Helen Irwin

Helen T. Irwin (June 11, 1939-July 14, 2023) was born in Ashland, Pennsylvania to Emma Trathen and Percy W. Irwin. Her younger sister Ann Levine, known always to Helen as “Honey,” died in 2008. Ann’s son Andrew Levine lives in Florida with his wife and two children. Helen played piano, was a majorette, and even considered a career in modeling and acting. She graduated from Cedar Crest College, where she studied Business, which is the 1960 way of saying she trained to be a secretary. While in college, she married Elwood Bracey. They lived for a time in Seattle whre Dr. Bracey did a residency, before moving back to Philadelphia. In 1969, the two divorced amicably, and Helen’s life as a single woman making her own way in the world began in earnest.

She worked in journalism at Philadelphia Magazine and in 1972 moved to Boston Magazine, where her tennis hobby shifted toward a tennis career. After publishing a review of a book by the tennis historian and journalist Bud Collins, Helen met Collins at the Longwood Tennis Club. They became fast friends. At that same tournament, she met several other key members of the early professional tennis world, most notably Gladys Heldman, publisher of World Tennis magazine and the founding mother of the women’s professional tennis tour. Gladys offered Helen a job in New York City as director of advertising; it was an offer she could not refuse. Helen was part of the entourage who flew to Houston in 1973 on the Philip Morris jet for the Battle of the Sexes. She later worked for Billie Jean King at Women’s Sports magazine.

In the mid-1970s, Helen became Managing Editor of Bob Guccione’s avant-garde women’s magazine, Viva, where she hired Anna Wintour for her first job in the US in 1976. During those years, Helen was inspired by her friend Michael Parish to get a share on Fire Island. Photographer Tom Bianchi, one of her housemates, documented those years in his book, Fire Island and he talks about Helen in the introduction. The literary and disco-infused weekends gave her all the latest New York gossip, which helped her keep Viva in the know. Helen published a memoir in GLR in the summer of 2015 called, “Who was That Woman in the Pines?”

Helen joined the Westside Tennis Club (then home of the US Open) during this time, and one of her tennis partners started law school. As she listened to the stories her friend told her, Helen decided to do the same. She attended Cardozo Law School (part of Yeshiva University), graduating in 1983. She was sworn into the bar at the United States Supreme Court and was admitted to the bar in New York and California. One of her favorite jobs as an attorney was working in planned giving for the United States Tennis Hall of Fame.

Around 1989, Helen’s aunt Dorothy encouraged her to try Southern California. Life in LA agreed with Helen. She and Dorothy traveled extensively; they attended the French Open in Paris and the Australian Open in Melbourne. Helen moved to Brentwood, California in 1990 and became the manager of her apartment building, a job she continued until a year ago. She was a member of the Riviera Tennis Club and was active as a board member on the Billie Jean King-led committee to raise funds for the athletes at Cal State LA. Many of those student-athletes are first-generation college students, and Helen loved being able to help them.

In addition for loving to travel, Helen enjoyed art, especially photography, movies, and theater. She maintained many longterm friendships, but she had a few very close friends in her Calfornia life, including Barbara Kekich, Linda Peterson, Meridith Baer, Lynn Bodkin, and Chris Freeman. Helen suffered a stroke in May of 2022, and in September of that year, she moved into an assisted living apartment in the Hollywood Hills. She passed away peacefully on July 14th. Her last outing was her 84th birthday party, where she enjoyed wonderful friends, delicious food and wine, and toasted a life well lived.

A private memorial service will be held in Brentwood, California on September 10.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.neptunesociety.com/location/sherman-oaks-cremation for the Irwin family.