinal held at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. At stake was more than national pride.

“On this still-peaceful English summer day, the swastika is flying high over Center Court, along with the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes,” Marshall Jon Fisher writes in his new book, “A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, a World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played.” “Nazi officials are sipping tea with the queen in the Royal Box.”

A lot of tea gets sipped between points in this book (even by the players). This quaint detail belies the anxiety of this five-set thriller and puts readers at the edge of their seats — sometimes right next to Jack Benny and Ed Sullivan, friends of Budge.

At 22, Budge was No. 1 in the world, on his way to becoming a superstar. The 28-year-old von Cramm, No. 2, feared he was on his way to a Nazi prison — or worse. Von Cramm’s coach, the “fading American hero” Bill Tilden, was unsure where he was going.

Fisher depicts the intersection of their careers amid the simmering world conflict, juxtaposing history and sport in an absorbing but uneven narrative that does not always live up to the match’s billing.

Budge’s and Tilden’s stories have been told elsewhere, so they work better as support for a nuanced portrait of von Cramm. A “gallant” and “gracious” man revered for his sportsmanship, von Cramm was Germany’s second-most-celebrated athlete, behind the boxer Max Schmeling. But he harbored a secret: he was gay.

His Jewish doubles partner had fled Germany; so had his Jewish lover. In the months leading up to the match, von Cramm was interrogated by the Gestapo about his homosexual activities, was barred from playing singles in the French Championships, divorced his wife and lost the Wimbledon final for the third straight year (to Budge, no less).

He refused to join the Nazi Party; tennis success was his only shield. “I’m playing for my life,” von Cramm told Tilden, who kept his own homosexuality a less guarded secret. Fisher shows how, with unflinching generosity, von Cramm stoically endured his tribulations.