The club retains an unattractive charm, but the club is not exclusive. A starring at the Hollywood Walk of Fame continues to be a career highlight nearly 67 years after the first eight years were announced at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue.
Ask Billy Jean King, who won 2,807 awards at Monday’s ceremony.
Tennis icon, activist and some owners of Dodgers were excited to be the first woman to receive a star in the Walk of Fame sports entertainment category, added in 2023 in recognition of Athletes’ contributions.
During a Q&A session with Leah Wyer, president of People Magazine, at the post-Secremony celebration, King recalled walking down Hollywood Boulevard with his mother.
“We were here and I was watching the stars on my walk,” King said. “I didn’t think, ‘Oh, I’m going to have one of them.’ I mean, it didn’t even dawn on me. ”
It was on hand to help with the unveiling ceremony near the intersection of Hollywood and Grapes, and the Lakers were great, with fellow Dodgers owner Magic Johnson and Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis wearing buttonless Dodgers jackets. Johnson and Curtis both have stars in the walk of fame.
“You always fight for the right thing,” Johnson told King (81) at the ceremony. “You lend your platform, your voice, your time and your money to make a difference.”
Curtis added: “Billie Jean King’s contribution is power. She is the power of the court, she is the power of the court.
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King is probably best known for beating male tennis player Bobby Riggs in the 1973 “Sex Battle,” but she has long been an LGBTQ+ and women’s rights activist. She is the first female athlete to receive both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congress’ gold medals, and she is the founder of the Women’s Sports Foundation and Women’s Tennis Asun.
“She’s a great person, and what I love about Billy Jean is that she uses her platform to make a difference,” Johnson said at the ceremony. “When we talk about that ‘men and women’s fight,’ it wasn’t just you defeating Bobby Riggs. You were fighting for equal wages for women. And today, all these young women making all these millions of dollars should be grateful for what you did for them all. ”
King’s wife, former tennis player Ilana Cross, also attended the ceremony.
“The words cannot express how honorable and grateful I am to receive this star,” King wrote on Instagram. “I might be the first woman to be awarded a star [the sports entertainment] It’s a category, but I certainly don’t intend to be the last one. ”
“I don’t think that women tennis players could have done what we did in the ’70s unless there’s a history we should have. …It was a very nervous time. It wasn’t a fun time.
King and Johnson are two of a handful of people associated with the Dodgers to win stars in their walks of fame, including legendary broadcasters Vin Scully and Jaime Jalin. The Dodgers franchise won a star in 2008 and became the first team to receive honors in any sport.
