Julie Heldman won 22 professional tennis titles in her stunning career. The daughter of tennis player and World Tennis Magazine founder Gladys Heldman, Julie Heldman began playing at age eight and won her first national title at twelve. She played the collegiate singles and doubles finals before graduating from Stanford in 1968, going on to perform masterfully at the Olympic demonstration tournament that year, where she won gold in mixed doubles, silver in women’s doubles, and bronze in women’s singles. (At the time, tennis was only allowed as a demonstration sport at the Olympics.) The following year, she won gold for all three events at the Maccabiah Games in Israel and was ranked the fifth best player in the world. She was ranked in the US Tennis Association’s Top Ten for eight years between 1963–1975 and the World Top Ten in 1969, 1970, 1973, and 1974. Heldman worked as a journalist and commentator for various magazines and television networks at the US Open and Wimbledon from 1973–1978, and in 1976 became the first female journalist to cover a men’s tennis event, the Avis Challenge Cup. In 1985 she became president of Signature Eyewear.