J Paul Johnson
Tennis players and fans with any degree of historical knowledge of their sport will know well the answer to the question Who Is Stan Smith? He’s a legend of the sport, a titan of the early Open era who held the world Number One ranking and both the coveted Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles as well as two tour year-end championships. He was also a true Davis Cup stalwart, a part of a remarkable eight winning U.S. teams, including a five-year streak from 1968-72, and, with Bob Lutz, one of the sport’s great doubles teams. Even after injury ended his career, he remained a presence as a commentator, coach, academy director, and president of the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
So if you know tennis, you know Stan Smith.
But many don’t, and the new documentary Who Is Stan Smith?, directed by Danny Lee, focuses equally on Smith’s off-court life and on-court accomplishments. As a quiet, relatively unassuming man who never sought celebrity, Smith’s life has been richer and more complex than his glittering tennis résumé suggests. And Lee’s documentary clips through the tennis star’s legendary career, lifetime friendships, and off-court accomplishments with a sprightly pace and equanimous good will.
There is, for instance, the shoe. Just Google Stan Smith.
Above his personal Wikipedia entry will be listed the shoe, the iconic Adidas Stan Smith, a pure-white perforated leather tennis lace-up that has become a hip hop cultural icon, practically ubiquitous in its appeal. It was a game-changer when it first appeared on the court, finally giving avid players some relief from the canvas shoes had been made of. Adidas lent Smith the model’s name in 1978 and somehow, it became the shoe of choice for models, hip hop artists, celebrities, fashionistas, and thousands of everyday casual athleisure wearers. The classic version with Smith’s visage etched on the tongue, the Adidas trefoil on the heel, and the dimpled sole has remained a constant in Adidas’ production, while scores of variants, some designed by celebrities like Pharrell Williams, vary the minimalist design with colorful patterned fabrics.
Smith’s is a lifetime contract with Adidas, one of the most famous and longest-lasting in all of sport and all of fashion, despite the fact that a legion of Stan Smith model wearers don’t know the answer to the question Who Is Stan Smith? Since the model began bearing his name, Adidas has sold over 30 million pairs of the model’s many variants.
A tall, relaxed, laconic former athlete, Smith has never courted celebrity like, say, the younger, brash John McEnroe, whose comment is sought on all things tennis—including in this documentary. But even off the court, Smith fought for civil rights alongside his friend and Davis Cup teammate Arthur Ashe, and he, unbeknownst to many, helped sponsor South African tennis player Mark Mathabane’s journey from apartheid to the United States as Mathabane later documented in his best-selling memoir Kaffir Boy.
Lee’s documentary manages to encompass all of these accomplishments with a brisk pace and insightful detail. Vintage tennis clips of Smith competing against Ilie Nastase at Wimbledon, with Lutz versus McEnroe and Peter Fleming at the U.S. Open, and elsewhere are a delight, presented in a pristine quality and expertly edited. Smith’s friends and rivals lend their reminiscences and Smith himself is a willing, if slightly reticent, participant in the proceedings. Some will find the glowing testimony from family members a little sentimental, but it’s clear from them that the film’s subject has never put his sport or his shoe above his personal relationships.
Even though every tennis fan already knows Who Is Stan Smith?, Lee’s documentary will give fans a clearer and more rounded picture of the former star’s life and career. And for those who don’t know tennis—who maybe know the name on their favorite pair of kicks and little more—Lee’s documentary will inform them about the man who gave their shoe its name, and whose life serves as a model for an athlete committed to his sport and to his causes. Who Is Stan Smith? is an inspiration for anyone who seeks to understand how excellence and equity can co-exist.
Who Is Stan Smith? will begin its U.S. run with red carpet premieres at Los Angeles’ Nuart Theater on May 3 and New York City’s Angelika Film Center on May 10, rolling out to 50 additional markets throughout the month of May.
Check out Film Obsessive’s interview with director Danny Lee and tennis icon Stan Smith.
