SUZANNE LENGLEN WILL MARRY A REPORTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17862, 2 June 1926, Page 3

SUZANNE LENGLEN WILL MARRY A REPORTER.

Suzanne Lenglen is engaged to be married to Jacques Brindejones Offenbach, poet and writer, and grandson of Jacques Offenbach, the famous composer of “ The Tales of Hoffman.” The temperamental queen of the courts chose her intended husband outside the ranks of tennis players, but M. Offenbach is considered one of the most delightful poets of the j'ounger generation of French letters. In spite of official denials, Mdlle Lenglen is known during the last five years to have frowned upon the proposals of dukes, counts, earls and American millionaires. This engagement is hailed as a real love match. Suzanne will be twentyseven years old on May 24, while Offenbach is thirty-six. Offenbach, unable to wield a racket, and seldom seen about the tennis courts, was smitten with Mdlle Lenglen during the hard cortrt tournaments at St Cloud in 1921, in which the French champion defeated Mrs Molla Mallory. During the intervening time, while reports of Mdlle Lenglen’s engagements succeeded one another, the poet kept well in the background. Recently he and his wife were divorced by mutual consent. The- announcement of the betrothal came as a. great surprise to Paris. Offenbach has been accepted by the Lenglen family, but it has not been decided whether the wedding will take place before the Wimbledon tournament this year or after. Mdlle Lenglen's fiancee is a poor man compared with the distinguished noblemen possessing lofty titles who in recent years have offe'ed to lead Suzanne off the -tennis courts into matrimony. He is a reporter for the newspaper “ Le Gaulois,” acting as musical and literary critic, with an income from this source of not more than 1200 francs (about £10)