The single most influential person in the history of tennis, Bill Tilden was one of the five dominant figures, along with Babe Ruth, Red Grange, Bobby Jones, and Jack Dempsey of the sports-mad decade of the "Roaring Twenties". He was also perhaps the most paradoxical figure in the history of any sport — a gay man who almost single-handedly changed the image of tennis from that of a country-club sport played only by rich white people in long white pants or ankle-length skirts to that of a major sport played by robust, world-class athletes. Definitive image. Original negative. NRMT. 4x5".