American tennis player; U.S. champion 1923-’25, 1927-’29 and 1931; Wimbledon champion 1927-’30, 1932-’33, 1935 and 1938. She was the author of three books on tennis.
Helen was the daughter of a surgeon and was raised in Centerville, in Alameda County, California. She grew up in high society and learned tennis by watching players at the Berkeley Tennis Club; she never took a lesson. She began playing tennis at 14 and a year later won the girls’ national title. Moody’s on-court stoicism earned her the nickname, “Little Miss Poker Face.” She had a strong will and powerful strokes, which helped her compile a winning record matched by few.
At 17, in 1923, she won the U.S. women’s singles championship. She won the Olympic gold medal in Paris in 1924, was named Associated Press’ female athlete of the year in 1935 and inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1959. During her remarkable career, Moody won 31 major titles. In addition to the U.S. Championships and Wimbledon, she won the French Championship four times. She amassed a 158-match winning streak, and did not lose so much as a set from 1927 to 1932.
Moody’s admirers included many backyard tennis enthusiasts in the Los Angeles acting community of the 1930s and 1940s. Charlie Chaplin said that the most beautiful thing he had ever seen was “…the movement of Helen Wills playing tennis.”
Her three books included her autobiography, “15-30: The Story of a Tennis Player,” published in 1937. In 1997, the year before her death, she donated all of her trophies and tennis memorabilia to U.C. Berkeley, her alma mater.
After her retirement from tennis, she acquired a reputation for aloofness and reclusiveness. She returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and continued to closely follow the game.
Moody divorced her first husband, Frederick Moody, in 1937 and married top-notch Irish polo player Aiden Roarck two years later. She then became known as Helen Wills Moody Roarck.
Following failing health for several years, Moody died on 01/01/1998 at Carmel Convalescent Center. There are no known survivors. Her ashes were scattered at sea, and there was no service.
Link to Wikipedia biography