A HEAVY LOSS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 175, 9 July 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

A HEAVY LOSS

ON FAMOUS TENNIS VENTURE WHEN SUZANNE LENGLEN TURNED PROFESSIONAL. PROMOTER LOST OVER £5OOO. In the course of his “Bemiiscences, ’ • recently published in the “Daily Express,’’ the well-known promoter, Mr C. E. Cochran, mentioned that he made a loss of more than £5OOO on the venture in which he entered into a contract with Suzanne Lenglen, the famous French lady tennis player, to give a series of exhibitions in England.

“Regarding my presentation of Suzanne Lenglen, I am afraid I did not know what I was up against when I tackled professional- lawn tennis,” he writes. During a short but stormy experience I was much reviled for the invention of the word “shamateur - ism.” I could not see then and I do not understasd now, why professionalism should do more harm to tennis than it has to cricket, golf, football and baseball.

“Nearly all the great lawn tennis players are camouflaged professionals. Some of tho amateur stars gave me excellent reasons why they should not become professionals, but none of them attempted to disprove my contention. “Many of the famous amateurs were not averse to adopting professional status, but their idoa of price and mine of commercial possibilities wore greatly at variance.

‘AU my negotiations led me to believe that amateur lawn tennis playing was more remunerative than I had imagined. Otherwise I should not have embarked on my attempt to convert so many of the leading stars.

“Big Bill Tilden was most helpful to me with advice and information, but it came rather too late. If only I had met him earlier! In one of his books ho pays me the compliment of saying that I approached the question of professional tennis with greater prospects of succcsful realisation than any of the other sport promoters who conceived the same idea.

1 * Curiously enough, although there was little opposition to the idea from tho players, the writers on lawn tennis showed bitter repugnance to tho idea of tennis players being openly paid for their game. Compensations. “When I made the perfectly true statement that a famous amatuer told me he had no objection to turning professional if he were convinced that he could do as well as he was doing as an amateur I brought down many a load of bricks on my head. “As for Suzanne Lenglen the bright .particular star of my tennis shows—since I pride myself on being a connoiseur of tho artistic temperament—the prospect of managing Suzanne did not alarm me. I have always found the most gifted women the easiest to handle. All that is necessary is a knowledge of the artist’s psychology. “The loss of my money on the professional lawn tennis experiment and the bitter attacks at tho hands of the tennis critics are more than compensated for by the opportunity it gave me to know and to learn to become devotedly attached to Suzanne Lenglen. No star with whom I have come in contact has been more anxious to please her manager and her public than this greatly misrepresented woman.

“Suzanne Lenglen reminds mo more than any professional artist I have been associated with of the great Eleonora Duse. She has the same supersensitiveness and the fear of the crowd’s criticism of her every action. “Many minor stage celebrities in my expedience who are the beloved darlings of their public and never do one wrong thing when on view, are holy terrors, without loyalty to their management or artistic conscience, when away from the glare of tho footlights.