The fireman's daughter, Billie Jean Moffitt King began blazing through the tennis world in 1960 when she first appeared in women's rankings at No, 4. She was 17. For more than two decades she continued as a force in the game as the all-time Wimbledon champion, frequently the foremost player, a crusader in building the female professional game and a million-dollar-plus winner on the tour.

Born November 22, 1943, in Long Beach, CA, Billie Jean, a 5-foot-41/2, 130-pound right-hander, was named for her father, Bill Moffitt, a Long Beach fireman and an enthusiastic athlete, though not a tennis player. Her brother, Randy Moffitt, became a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. She developed on the public courts of Long Beach and first gained international recognition in 1961 by joining 18-year-old Karen Hantze for a surprising triumph in the Wimbledon women's doubles. They were the youngest team to win it. That was the first of 20 Wimbledon championships, making King the record winner of the most prestigious tourney.

In 1979 she got the 20th in her 19th Wimbledon, the doubles, in the company of Martina Navratilova, with whom she won her last major, U.S. doubles, in 1980.

Elizabeth Ryan's 19 Wimbledon titles (between 1914 and 1934) were all in doubles and mixed doubles. King won 6 singles, 10 doubles, and 4 mixed doubles between 1961 and 1979, and in 1979 she lengthened another Wimbledon record by appearing in her 27th final, the doubles. Ryan was in 24 finals. Of all the men and women to compete at Wimbledon only Navratilova played more matches (279) than King's 265, of which B.J. was 95-15 in singles, 74-12 in doubles, 55-14 in mixed.

Billie Jean's has been a career of firsts. In 1968 she was the first woman of the open era to sign a pro contract to tour in a female tournament group, with Rosie Casals, Françoise Durr and Ann Haydon Jones as the women's auxiliary of the National Tennis League, which also included six men (Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall, Pancho Gonzalez, Andres Gimeno, Fred Stolle and Roy Emerson). A few women before King had turned pro to make head-to-head barnstorming tours, notably Suzanne Lenglen and Mary K. Browne, 1926-27; Alice Marble and Mary Hardwick, 1941; Pauline Betz and Sarah Palfrey Fabyan Cooke, 1947; Althea Gibson and Karol Fageros, 1960.

In 1971 B.J. was the first woman athlete over the 100-grand hurdle, winning $117,000. During that memorably monster season when she was toiling mightily to establish the women's tour, she played 31 tournaments in singles, winning 17, and 26 in doubles, winning a record 21. She had a match mark of 112-13 in singles, a record number of wins, and 80-5 in doubles. Overall it added up to 38 titles on 192 match wins, both records. Imagine how many millions such a campaign would be worth today.

In 1973 Billie Jean engaged in a "Battle of the Sexes" challenge match, defeating 55-year-old ex-Wimbledon champ Bobby Riggs, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3, in a heavily publicized and nationally televised extravaganza that captured the nation's fancy and drew a record tennis crowd, 30,472, to Houston's Astrodome.

In 1974 she became the first woman to coach a professional team containing men when she served as player-coach of the Philadelphia Freedoms of World Team Tennis, a league she and her husband, Larry King, helped establish. Traded to the New York Apples, she led that team to WTT titles in 1976 and 1977 as a player.

Ten years after Riggs, B.J. was to establish a geriatric mark herself, winning Birmingham (England) over Alycia Moulton, 6-0, 7-5. At 391/2 she was the oldest woman to take a pro title.

An aggressive, emotional player who has often said, "You have to love to guts it out to win," Billie Jean specialized in serve-and-volley tactics, aided by quickness and a highly competitive nature. She overcame several knee operations to continue as a winner into her 40th year. As a big-match player she was unsurpassed, excelling in team situations when she represented the U.S. In nine years on the Federation Cup team, she helped the U.S. gain the final each time, and win seven by winning 51 of her 55 singles and doubles. In the Wightman Cup against Britain she played on only one losing side in 10 years, winning 21 of her 26 singles and doubles.

Outspoken on behalf of women's rights, in and out of sports--and the game of tennis in particular--she was possibly the most influential player in popularizing professional tennis in the United States. She worked tirelessly to promote the Virginia Slims tour during the early 1970s when the women realized they must separate from the men to achieve recognition and significant prize money on their own. With the financial backing of Virginia Slims, the organizational acumen of Gladys Heldman and the salesmanship and winning verve of King, the women pros built an extremely profitable circuit.

Only two women, Margaret Court Smith (62) and Navratilova (56) won more majors than King's 39 in singles, doubles and mixed. In regard to U.S. titles on all surfaces (grass, clay, hard court, indoor), King is second at 31 behind Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman's 34. But Billie Jean is the only woman to win on all four, equaling Tony Trabert, the lone man. King and Rosie Casals were the only doubles team to win on all four surfaces. She won major doubles with Casals, her most frequent partner.

King's most important titles were Wimbledon singles, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973 and 1975, and the U.S, singles at Forest Hills 1967, 1971, 1972, and 1974. She also won the French singles in 1972 and the Australian in 1968 and 197l,becoming the fifth woman to win all four major singles titles. Ranked No. 1 in the U.S. seven times, she tied Molla Bjurstedt Mallory for most years at the top.

However, Navratilova would pass them both with 12. Between 1960 and 1982 Billie Jean was ranked in the U.S. Top Ten 18 times, topped only by Chris Evert's 19. Between 1963 and 1980 she was in the World Top Ten 18 times, at No. 1 in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1971 and 1974, and held her last ranking, No. 13, at age 40 in 1983.

She greatly aided Owen Davidson in making his mixed doubles Grand Slam in 1967 with two partners. King and Davidson won the French, Wimbledon and U.S, after he took the Australian with Lesley Turner. She scored three major triples, winning the singles, doubles and mixed at Wimbledon in 1967 and 1973, and at the U.S in the longest singles set played by women (36 games) in a 1963 Wightman Cup win over Christine Truman, 6-4, 19-17.

Billie Jean's grand swan song occurred at 39 in 1983 at Wimbledon, a semifinal finish (her 14th), losing to 18-year-old Andrea Jaeger 6-1, 6-1. Seven years later she played a cameo role in the Boca Raton, FL, tourney, winning a doubles match with 13-year-old pro rookie Jennifer Capriati.

In a career encompassing the amateur and open eras, she won 67 pro and 37 amateur singles titles. She reached 38 other pro finals and had 677-149 singles match record as a pro. Her prize money: $1,966,487.

Divorce ended her marriage. A founder and ex-president of the WTA, B.J. remains Active in World Team Tennis as commissioner. She returned to her USTA roots in 1995 as captain of the Federation Cup team, having been player-captain in 1965 (a loss) and 1976 (a win). In 1996 she guided the U.S. team to the Cup over Spain, and, as U.S. women's Olympic coach, Lindsay Davenport, Gigi Fernandez and Mary Joe Fernandez to gold medals.