Karl Howell Behr was born the son of Herman and Grace (née Howell) Behr of New York City. He was the brother of Max H. Behr, the famous golfer. Behr was educated at Lawrenceville School and attended Yale University and was admitted to the bar association in 1910. While at Yale he also played on the ice hockey team for three years.
Behr married Helen Monypeny Newsom on March 1, 1913 at the Church of the Transfiguration in New York City. The couple had four children together: Karl H. Behr Jr. (1914–2002), Peter Howell Behr (1915–1997), James Howell Behr (1920–1976), and Sally Howell Behr (later Mrs. Samuel Leonard Pettit) (1928–1995). After her husband's death, Helen remarried one of his best friends and former tennis partners, Dean Mathey.
Behr gave up a career in law, instead turning to banking. He was vice-president of Dillon, Read & Co. and sat on the board of the Fisk Rubber Company, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, and the National Cash Register Company. At the time of his death, he was a director of the Interchemical Corporation, the Behr-Manning Corporation of Troy, New York, and the Witherbee Sherman Corporation. His clubs included the Downtown, University and Yale, and the St. Nicholas Society.
He was a cousin of fellow tennis player Allen Behr.[1]
He reached the No. 3 U.S. ranking in both 1907 and 1914.[3]
Behr continued his tennis career after the sinking of Titanic (see below), and was named to the 1914 U.S. Davis Cup team along with fellow survivor R. Norris Williams. However, Behr, who played on the 1907 U.S. Davis Cup, did not play in the 1914 Davis Cup Challenge Round against Australasia at Forest Hills. In 1915 he defeated Maurice McLoughlin, the world's no. 1 ranked player at the time,[4] in straight sets, 8–6, 7–5, 7–5 to win the tournament in Seabright, New Jersey.[5]
In 1912, Behr booked first class passage on board RMS Titanic in pursuit of fellow first class passenger Helen Newsom, who was a friend of Behr's sister.[6] Behr occupied cabin C-148 during the voyage.
Sometime after the ship hit the iceberg, Behr met up with Helen, her mother and stepfather, Richard and Sallie Beckwith; and another couple, Edwin and Gertrude Kimball, on the boat deck. Under the watch of Third OfficerHerbert Pitman, the group gathered around lifeboat 5. Gertrude Kimball asked J. Bruce Ismay if all of their group could enter the boat. Ismay replied, "Of course, madam, every one of you."[7] As a result, Behr and his friends were rescued in lifeboat 5, the second boat to leave the ship. After the rescue, several newspapers reported that Behr had proposed to Miss Newsom in the lifeboat.[8]
While aboard the rescue ship, RMS Carpathia, Behr and several other passengers, including Molly Brown, organized and formed a committee to honor the bravery of Carpathia's captain, Arthur Rostron, and the ship's crew. They later presented an inscribed silver cup to Rostron, and medals to each of the ship's 320 crew.
^Anderson, Frank T. (March 10, 1929). "Another Behr on the Lawn Tennis Trail". Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Vol. 89, no. 68. p. C3. Retrieved May 22, 2024 – via Newspapers.com. First, there was Karl Behr, fiery and temperamental national doubles champion with Theodore Roosevelt Pell, and one of the greatest and most colorful players that ever graced the courts. Then came Allen Behr, Karl's cousin.
