Gottfried von Cramm
German amateur tennis champion
Died when: 67 years 124 days (808 months)Star Sign: Cancer
Gottfried Alexander Maximilian Walter Kurt Freiherr von Cramm (German: ['g?tf?i?t f?n 'k?am]; 7 July 1909 – 8 November 1976) was a German tennis champion who won the French Open twice and reached the final of a Grand Slam on five other occasions.
He was ranked number 2 in the world in 1934 and 1936, and number 1 in the world in 1937.He was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1977, an organisation which considers that he is "most remembered for a gallant effort in defeat against Don Budge in the 1937 Interzone Final at Wimbledon".
Von Cramm had difficulties with the Nazi regime, which attempted to exploit his appearance and skill as a symbol of Aryan supremacy, but he refused to identify with Nazism.
Subsequently he was persecuted as a homosexual by the German government and was jailed briefly in 1938.Von Cramm figured briefly in the gossip columns as the sixth husband of Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress.