Guillermo Vilas, “Tennis’s Sexiest Man”: The Argentine Dictatorship in the US Tennis Press, 1974–1982

Abstract

Guillermo Vilas has been called the “foremost Latin American male” player in tennis history (Collins 655). Emerging as a contender on the international tour by winning the year end Masters Grand Prix championship in 1974, Vilas went on to forge an illustrious career, winning four major (“Grand Slam”) championships, ranking in the worldwide top ten from 1974 through 1982, and setting numerous all-time records that hold to this day. His success was the inspiration for Argentina’s tennis boom, and he remains a beloved celebrity in his homeland. A charismatic star, the long-haired, dark, and muscular Vilas became an international sex symbol in the late 1970s, as was confirmed by Playgirl magazine in 1978 when it named him “Tennis’s Sexiest Man.” His rise to fame coincided roughly with the escalation of Argentina’s “dirty war,” a story from which Vilas was kept at a distance in the US sports press. Notwithstanding Argentina’s surprise victory in the World Cup in 1978, Vilas was quite likely the best-known Argentine in the United States throughout his prime, and yet his image in the United States was never reconciled with that of his homeland, even as the latter’s human rights abuses provoked well-publicized tensions with the Carter administration. This study looks at Vilas’s image in the US sports press (including specialized tennis magazines, as well as more mainstream journals) and the more generalized image of Argentina constructed around him in relation to violence of the guerrilla warfare and state-sponsored campaigns of genocide that assaulted his homeland during the years of his international stardom.