Prior to the 1979 revolution, Iran was ruled by The Shah of Iran – Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi – who, before his 1979 exile, formed a strong friendship with Wimbledon champion and International Tennis Hall of Fame member Sidney Wood. Wood writes of their friendship in the chapter called “The Shah and I” in his posthumously published memoir THE WIMBLEDON FINAL THAT NEVER WAS ($15.95, New Chapter Press, available here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0942257847/ref=as_li_tf_til?tag=tennisgrancom-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0942257847&adid=0PPX8YXBKGA63KJQHA49&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldtennismagazine.com%2F. The excerpt is found below.
The Shah and I
This concerns a rare experience in which a shared belief in something much out of the ordinary welded a special bond between me and the Shah of Iran.
In November of 1952, my office switchboard announced a call from a “secretary of His Imperial Majesty, Shah of Iran.” I had partnered the Shah in a State Department-arranged doubles game at New York’s River Club two days before, and I took the call prepared to deal with some waggish friend who had heard about it. But a formally accented lady’s voice asked if I were Mr. Sidney B. Wood, Jr., to which I may have replied, “No, this is Tutankhamen.” However, there was enough note of concern in the clipped British accent on the other end to make the call reasonably credible. So I apologized and was more than surprised to hear myself invited to join my potentate partner for Thanksgiving dinner at the Waldorf and to be told that there would be just four of us. In the interest of maintaining our nation’s public relations posture, such an invite should not be regretted. I then told the secretary that, literally minutes before, I had dictated a note to the Shah telling him what a pleasant experience it had been playing with him and what a surprisingly able and unstuffy partner he had been.
In the locker room, before going out on the court for the encounter, I had been earnestly briefed by a U.S. protocol gentleman as to how I was to address my exalted sidekick. To those who play a bit of doubles, you know that it could be a cumbersome exercise if you must precede such split-second injunctions as “yours” and “mine” by shouting, “Your Imperial Majesty.” But almost instantly on meeting my partner, this was clearly not to be a problem. I said, “I am, of course, Sidney. What do you prefer to be called?” He said, with a wide smile, “I am, of course, Reza.”
I had a torn shoulder tendon, so Reza had to serve for me, but we combined well enough to perform credibly against Stanley Rumbough and Henry Breck – two much better than club type players – who didn’t hesitate to boom His Majesty whenever they got him in their sights.
At the Thanksgiving dinner, Reza’s other guests were two dazzling daughters of the Brazilian ambassador and Grover Whalen, Manhattan’s perennial host to visiting notables, who arrived during dessert. We then proceeded to the limousines for our trip to a performance of the smash musical South Pacific. And what a trip! For the entire distance from Lexington to Eighth Avenue the 42nd Street traffic was held at bay while our siren-screeching entourage swept by – all the way on the wrong side of the two-way street. Soon after we were seated, a buddy of mine, Henry Cole, waved and started toward me along our row to say hello. To his astonishment and mine, a burly Secret Service lady arose at least five seats away and blocked him off. My evening was made.
After the show, we returned to Reza’s Waldorf Towers apartment where a number of the show’s cast members and a few dozen other guests had assembled before going downstairs to a midnight supper party. Reza was being lionized, but, after some moments, I saw him beckoning from across the room for me to follow him into a sitting room where he locked the door against intruders. Then ensued a remarkable conversation which I shall repeat as faithfully as can be recalled. He asked whether I had really written that note just before his secretary called. When I emphatically replied, “Yes,” he said, “I felt at that instant you were trying to get in touch with me.” He continued, “You know we Iranians have strong faith in such perceptions.” He asked me if I, by chance, shared these convictions, and I told him that not only did I believe in such phenomena but that I had undergone a number of dramatically convincing experiences of this nature in my own life. We talked briefly about this and other things, and as we shook hands he asked if I would later fly to Teheran for a visit. Being involved at home with a number of demanding matters I failed to follow up what would surely have been an enviable and lifetime rewarding experience, and this is something I have always regretted.
We proceeded to supper in the Waldorf’s Peacock Alley Room at a single long table. Mary Martin, the superb star of South Pacific, was on Reza’s right and I, surprisingly, was seated on his left. Reza, whose interest in tennis verged on intense, asked a number of questions of the same variety I often receive. At one point, I was describing a comical incident during a French mixed doubles championship final with the incomparable Helen Wills Moody as my partner at Stade Roland Garros in Paris (with two double Courvoisiers under my belt). Reza and Mary Martin were listening closely, but all at once, I realized the entire table of some 30 guests had stopped their conversation and, in deference to the Shah, had become my audience. There was no retreat, but fortunately, the punchline went across well enough to earn a favorable score on the laugh meter.
The image of the Shah of Iran as portrayed in the news media of later years bears little resemblance to the qualities I found in him. Media? That should evoke thoughts of land where the Medes and the Persians roamed. To me, Reza was completely unpretentious, impulsively warm and an amusing companion who could be as serious or lighthearted as the occasion warranted.
On the tennis court, where one’s character is often laid bare, he proved to be a partner who needed no indulgence, followed directions with appreciation and attention, who played with zest and was the epitome of sportsmanship. In short, if you hadn’t a clue that Reza Shah Pahlevi was indeed master of the fates of some 35 million Persian souls, you would much look forward to having him for a friend.
The Shah’s abdication from power and shameful abandonment by the pusillanimous Carter administration recalls David Frost’s sober reminder following Jack Kennedy’s tragic murder. “No matter how high the throne upon which we sit, our tails still touch the ground.”
Reza is gone – could it have been Allah’s merciful purpose to shield him from helplessly witnessing the yet continuing degradation of his beloved nation? Some years later, entirely by coincidence, Reza’s nephew rented what we call our “big house” in Southampton for the summer, and even at that point there was some shadowy concern about Khomeni’s assassins learning of his whereabouts. In 1995, we became friends with Reza’s brother and his wife who wintered in Palm Beach. The chemistry was ready-made.
