How Bobby Runs and Talks, Talks, Talks

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What had set Priscilla off? According to Bobby, "She began reading books about Women's Lib, and she had liberal friends. I began to get all that stuff about 'I want to discover who I am,' etc., etc." Priscilla Wheelan Riggs refuses to reply, but says privately that she is no radical of any kind. Women's Lib seems to have been the least of their problems, and in fact the parting was rather amiable. The Wheelan family was then sole owner of American Photograph Corp., where Bobby occupied an executive chair for many years, and Riggs unchauvinistically walked away from the marriage with a $1,000,000 settlement from his wife. He and Priscilla have three sons and a daughter —there are two sons from his first marriage—and the second Mrs. Riggs still keeps an up-to-date scrapbook on Bobby for future grandchildren. They keep in touch with each other; she remembers Bobby as a "gentle" husband and is rooting for him to beat King.

Such soft truths can scarcely tarnish Bobby's hand-tooled escutcheon (a razorback rampant on a field of Pampers). In search of a new role, he discovered that statements like "a woman's place is in the bedroom and the kitchen, in that order" got him publicity, so he kept repeating them. Then he aimed the chauvinist pitch at women's tennis. Billie Jean King and a few other leading players had been attracting attention with their demands for better treatment and larger purses for women. King, in particular, became something of a heroine of the women's movement, although, like Mrs. Riggs, she is no ideologue. So Bobby teased King: "You insist that top women players provide a brand of tennis comparable to men's. I challenge you to prove it. I contend that you not only cannot beat a top male player, but that you can't beat me, a tired old man." Billie Jean refused the gauntlet the first time around because, she says, "we didn't need him, we were making it on our own merits."

Margaret Court, the gracious Australian ace, made the mistake of picking up Bobby's challenge, and the result was this year's Mother's Day massacre. Bobby rattled her by presenting her with a bouquet of roses before the match started. He neutralized her normally sharp attack with frustrating spins and lobs. Court did not merely lose, she disintegrated. Final score: 6-2, 6-1. Says King: "When I finally saw the film of the match and watched him present her with those roses and Margaret curtsy, I yelled 'Margaret, you idiot, you played right into his hands!' If that was me, I would have grabbed him and kissed him. He's not going to jive me. If he gets too dirty, I can get tough too."

Jive and the quest for big action have been Bobby's game since his earliest days in Los Angeles. How did he get that way? Does anyone really know if there is a real Bobby Riggs to stand up? Possibly not. Riggs is a persona constantly reinventing himself. Other men, like Hemingway and Waugh, have done that, but with more substance and perspective. It is arguable whether anyone —including his ex-wives, whose views of him run counter to contemporary mythology—has ever really known him. That figures. Someone who can spring forth as a full-blown pop hero in his sixth decade is bound to be elusive.