Tennis star Steffi Graf’s dad, Peter Graf, pushed his daughter and pushed the envelope.
Tennis star Steffi Graf’s father Peter Graf, 75, dead from pancreatic cancer after doing time in the mid-‘90s for tax fraud. Graf, a used-car salesman, placed a sawed-off tennis racket in his three-year-old daughter’s hands and rewarded her with ice cream when able to sustain long rallies on a family living room make-shift mini-tennis court. It quickly became obvious Steffi had natural talent and Peter, as many put it, over-guided her early career.
Peter was hard-driving, which helped Steffi win the German junior 18-and-under championship when she was only 13. She turned pro at 14 and nothing stopped her. The fact that observers noted she was “robotic” and nearly emotionless on the court was blamed by many on her father, who was also known for driving hard bargains on fees for tournament appearances. There’s little doubt the lack of emotion for which Steffi was known was a reaction to her father’s alcoholism, which compelled him to wield power by driving his daughter, along with “hard bargains.”
Steffi came to her father’s defense in numerous interviews, until 1995 when he was charged with tax evasion on Steffi’s taxes; he was subsequently found guilty for evading taxes on her earnings in what one legislator called “the biggest tax scandal ever in Germany involving a private individual.” Peter kept a low profile for the rest of his life—we might surmise he got sober—but his relationship with his daughter was irrevocably “strained.”
I’ve long said, the odds of a child becoming a star increase substantially if a parent is an alcoholic. This holds in Hollywood, on the field and on the court.