The club is not exactly exclusive, although it keeps an undoubted glamor puff. Obtaining a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame continues to be a strong career moment, almost 67 years after the uniform of the first eight at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
Just ask Billie Jean King, who became recipient No. 2 807 during a ceremony on Monday.
The tennis icon, a activist and partner in part of the Dodgers was delighted to become the first woman to receive a star of the Walk of Fame sports category, added in 2023 to recognize the contributions of athletes to the entertainment industry.
During a question and answer session with the president of People Leah Wyar magazine during a post-ceremony celebration, King remembered walking along Boulevard Hollywood with his mother when she was a child.
“We came here and I used to watch the stars on the walk,” said King. “I never thought:” Oh, I’m going to have one. I mean, it doesn’t even arise.
To help unveil near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, Lakers have grown up and the owner of the Dodgers, Magic Johnson and the winner of Oscar, Jamie Lee Curtis, who wore a unbuttoned dodgers jacket. Johnson and Curtis both have stars on the Walk of Fame.
“You are still fighting for what is good,” Johnson told King, 81, during the ceremony. “You lend your platform and your voice and your time and money to make changes.”
Adding Curtis: “The contribution of Billie Jean King is the power. It is the power of the courts, it is the power of the courts, it is the power in the press, the power of its public plea, the power in its struggle for freedom, the power to be which it is now.”
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Although King may be best known to defeat the male tennis player Bobby Riggs in the 1973 “sex battle”, she has long been an activist for LGBTQ + rights and women. She was the first female athlete to receive both the presidential medal of freedom and the Congress gold medal and she is the founder of Women’s Sports Foundation and Women’s Tennis Assn.
“He is an incredible person, and what I like at Billie Jean is that she used her platform to make changes,” said Johnson during the ceremony. “When we talk about this” sex battle “, it was more than you beat Bobby Riggs. You were fighting for an equal salary for women and all these young women who do all of these millions and million dollars today should thank you for what you have done for everyone. ”
King’s wife, former tennis player Ilana Kloss, also attended the ceremony.
“Words cannot express how honored and grateful to receive this star,” King wrote on Instagram. “I may be the first woman to have received a star in the category (The Sports Entertainment), but I will certainly not be the last.”
“I don’t think the tennis players could have done what we did in the 1970s unless we have a story to rely … It was very tense. It was not fun moments, but it was really incredible to produce something that is now enormous in women’s tennis. ”
King and Johnson are two of a small handful of people associated with the Dodgers to obtain stars on the renowned promenade, including the legendary scully wine and Jaime Jarrín. The Dodgers franchise received a star in 2008, becoming the first team from any sport to receive the honor.
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