BATTLE OF THE SEXES
PHOTOS LEO MASON/POPPERFOTO, ANDREW COPPA, BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
I’m sitting in a dark screening room in Soho, and there are tears streaming down my face. As the credits for Battle Of The Sexes roll and the journalists around me collect their bags and jackets and head for the door, I’m thinking about Billie Jean King and how hard it must have been for her back in 1973. Yes, 90 million people watched her emerge victorious from that tennis match at the Houston Astrodome against 55-year-old Bobby Riggs, and her victory was an important milestone for women’s liberation, but she was living a double life, and it would be many, many years still before she was able to talk about her sexuality openly and honestly.