RENÉE

April 19, 2011

Live Star Entertainment in Association with ESPN Films

Presents

RENÉE

A Film Directed By

Eric Drath

The film chronicles the life of trailblazing transsexual athlete Renée Richards, who shook the world of sports in 1977 with her controversial entry into the US Open. This fascinating doc is a testament to both personal and athletic perseverance.

Images from the film

Press Contacts:

Jay Jay Nesheim, 212-448-4841

Jennifer Cingari, 212-515-1084

SYNPOSIS

SHORT

The film tells the story of Renee Richard’s battle to enter the 1977 US Open as the first transsexual tennis player. Simultaneously, it follows her today as she struggles to cope with a life of contradictions and personal conflict. Through interviews with tennis legends, family, friends and experts from the transsexual field; a story of perseverance, breakthrough and hardship unfolds.

LONG

New York’s own Richard Raskind was a charismatic Ivy-League educated scholar athlete and medical school graduate. Dick was an officer in the Navy and had no shortage of female admirers. Dr. Raskind enjoyed romance, sports cars and all things associated with the good life, but Dick was also coping with a clandestine desire to become a woman. To the shock of those closest to him, Dick begins to reveal his secret and transform his appearance. He suddenly changes his mind, however, and in an effort to bury his impulses for good, Dick marries a fashion model and has a son. Despite his best efforts, Dick Raskind still can’t cope with the strong inclinations he’s been experiencing since an early age. When thoughts of suicide surface, Dick ultimately yields to, his alter ego, Renée. He abandons his family and undergoes gender reassignment surgery. No one could ever predict what the future had in store for the new Renée Richards.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I remember hearing as a little boy that Renée Richards was playing in the U.S. Open. My parents were tennis fans, and we lived in New York, so the Open was a big deal. What made it stranger was that just four years earlier, my sister had gone to see Dr. Richard Raskind for an eye problem. Now, somehow that same person was strutting onto the main court of the U.S. Open in a skirt as a woman named Renée Richards.

However strange the incident appeared, my parents spoke in hushed voices about it, and the subject quickly disappeared from our family’s dinner table conversation. But I never forgot about it, and, from time to time, I would wonder about Renée Richards. Why did Dr. Raskind become a woman? How did they let Renée play tennis? And what happened to her after she disappeared from everyone’s dinner table conversations?

When I started to research Renée’s life further, I found out she had a son, almost the same age as myself. “Wow,” I thought again. Having a father who had a sex change, and then played tennis on the main court of the U.S. Open. What was that like? So began my journey into this story. I got in touch with Renée, and she agreed to let me into her remarkable life.
– Eric Drath

BIOS

DIRECTOR ERIC DRATH

Eric Drath is a former journalist who has was born and raised in New York City. He earned his BA in Political Science from Columbia University where he anchored a news show on WKCR-FM. He started his professional career at ABC News during the first Persian Gulf War. Drath went on to be a producer at CNN, CNN International and finally, at the Fox News Channel, which he helped launch in 1997. At Fox, he produced stories internationally and covered the Pentagon. In 2000, Eric left the news business and became an agent in the sport of boxing. He wound up representing more than 40 world-class fighters and was responsible for his boxers competing in dozens of world title bouts. Drath’s passion for the fight game led to his creation of RingLink, the first satellite linked feed service for boxing news and highlights. RingLink was the conduit to what is today known as Live Star Entertainment. Located on Park Avenue in New York City, Live Star is a full-service production company specializing in both live television production and documentary films.

Recently, Drath wrote, directed and produced “Assault In The Ring,” a Live Star production picked up for broadcast by HBO Sports. The IFP featured movie won the 2009 EMMY for “Most Outstanding Documentary.”

Drath lives on the Upper West Side of NYC with his wife and two children.

DR. RENEE RICHARDS

Dr. Renee Richards was born in New York City as Richard Raskin in 1934. Growing up, Richard excelled at everything he put his mind to, especially tennis. He attended medical school, served in the US Navy, and played amateur tennis, all the while concealing his deep desire to become a woman.

Richard spent a great deal of time vacillating between being Richard, who he was born as, and Renee, who he felt he was meant to be, even marrying and having a son before finally deciding to have sex reassignment surgery at age 40.

Dr. Richards was thrown into the international spotlight in 1976, after winning an amateur tournament in California as a woman. The United States Tennis Association then immediately moved to ban her from USTA sanctioned play, including the U.S. Open, citing an unprecedented women-born-women policy. She fought the ban, and in 1977 the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor, allowing her to play. This was a landmark decision in favor of transsexual rights.

Dr. Richards has written two autobiographies, Second Serve, and No Way Renee: The Second Half of My Notorious Life. She continues to practice medicine to this day.

CREDITS

Director
Eric Drath

Executive Producers
Barry Murphy
Eric Drath

Senior Producer
Aaron Cohen

Writers
Aaron Cohen
Eric Drath

Directory of Photography
James Fideler

Additional Cinematography
Leo Lawrence

Supervising Editor
Kate Hirson

Editor
Brian Hartough

Music Compsoer
Nathan Halpern

Assistant Editor
Kenny Ross

Production Manager
Rachel Terry

Story Consultant
Kate Kirtz

Consulting Producers
Laura Belsey
Fred Cambria

Archivist
Eric Glatt

Production Assistant
Aleeha Fazel

Intern
Alek Esposito

FOR ESPN

Executive ProducersKeith Clinkscales
John Dahl
Joan Lynch
Connor Schell
Dan Silver
Bill Simmons
John Skipper
John Walsh

Senior Producer
Mark Durand

Producer
Libby Geist

Associate Producer
Andy Billman

Production Assistant
Stephanie Maggiore

ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION SUPPORT

Benjamin Fertig
Lee Goldberg
Tom Picard

SPECIAL THANKS

Chris Connelly
Maria Delgado
Marie Donoghue
Diane Morse
Callie Riotte
Erik Rydholm
Daniel Sassoon
Heather Scheer
Mike Tollin

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