About this item
The story of 1930s tennis icon Alice Marble, and her life of sports, celebrity, and incredible mystery. Who was Alice Marble? In her public life, she was the biggest tennis star of the pre-war era, a household name like Joe DiMaggio and Joe Louis. She was famous for overcoming serious illness to win the biggest tournaments, including Wimbledon. She was also a fashion designer and trendsetter, a contributor to a pioneering new comic called Wonder Woman - and friend to the biggest names in Hollywood and society, like Carole Lombard and Clark Gable, William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies, and members of families named Bloomingdale, Loew, and du Pont. She helped integrate tennis with her support of Althea Gibson, and even coached two young women who became stars in their own right: Billie Jean King and Sally Ride.
About the Author
Robert Weintraub lives in Decatur, Georgia, but he grew up in the large shadow cast by Yankee Stadium, in Rye, New York, and is a lifelong Yankees fan. Weintraub has written about sports for Slate, Play (the late, lamented NY Times sports magazine) , ESPN.com, The Guardian, Deadspin, and many more. He is also a television producer, and has worked on programs airing on ESPN, ABC Sports, CNN International, Turner Broadcasting, Speed Channel, Discovery, and dozens of others. He has covered events large and small, from the Super Bowl, Olympic Games, and World Cup to the Dragon Boat Races in Taiwan. Weintraub has lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Sydney, and while he loves the American South (particularly its adherence to the religion of college football) , he dearly misses the ocean. When not working, Weintraub has cast aside a former life that included cage diving with Great White Sharks and scaling Uluru for one of domestic tranquility with his wife Lorie and two young children. The House That Ruth Built is his first book, hopefully of many.
