''Second Serve'' is a 1986 American

made-for-television A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made fo ...

biographical film starring

Vanessa Redgrave Dame Vanessa Redgrave (born 30 January 1937) is an English actress and activist. Throughout her career spanning over seven decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Television Award, tw ...

as retired eye surgeon, professional tennis player, and

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through ...

woman

Renée Richards Renée Richards (born August 19, 1934) is an American ophthalmologist and former tennis player who competed on the professional circuit in the 1970s, and became widely known following male-to-female sex reassignment surgery, when she fought to ...

. The film is based on her 1983 autobiography ''Second Serve: The Renée Richards Story'' that was written with John Ames. The script is by Stephanie Liss and

Gavin Lambert Gavin Lambert (23 July 1924 – 17 July 2005) was a British-born screenwriter, novelist and biographer who lived for part of his life in Hollywood. His writing was mainly fiction and nonfiction about the film industry. Personal life Lam ...

and the film was directed by

Anthony Page Anthony Page (21 September 1935 in Bangalore, Karnataka, India) is a British stage and film director. Biography When Page was 19, he went to Canada on a free passage with the Royal Canadian Air Force and hitchhiked to New York where he studied ...

. ''Second Serve'' aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

on May 13, 1986.

Plot

In 1976, Renée Richards is on the tennis court as a professional tennis player. The film flashes back to 1964, when Renée Richards is an eye surgeon named Richard Radley (both roles played by Redgrave). Radley has a successful career and a fiancée, but secretly

cross-dresses Cross-dressing is the act of wearing clothes usually worn by a different gender. From as early as pre-modern history, cross-dressing has been practiced in order to disguise, comfort, entertain, and self-express oneself. Cross-dressing has play ...

at night. Unable to speak with his mother Sadie (Louise Fletcher), who is a psychiatrist, Radley consults his own psychiatrist, Dr. Beck (Martin Balsam), who advises him to grow a beard. This strategy works temporarily until Radley is drafted into the

Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...

, which does not allow beards. Following his discharge and a failed marriage, Radley undergoes

gender reassignment surgery Gender-affirming surgery (GAS) is a surgical procedure, or series of procedures, that alters a transgender or transsexual person's physical appearance and sexual characteristics to resemble those associated with their identified gender, and all ...

and becomes Renée. Renée relocates to California, resumes her career as a surgeon and begins dating. After playing in a local tennis tournament in

La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, United States, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. La Jolla is surrounded on ...

, Renée is

outed Outing is the act of disclosing an LGBT person's sexual orientation or gender identity without that person's consent. It is often done for political reasons, either to instrumentalize homophobia in order to discredit political opponents or to com ...

as transgender by a television reporter. In the ensuing controversy, Renée takes the

United States Tennis Association The United States Tennis Association (USTA) is the national governing body for tennis in the United States. A not-for-profit organization with more than 700,000 members, it invests 100% of its proceeds to promote and develop the growth of tennis, ...

to court, where she secures her right to play professional tournament tennis as a woman without being subjected to chromosome testing.

Cast

as Richard Radley/

Whit Hertford Whit Hertford (born November 2, 1978) is an American theatre director, writer, and actor. Film and television Hertford's film career spans three decades and began at an early age, most notably with his appearance in Steven Spielberg's ''Juras ...

as Young Richard Radley *

Martin Balsam Martin Henry Balsam (November 4, 1919 – February 13, 1996) was an American actor. He had a prolific career in character roles in film, in theatre, and on television. An early member of the Actors Studio, he began his career on the New Yo ...

as Dr. Beck *

William Russ William Russ (born October 20, 1950) is an American actor and television director. He played Alan Matthews on the sitcom '' Boy Meets World'' (1993–2000) and appeared in the television series '' Wiseguy'', the soap operas '' Another World'' an ...

as Josh *

Alice Krige Alice Maud Krige (; born 28 June 1954) is a South African actress and producer. Her first feature film role was in '' Chariots of Fire'' (1981) as the Gilbert and Sullivan singer Sybil Gordon. She played the dual role of Eva Galli/Alma Mobley i ...

as Gwen * Kerrie Keane as Meriam *

Richard Venture Richard Venture (born Richard Charles Venturella; November 12, 1923 – December 19, 2017) was an American actor. He performed in more than eighty films from 1964 to 2001. His television guest-credits include ''The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd' ...

as Dr. David Radley *

Reni Santoni Reni may refer to: Places * Reni, Alwar, Alwar district, Rajasthan, India * Reni, Chamoli (also ''Raini''), Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India, devastated by the 2021 Uttarakhand flood * Reni, Churu, Churu district, Rajasthan, India * Reni, U ...

as Dr. Roberto Granato *

Louise Fletcher Estelle Louise Fletcher (July 22, 1934 – September 23, 2022) was an American actress who portrayed the antagonist Nurse Ratched in ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1975), which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award, a ...

as Dr. Sadie M. Bishop * Jeff Corey as Dr.

Harry Benjamin Harry Benjamin (January 12, 1885 – August 24, 1986) was a German-American endocrinologist and sexologist, widely known for his clinical work with transgender people. Early life and career Benjamin was born in Berlin, and raised in a German ...

Critical reception

Critic John J. O'Connor of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' praised Redgrave's performance. Although noting that from a physical standpoint Redgrave is not very believable, O'Connor calls her performance "astonishingly convincing". While finding the script wanting for its tendency to reduce complexities to cliches, O'Connor also found that ''Second Serve'' "does manage, despite oversimplifications and evasions, to stick to the point. But it is the extraordinary Redgrave performance that slams the message home." '' New York'' magazine concurred in this assessment, with reviewer John Leonard calling the film "calm and matter-of-fact, and perhaps too tidy". Leonard lavished Redgrave with praise for her performance, writing:

Redgrave, tall and vulnerable, athletic and bewildered, fearful and loving competitive and lonely, manages to ''transsex'' both ways. She embodies, with the fine bones of that face and the twitching of her various limbs, every internal contradiction of the polymorphously perverse."

''Second Serve'' was not universally praised by critics, receiving negative reviews from such outlets as the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...

''. Redgrave was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her performance and ''Second Serve'' won Emmys for hairstyling and makeup.

Notes

External links

* {{Anthony Page 1986 television films 1986 films 1980s biographical films 1986 LGBT-related films American LGBT-related television films American biographical films Biographical films about sportspeople Films about trans women 1983 non-fiction books Transgender literature Tennis films Films set in 1964 Films set in 1976 CBS network films Films directed by Anthony Page Films scored by Brad Fiedel Cultural depictions of tennis players Cultural depictions of transgender people Cultural depictions of American women Biographical films about LGBT people 1980s American films