In March 1947, Life magazine sent Peter Stackpole, one of its top photographers, to Palm Springs. His assignment: capture the Little Tuscany home of Raymond Loewy, a champion of industrial design whose achievements ranged from the streamlined Coca-Cola bottle and Lucky Strike cigarette packaging to the Studebaker Avanti and the interiors of the Skylab space station.
At Loewy’s desert residence, Stackpole documented a life of leisure — Loewy and his guests, including tennis pros Jack and Eleanor Cushingham, casually assembled around the pool and garden. One striking image places Eleanor in the foreground, her bare back to the camera, all blonde hair and tan skin as she peers over a fence toward the social gathering beyond. One might easily mistake her for a certain siren of the silver screen with similar ties to Palm Springs. The photo became one of the most memorable from Stackpole’s assignment and was reportedly later used in an advertisement for a solarium company.
The young woman in the picture was born Eleanor Purdy in Portland, Oregon, in 1920. Her father, Stanley, was a shoe salesman, and her mother, Jessie, worked as a schoolteacher. Before Eleanor learned to walk, the family of five uprooted, bound for California. The tennis bug bit Eleanor at age 11 when she entered her first tournament — for paddle tennis — and won. She soon caught the eye of coach Dick Skeen, who had trained several champions, and began weekly lessons with him at the Poinsettia Tennis Courts in Los Angeles. It cost $5 a month, a hefty figure during the Depression, though the price did include shoes and a racket. “It probably was a hardship for them,” Eleanor said of her parents in a 1993 Los Angeles Times interview, “but they went along with it.”
Eleanor Cushingham works on her tan at Raymond Loewy’s iconic Albert Frey–designed house in Palm Springs, circa 1947.
PHOTO BY Peter Stackpole, The LIFE Picture Collection via Shutterstock
In her early 20s, Eleanor fell for Jack Cushingham, a top-ranked tennis player who was attending the U.S. Naval Training School in Chicago. They married on May 22, 1942, and soon after settled at the U.S. naval base in Pensacola, Florida, where he was stationed.
Eleanor competed on the professional circuit from 1939 to 1948, winning five tournaments. She reached the peak of her career in 1943, ranking 13th nationally in women’s tennis. A crowning achievement came in 1945, when she stunned reigning national singles champion Pauline Betz with a decisive 6-4, 6-1 win at the Pacific Southwest Tournament in Los Angeles. “That was my best victory ever,” she later recalled.
Both Eleanor and Jack continued to play in tournaments during World War II, but by 1946, they set their sights on Palm Springs, where they started a new chapter at the famed Racquet Club — Jack as an instructor and Eleanor as a tennis hostess.
Founded in 1932 by actor Charles Farrell and fellow tennis buff Ralph Bellamy, the Racquet Club began as a laid-back escape where Hollywood’s elite could enjoy privacy and recreation. What started as a few club courts quickly grew into a full-fledged social hub featuring a resort pool, dining hall, dance floor, and the intimate Bamboo Bar, designed by film director Mitchell Leisen and known for its bloody marys. Celebrities flocked to the club, drawn by Farrell’s hospitality and the chance to unwind away from the spotlight.
The Cushinghams became fixtures on the desert’s social circuit, especially where tennis was concerned. In November 1946, La Paz Guest Ranch hosted the couple for an exhibition match, with Palm Springs Limelight News declaring, “Jack Cushingham, outstanding tennis player, and his wife, Eleanor Purdy Cushingham, show how the game should be played.”
Eleanor admired Farrell, telling a San Diego paper, “A person could be a billionaire, and Charlie wouldn’t have cared less. But he couldn’t do enough for people from Hollywood, and all the celebrities came to the club.” She saw plenty — Errol Flynn, David Niven, Dinah Shore, and Desi Arnaz among them. She found Cary Grant “gorgeous, drop-dead gorgeous” (not a minority opinion, to be sure) and played tennis with Rita Hayworth, whom she described as “a beginner.” Spencer Tracy, meanwhile, “loved to clown around and had a wonderful sense of humor.”
After their stint at the Racquet Club, the Cushinghams moved to Los Angeles to serve as resident pros at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. However, in 1951, Jack and Eleanor went their separate ways. Jack dipped his toe into the movie business, serving as a technical adviser on the Alfred Hitchcock film Strangers on a Train (1951) and making a cameo as a tennis player in a pivotal match against the lead character.
“She was a huge believer in tennis as a great way to get to know people socially. And it was good for business deals.”
Patrick Harbula
Eleanor, however, took a break from the sport. In 1954, she married Warren Harbula, a manager at Sturdevant’s Auto Parts, and moved to San Fernando to start a family. They had two children, Patrick and Catherine, and for nearly a decade, Eleanor prioritized her role as wife and mother.
After Warren’s death from cancer in 1963, Eleanor, who worked part-time in a dress shop, faced the reality of supporting her family. So, in her 40s, she returned to the sport she loved and once again began teaching tennis — coaching on private courts, at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, and later, after moving to Sylmar, at a tennis club there. Encouraged by friends, she hesitantly joined the senior tennis circuit. “Older people running around playing tennis … I thought it was ridiculous,” she admitted. “But, of course, once I started playing, I found out it was pretty good.”
Eleanor thrived on the court, competing in four or five tournaments a year and reconnecting with decades-old tennis pals in the process. By her 70s, she ranked No. 2 nationally in the women’s senior league, playing at least four times a week. “Exercise really changes your outlook on life,” she said. “I don’t feel like what my age says. I feel younger.’’
Even after “retiring” from competition in her late 80s, she remained active and eventually entered the Los Angeles Tennis Club National Hardcourt Championship in the 90-plus division. “She came in third,” recalls her son, Patrick, “and was damn mad she didn’t come in first!”
Eleanor Purdy Cushingham Harbula died on Dec. 24, 2012, in Redlands, California. A tennis lover to the end, she was still playing just a week before she passed. “She was a huge believer in tennis as a great way to get to know people socially, and it was good for business deals,” Patrick says. After a lifetime of accolades, she received one final honor — a posthumous induction into the Southern California Senior Tennis Hall of Fame.
