Longtime Tahitian Terrace Resident Lee Calvert Celebrates Her 100th Birthday
By STEVE GALLUZZO | Sports Editor
Lee Calvert has long been known as Pacific Palisades’ “Golden Girl.”
On August 15, she reached a milestone very few people do—turning 100 years old—and 10 days later, she was joined by family, friends and neighbors for a celebration in the clubhouse at Tahitian Terrace, where Calvert has lived for over six decades. Guests wore blue—Lee’s favorite color—and shared stories and sentiments.
“Lee is a Tahitian Terrace treasure, and the fact that this many people are here is a testament to this woman,” said Leslie Campbell, who organized the event. “The first time I met her was 22 years ago during exercise class on the deck where she doing push-ups—real push-ups.”
Push-ups and sit-ups have long been part of Calvert’s daily routine. That along with what in her senior years turned into an unprecedented run of success in badminton and, later, table tennis.
The longtime Optimist Club member and USA Badminton Hall of Famer became a master in the sport, earning upward of 200 medals in a span of 30 years before undergoing knee replacement surgery when she was 87. Not one to let age dampen her competitive spirit, she switched to table tennis and participated in the Huntsman World Senior Games in St. George, Utah, where she increased her medal count.
“Thank you all for coming,” the birthday girl said, looking svelte in a velvet blue outfit, a multi-colored candle crown and a gold-lettered sash fit for the occasion. “At the time I moved I was the only one here and didn’t know Temescal Canyon would be made a road. I love my ocean view. We’re all so lucky to live here.”
Calvert remembered living through the stock market crash of 1929 and the Long Beach earthquake in 1933. She attended four different elementary schools and at the age of 11 was hired as a young actress for a program called Juveniles on Parade.
When she was 16 she auditioned for a show at the Grand Theater and got the part, playing seven shows to make $10 to $15 per week. Once everyone in the play became unionized, thanks to initiative taken by new lead actor Robert Mitchum, her pay increased to $60 per week, but when the show went on the road, her mother forbid her from going because her younger sister needed to go to school.
After graduating from Santa Monica High she went to Santa Monica City College, and while she was there, her brother died in a B-24 in World War II.
“I married a man who gave my mother a job, which she kept until she retired,” Calvert said. “We had two children and lived a typical post-war, middle-class life in West Los Angeles. I had a chance to play badminton at night at Santa Monica High. I loved it as a teenager when it was introduced as a new sport, and I joined the Santa Monica Badminton Club. In the decades that followed, I played in local tournaments and kept improving. My marriage ended when our children were grown, so I was free to pursue the sport and that included international travel.”
Needless to say, her passion for badminton was ignited.
“I started working for Wolper Productions, where I learned dialogue continuities, a script used for dubbing TV shows and movies into foreign languages,” Calvert continued. “After all, the U.S. produced the most popular shows. Soon I was doing these dialogue continuities for other companies. I ended up marrying my second husband, Larry, a national badminton champion and an excellent engineer, so he helped with the sound tracks and the equipment I needed. My company became Calvert Continuities.”
Some of the shows that they worked on included “The Lucy Show,” “Star Trek,” “Mission Impossible,” “Cheers,” “Mork & Mindy” and “Happy Days.”
“I also worked on scripts of historical pieces and documentaries like ‘Shogun,’ ‘Gold Meir’ and ‘Winds of War,’” Calvert said. “I ended up working until I was 88.”
Calvert’s son Jeff, who lives in Santa Cruz and turns 75 in November, visits at least once per month and has vivid memories of his youth, much of which was spent playing sports to his mom’s delight.
“What I remember most is the way she was passionate about badminton at the time,” Jeff explained. “She got me into it when I was 9, and I played solidly for three years. When I was 12, I went to Nationals and won a silver medal in doubles. I ran cross country at Palisades High and got real into gymnastics. Then, at UC Santa Cruz I spent all my time playing ping pong at Stevenson College.”
Local yoga instructor Alison Burmeister recalled her first meeting with Calvert.
“I met Lee when I found out she was doing 15 push-ups after she almost fell at CVS,” Burmeister said. “I was giving a talk at the Woman’s Club and asked her to speak. She got down on the floor and did push-ups. She was about 90 at the time.”
“She’s been the anchor and star of our table tennis team, and if she brought all of her medals she wouldn’t be able to walk up the hill,” Cynthia Cuza joked. “Lee and I went to the Senior Games in Utah together and it was an incredible experience.”
“I once asked: ‘Lee, how do you keep in such good shape?’” Tahitian resident Susan Strauss said. “She said those three words: ‘Just keep moving.’”
After fulfilling her promise to do 15 push-ups against the wall with Burmeister, blowing out all the candles on a plate of cupcakes and reflecting on her playing days, Tahitian Terrace’s oldest resident posed for a picture with its youngest—Reyna Rose Gabor—who was born July 12. The infant’s parents, Mirela and Marc, live in the mobile home park overlooking Will Rogers State Beach. Marc has known Calvert for three years.
“Like so many of us here, I play ping pong with Lee,” said Marc, who grew up in Rustic Canyon. “I get the emails and texts, and I play with her maybe once a month. She’s an amazing lady.”
The August 25 celebration was preceded by a similar party a week before, spearheaded by Calvert’s daughter Nancy, who is three years older than Jeff and started attending Pali High when it opened in 1961.
“I’ve known her a long time and play ping pong with her, in fact she walks by my place to get up there,” another Tahitian resident, Scott Simril, said. “Some people are born to be superstars, and she’s one of them.”
Also a Palisades Americanism Parade Association member, Calvert has kept making friends—many of them lately through table tennis—and has hundreds of admirers.
“I met Lee on the street about two and a half years ago,” said her neighbor Margie Otto. “I love her vitality and her energy. She’s sharp and a great storyteller.”
“The fact that she’s 100 and she’s still going strong says it all,” 12-year Tahitian Terrace resident Philip Alderton commented.
“Traveling in the badminton world was my favorite part of my senior life,” Calvert confessed. “I was in the World Games in Denmark and Australia, playing for the U.S. in my age category. When I stopped competing in badminton and decided to take up table tennis, I enrolled in a class at Santa Monica College, which was taught by an excellent instructor who was a great player. I’d always played ping pong over the decades, but I could see that this was a completely different level of play and required my developing new skills.”
In 2018, at the age of 94, Calvert won the 90-and-over singles division, paired with 86-year-old Leurene Hildenbrand of Ohio to capture the doubles and then paired with 92-year-old Joe Jenkins, also of Ohio, to win the mixed doubles at the Huntsman Games for her last gold medal. She was the oldest player, male or female, in the competition.
Calvert revealed her secret to a long, healthy and happy existence during a talk at Pacific Palisades Woman’s Club last July: “You can’t help getting older, but the best thing, if you can, is to stay fit into your later years. It has made a difference in my life.”
