(Presented by the Artists’ WWW Project of the Whitney Museum of American Art; web site—http://www.echonyc.com/~hwdarch/index.html)

By Lowell Darling

I have lunch here every Wednesday with Moose Malloy and Lillian Saddlebury. Moose was first created in Raymond Chandler’s novel Farewell, My Lovely.

Mike Mazurki recreated Moose on film. Twenty-five years later he has opened this restaurant on the cover of the paperback edition—a long moonlit view across MacArthur Park where the Elks Building looms ominously in the eerie blur that falls between art and archæology.

The first time Lillian Saddlebury came to the Cauliflower Alley Club she was Ilene Segalove, but Mazurki introduced her as Lillian Saddlebury, my assistant girlfriend. Wrestlers take as many liberties with names and titles as correspondence artists. Like many things in LA that Ilene Segalove is not, the Elks Building is a tall blond tower with knockout faces carved in its facade.

At the entrance Mazurki is hob-nobbing with a couple of couples gotten up in turquoise and rhinestone. They stumbled across his restaurant and recognized him from a long-ago wrestling match in Cincinnati with Gorgeous George. Last night in their hotel room he rematerialized in a flick he would just as soon forget. Along with several classics, Mazurki has made as many bombs. His discretion took a worse beating from his booking agent than his nose took when John Wayne missed his mark and punched him through his hat.

"Jeez. I know I whipped Paulette Goddard, but I don’t remember ever strangling a woman. I don’t think so. When was it made?"

"51."

"Who’s in it?"

"Beaver Cleaver’s dad."

"Oh yeah, Hugh Beaumont."

"In San Francisco," adds one of the women. "You were a wrestler. Broad as a door with a chest like a doormat.’"

"Say, that’s Moose Malloy. They musta stole it."

Traffic slows for rubber-necking casualties etched in Mazurki’s face. Horns honk in salute or aggravation. Winos in MacArthur Park ripple in their sea of newspaper beds as they dimly sense something is up.

Mike suggests we step inside. The hand muraled ceiling is a mile high. Boris Deutsch completed it seconds before the last splash of color in the most colorful decade of the century. Gold gates at the top of the marble staircase were meant to open into Flapper Heaven. But things changed. The tourists take seats in a maroon corner booth, primed by Mazurki’s presence, adrenalized by the wail of approaching sirens.

This is the home of the Cauliflower Alley Club, Mike Mazurki’s version of the showcase restaurants populated by boxers and wrestlers who hung out with movie stars and mobsters back when Mike wrestled and hung out with movie stars and mobsters. Mike befriends the shady characters who lurk in the dark credits of every black and white gangster film you’ve ever seen. Today these faces would be created in a special effects lab. In their day they did it with their fists. There would be no film noir without them.

Iron Mike Mazurki is now retelling the 15-second version of his dual careers.

"The more I wrestled, the more beat up I got. The more beat up I got, the more parts I got in pictures with Gary Cooper. The more people saw me in pictures with Gary Cooper, the bigger draw in the ring."

Mike just finished a movie up in Alaska, where he played a mad trapper who saved a wolf’s life being chased by Mounties through the snow. He may or may not have died in the avalanche at the end. Most of the footage is Roy Disney animal kingdom style with Mike superimposed talking to the moose. During the credits Mike walks in front of a mountain range I found in front of my studio in Hollywood, whisked away from the editor’s bench. I had been calling these beaten up mountains "The Destruction of the Grand Teutons." Now I call them "The Mazurki Mountains."

How’d a guy like you get speaking parts, Mazurki," rags Mushy, whose only movie parts were body parts.

"I gotta tell ya, they were casting for Moose Malloy and I figure I should be Moose, but I don’t hear a peep from anybody, so I call Eddie Dmytryk and Eddie says, ‘Aw, Mike, c’mon. You’re a wrestler. You’re a phony.’ So every day after that I read in Variety that they’re testing truck drivers, musclemen—anybody that’s big they’re testing cause they gotta get a big, big guy to play Moose Malloy. Well, a friend tips me off that Eddie is having lunch with the president of RKO at the commissary. The word out is that the president is mad as hell at Eddie for not finding a Moose. My buddy says, ‘Eddie’s still mad at you for buffaloing him on your last picture, but I’ve got an angle on this thing. Here’s what you have to do...’

"And so I wear my loudest jacket and a fedora out to here, and I throw open the commissary doors and walk in like I own the joint. Everybody looks up at me and stops eating, and the president of RKO . . . I have to think about that.

"He was a good friend of Bing Crosby’s . . . Anyways, I walk by his table, and Eddie can’t believe it. The president says to him, ‘Who’s that, Eddie?’ And Eddie says, ‘Aw, that’s nobody. He’s a wrestler.’ ‘Did you test him?’ ‘Naw. Wrestlers can’t read.’ ‘Well test him anyways,’ the president says, and then he comes over to me and says, ‘What’s your name?’ And I says to him, ‘I’m Moose Malloy.’ He goes back to Eddie and says, ‘Test him today.’

"Now you see, I know how Eddie feels about me, but I called his bluff. At my test we get along fine. He has to, because the president of the company is there, and the producer is there. Everybody is there. When I test with Dick Powell, Dick says, ‘Mike, you’re the best Moose Malloy I’ve seen so far. I’m gonna help you on this.’ So, like I said, we get the script Thursday, shoot the screen test Friday, I sleep Saturday and Sunday, and we start production on Monday. That’s how clean it was."

Mazurki’s voice booms across the room. He is having lunch with Gorilla Jones and George Raft. The once flamboyant middleweight boxing champion of the world and the sweet old shrimp who tried to buy Cuba with Mickey Cohen. Mickey, Gorilla, and George went to grammar school together in Akron. The gangster, the boxing champ, the movie star. One of those natural pitches for which agents pride themselves. I’ll take $10,000 a word for a short first option.

"People don’t understand racketeers," Gorilla explains. "But it’s simple. You make a deal and use their money and so you got to go along. No big secret about it."

Gorilla’s dealings with hoods were purely personal. Some hoods in New Jersey once threatened to cut off his you-know-what and throw it in the East River if he failed to take a dive in a certain fight. Gorilla mentioned this threat to Mickey. Mickey told Owney Madden. The King Pin put out word that whoever messed with Gorilla Jones would never mess in New York City again. That was the end of Gorilla’s active enemies. But if a hood started spouting off about putting someone in a hole or cutting off a head, Gorilla would ask them not to tell him. By staying clear of their occupational violence he kept his occupational violence unblemished (with the exception of a few early matches when deals were made to keep him from knocking out established white fighters. Black fighters back then had to do certain things to get to the top).

Straddling the high lattice fence in front of Gorilla’s Echo Park house is a statue of a gorilla, the namesake bestowed on him for his first boxing match at the age of 11. A local matchmaker, the sheriff, was unable to fill a bill and came up with the last-minute idea of promoting a match with "that little Gorilla boy who’s always looking for a fight." The Gorilla grew up to become to the boxing ring what Josephine Baker was to Paris nightlife.

Sylvia Mazurki chides Raft about looking so much like Mae West that Mae could be mistaken for his twin brother in drag. Mae introduced Mike to George when Mike was her bodyguard. She had just given Mike a trophy for being The Most Popular Wrestler in Pasadena.

"Godawmighty! That musta been back in ‘34 or ‘35. Some hoods stole Mae’s jewels, and she told George. George knew all the boys." Raft smirks acknowledgment but doesn’t look so tough without his hair.

Mae knew who stole her jewels and said she was going to tell the cops. Raft’s sources told him if she talked they’d throw acid in her face—a popular method of revenge. Mae told Mike her face meant a lot to her, so how could he refuse to protect it.

"Well, Honey," Sylvia says, "The money might have influenced you."

"Yeah. That was back when Mae was the biggest star in town. I thought she might help me break into motion pictures, but it took longer than I thought. But I was still able to wrestle, so I was lucky."

Mazurki gives most of the credit for his life to luck, which he cannot imagine being better. His father came to America from the Ukraine to bash in the brains of cows and drink vodka; his mother worked in the Cohoes yarn mills.

Mikhail Mazurkiwicz became the ghetto bully Mike Mazurki. But he got lucky—after he was kicked out of nun’s school, his mother sent him to La Salle, run by the tough Christian Brothers who taught him to be gentle. Mike ends up graduating from Manhattan College on an athletic scholarship, goes on to become the first center in professional basketball, then becomes a popular wrestler—which leads him to the motion picture business.

"I could have been picking potatoes, but instead I was packing the Garden."

The last Keystone Kop offers Lillian Saddlebury a drooping eyelid. "Mazurki makes it sound easy. Braggin’ ain’t in his language."

"Vocabulary," corrects Jack Ellis. His head has been squeezed at the temples by titanic tweezers. A withered balloon. Jack played the telegrapher in the train depot scene behind Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Vernon and Irene Castle Story. These days he is allowed to tell two jokes at the end of every club luncheon—the height of Jack’s week, the pinnacle of his career.

"Vocabulary shmocabulary. You steal your jokes from Reader’s Digest," snitches the endangered silent star. There are crimson pools the shape of cresent moons floating in his eyelids.

Mike stands to give a little better smell of the Old Spice and cigars. She could sit on his shoulder and be the size of his head. Waving a leaf of lettuce like a forked luna moth the professor of pain looks up through twisted eyebrows and says, "How’s Mae these days, Gorilla?"

"The Lady is fine," Gorilla answers. Wrinkles lifts his flaccid hairpiece. There is a lot of gossip about Mae West and Gorilla Jones. Mazurki will only volunteer that Mae has a soft spot in her heart for Gorilla, and Gorilla is mum on the subject. Never even mentions The Lady’s name. Long ago he quit being publicly familiar about her, ever since the night a stranger made remarks Gorilla didn’t like. The normally cool fighter challenged the man, but The Lady called him off. "Let ‘em talk. It’s good for business."

In the early twenties, Mae West’s manager, Jim Kimberly, bought a piece of Gorilla Jones’s contract . When Kimberly died a few years later, Mae took over as Gorilla’s manager until she moved to Hollywood in 1926 to make movies. Gorilla followed. They met when he was a teenager, shortly after his first train ride from Akron to his first fight in Madison Square Garden. Three days later he was riding home in his own railroad car counting fifty grand in bills. Today he is broke, but no one would ever guess it. An inveterate spendthrift, Gorilla’s remaining years are being bankrolled by Mae West.

Gorilla Jones was middleweight boxing champion of the world on and off between 1931 and 1940, when he earned as much as a million and a half dollars a year. The father of slick black flamboyancy, he entered the arena escorted by lion cubs on a leash—lions he caught in Africa with the Great White Hunter, Clyde Beatty.

Flying his own airplane in 1931, Gorilla took the only dive in his career, not in the ring but into a barn in Kansas. He lost his pilot’s license, his championship belt, and his eyesight. A year later he regained both his sight and his title, but he never flew again.

Gorilla’s white frame house in Echo Park is a dusty shrine to his career, his mother, and The Lady. If he has company and the phone rings in the early afternoon, Gorilla will excuse himself and grope for the phone buried beneath a pile of mail. A famous voice purrs his name. "I have a present I want to give you, Lady," Gorilla whispers. "How much will it cost me?" The Lady laughs and the sound sends Gorilla Jones straight to heaven. When she dies he will follow her one last time.

Mike sweeps a hamhock fist in the direction of the buffet where Sylvia is serving Lou Nova. It claps like summer thunder in his palm. Lou waves, unable to consider that he is not the object of Mike’s gesture. Mike smiles and shouts, "The great Lou Nova!"

All Mike’s friends are great. The great Lou Nova is great for knocking out the great Max Baer in the first fight ever televised. Lou is a walking history of fashion shock. His ceaseless jaw ascends into an angora goat on top of a fatted head. He rips his clothes off the Vasareli rack. The aroma of camphor wafts through the room and mingles with the corrupt smell of cigars. Inexplicably Lou recites us a poem, twitching and dodging imaginary fists and screaming bells, BELLS, BELLS!, seething with anger, buried a breath beneath desperation. His career is over. It is out of courtesy that not until Lou has gone does Mike mention roughing up Tyrone Power.

Perhaps feeling some contact insanity from Lou’s recital, Mike grabs Korky by the lapels and growls, "That sonofabitch didn’t move at all. He stayed right there. And he howled like...."

The rare bird ruptures into a frightened howl. Then he smiles and Mike continues; they’ve done this all before. "So Power cries, ‘Get him off me. He’s killin’ me!’ And he runs off the set. So George Jessel says, ‘Mike, goddam it! You hurt my star!’ He says, ‘What’re you doing?’ He says, ‘You’ll never work for me again.’ I say, ‘Gee, George, I’m sorry.’ Finally Ty comes down and says, ‘I’m sorry.’ He says, ‘Gentlemen, it was my fault.’ And after that, we became friends. I used to see him at the playgrounds, things like that. But if you hit a star, you never work again. This much I know."

"No shit," choirs Korky in French with a cockeyed grin.

Mazurki settles back to the chicken teriyaki.

Rory Calhoun and Mushy Callahan accept his speechless invitation. Mushy’s nose is albino strawberrys slumped by sunlight.

Rory immediately starts needling Mike, asking how he got his cauliflower ear. Mike has told the story so often that the record scratches, but he is greatful to have an ear worth mentioning.

"There’s little blood cells in there," he says. "You keep hitting the ear and the blood cells bust and expand. If you get it right away, while the blood is still hot, you can drain it. Then you put an ice pack to it and it’ll be all right. But then you go back and fight the next night, you get hit, it’ll come up again. So every time you have it drained, or you wait two or three days, it forms a cartilage and hardens. But one time I had an ear way out like this." Mike cups an invisible softball over the left side of his head.

"I’m not complaining. It was an honor. Everybody wanted an ear."

Mike cocks his head so his cauliflowered side leads, and he says that for a long time he used to walk like this. "It was a trademark, but you know, it’s a funny thing—I was vain enough to think that if I didn’t have an ear, maybe I’d make it big in the picture business. So I had a fake ear made. I thought it could get me lover parts like Rory’s."

Mike squeezes Calhoun’s perfect ear.

"It looked like the real McCoy, but everybody said I couldn’t be a leading man. Who? Me with a raspy voice? Let me tell you though—they’d give talking parts to collies before they’d screen test a wrestler."

"Beats selling apples," Mushy says, distracted. More than any of the fighters, Mushy tends toward dreaminess. He enjoys sitting on his porch across the street from the Hollywood DMV. We can see him there with his precious memories and his aches and pains—the Newsboy Champion. Booth Tarkington urchin hoards used to carry him out of the ring on their shoulders whenever he won—which was all of the time. Mushy Callahan was so popular the Boxing Commission had to invent a weight class for him. Middle-welterweight. (I’ve won a few bets on that one.)

When Mushy began boxing he was taught to tell his opponent his shoe laces were untied and deck him when he looked down to check. The first time he tried it, his opponent asked which shoe, but that’s not how Mushy got the nose to match his plastered name. As a boy Mushy worked with his father as a horse-and-wagon fruit salesman from 5 AM to 5 PM every day. One day he was taking a nap and the horse stepped on his face. (Every time Mushy tells that story he swears it’s the truth.)

Mushy Callahan’s real name is Vincent Sheer, but he is not the only Jewish boxer who became an Irish boxer. Across the room sits Abie Baine who took advice from an Irish priest. The priest declared Abie was too good to be fighting Jewish. He became Mugzee Ryan. Today Abie Baine takes his Irish identity so seriously he is listed in the phone book under the Rs.

Boxing was illegal when Abie and Mushy started, and their parents were not aware they fought. Mushy came home from his first fight with a black eye. His father spanked him. When the kid turned over the thousand dollar purse, his father asked when he was going to fight again. Between 1924 and 1934 Mushy Callahan racked up 60 legal fights. His father seldom missed one, but his Mom couldn’t even listen on the radio. Abie says boxing broke his mother’s heart. At the age of 14, he lied about his age and began fighting bootleg in New Jersey, usually on the docks so they could jump in the water if the cops came.

When he was at his peak Abie was elected The Most Beautiful Body in Miami Beach. He was a frequent companion of Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel. Capone used Abie to attract girls in the clubs. Soon after the girls sat down, the hoods would send Abie off to bed alone with a lecture on training. From there things went downhill. Abie traveled the country taking on all comers at county fairs and hay bail arenas; he seldom picked up the purse because the law was on his tail.

Ultimately he agreed to take a dive since his career was in the tank anyway. But even though he promised to lose, he won. Double-crossed mobsters held Abie by his ankles out a fourteenth story window with Abie screaming, "I tried! I did everything I could! I let him hit me! I tried to miss him! Nobody could lose to that bum!" His honest evaluation saved Abie’s life for greater worries than breaking his mother’s heart. He claims his daughter didn’t get to be a Mouseketeer on the Mickey Mouse Club because the producers thought her father was punchy. For this condition Abie blames Jack Dempsey.

"Dempsey made me the man I am today," Abie says with a voice that describes the jab to the throat that makes him sound strangled. The loss of his normal voice hurt him more than words can tell. Since the days when he was a boy, singing with Perry Como, Abie considered his voice his life. What is left has been immortalized by Anthony Quinn in Requiem For A Heavyweight. The role of Mountain Rivera was based on Abie Baine, but Quinn imitated Abie too well. Abie’s speaking role in the movie had to be cut—like when Mazurki had to shave his head so he wouldn’t look like Victor Mature in Shanghai Gesture.

(continued from New WAWLI No. 610)

The menacing figure who claims more murders than anyone in motion pictures saunters up to prove that life imitates art. Vince Barbi has killed 650 people—all members of the Screen Extras Guild, who lived. The notorious mobster Lucky Luciano died in his arms. He was Benito Mussolini’s favorite boxer, John Cassavetes’ favorite heavy. Remember The Blob? Vince played the proprietor of the diner along with being the man responsible for financing the picture. Using nefarious funds, he gave Steve McQueen his first big role as the teenage hero.

Vince is in a bad mood today. The air conditioner went on when he was napping and blew his hairpiece in the air. Vince caught it from the corner of his eye, something moving quick against the backlit drapes. He pulled out his pistol and shot it.

The conversation turns naturally to violence in the cinema. These corpse grinders think there is too much. One is reminded that Leo Tolstoy, after a life of fornication and debauchery, became convinced that the world would be perfect if people would stop fucking. And of course he was right because if they did, there would be no people. (Roll over, Malthus.)

"I don’t think a lot of violence is necessary," pronounces Mazurki, who lived through only one picture, New York Confidential, and that was because he squealed on Broderick Crawford.

Abie’s lizard eyes rove the room at random. Periodically he pipes up to no one in particular, "What round is it?" The man has been knocked from pillar to post and now he agrees that movies are too violent. No one disagrees.

"I worked for Peckinpah," Mike says. "About six or seven guys with Bill Holden. I said, ‘What are you trying to prove, Sam? I’ve worked on pictures where there was a lot of fighting, but no stabbing and cutting guts and poking your eyes out and things like that. It’s uncalled for.’ I walked out on him."

"The same thing with sex," Abie wheezes, maybe recalling how Al and Bugsy got all the girls. Mike only laughs at the thought of too much sex.

"Sex is not you, Mike," says Vince.

"No. Not my type. I’m supposed to be a big he-man, although I don’t approve or disapprove of it. I can take sex or leave it. It’s like drinking. You ask if I’m a teetotaler, I say, ‘No. I enjoy a drink. I’ll drink with you.’ But I don’t have to go overboard."

"What about Anita Ekberg?"

"What the hell," Mike mutters. "I got along with all my leading ladies. I got along fine—Gene Tierney, Maureen O’Hara. Gosh. Anita."

"The big bazoom girl," Vince chuckles.

"What’s that?" Abie asks.

"Bazooms," Mike says, matter-of-factly. "Gee, she was beautiful. I used to take her out to dinner over in San Francisco. We shot Blood Alley in San Rafael, so I took her to San Francisco twice, three times a week. Restaurants. Piano bars. Things like that. We got along real wonderful."

"Bazooms?" asks Abie again.

"Bazooms," Vince echoes flatly. "You never heard that expression? She had a 350 bazoom?"

"Did you ever see the picture, Four from Texas?" Mike asks Abie. "I was Sinatra’s right-hand man. I had a couple of scenes where I’m doin’ his nails and Anita’s giving him a shave. She’s stooping over and you see her bazooms." He gives Abie a knowing look. "Get it, Abie?"

"Hey!" Vince rips, head jerking to an Arab in Sahara drag, shuffling through the wrought iron doors, thick albums cradled in his arms. "Get a load of this. Abdullah of Hollywood!" Yassir Arafat plays Marley’s Ghost. It’s Victor McLaglen’s secret Arab son.

Before Victor McLaglen became a movie star, he served in the British Army as Provost Marshall of Baghdad.

He was patroling the desert when he encountered a Bedouin boy whose tribe had been wiped out by bandits. Victor adopted the boy, Abdullah Abbas, and took him back to London. When Abdullah reached the age of 16, McLaglen unwittingly created a crisis by marrying a woman who hated Arabs. Her brother had been killed by one.

Abdullah, not wanting to complicate McLaglen’s life, stowed aboard an Italian freighter bound for Canada. Victor had taught the boy to box, so he fought bootleg bouts across America to San Francisco. There Abdullah was discovered by Alexander Pantages, the owner of a theatre chain.

Pantages had recently been granted a reprieve from prison where he was doing time because Joe Kennedy rigged a rape against him as part of his final bid to take over Hollywood. Pantages now preferred the company of Bedouin pugilists who fight in rings to girls from Garden Grove who dance in mop closets, and he booked Abdullah fights in LA.

In the meantime (a Hollywood mean time with calendar pages blowing bleak like autumn leaves), John Ford was in England looking for a big, tough, hard-drinking Irishman. He spotted Victor McLaglen in a pub, took him to Hollywood, and on the night Abdullah broke both hands on a hard man’s head, Victor was in the audience. He found the boy a job at Warner Brothers rubbing out stars.

The boy ages. Dark wrinkles inlaid with soot crease his crackling olive skin. His robes carry the stench of mildewed mummies. He heads for our table and plops down three scrapbooks, sweeping his palm above them as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls, dug up from oblivion on his way to the club.

"All time I work massage, I keep this book. This Doug Fairbanks. That James Dean. Jean Harlow say I got best hand in Hollywood."

Abdullah pours clumsy fingers over crumbling toast colored glossies. "I tell Jack Warner about John Wayne—pretty good lookin’ boy over in back lot, movin’ round lotta piano." In one of the photographs Abdullah is wearing a sombrero. He holds a noose around Ronald Reagan’s neck. "Where all these boy now I need him? What I’m going do these picture when I gone?"

Victor McLaglen could not have been less like Mike Mazurki than Carroll Baker. While Mike was guarding Mae, learning to talk in the movies and raising two children, Vic was scouring Skid Row for drunks to invite to parties he threw at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel—entire floors for days on end. But when McLaglen died, Mazurki took his place in John Ford’s troupe. They made six pictures together, one of which is a classic, the last of Ford’s Westerns, Cheyenne Autumn.

"In Cheyenne Autumn there’s a scene with Richard Widmark in a tent. I’m getting out of the army after 40 years. Widmark’s chasing Indians out of Dakota, or wherever we are, and I don’t like it. Ford takes us into his dressing room and he works with us for about two hours. He tells Widmark, ‘Not so much this. And, Mike, you’re too much that.’ The first shot is a long shot of us two at the table. One take! ‘Perfect! Print it.’ Next we get a closeup of Widmark. The camera is over my shoulder. We’re doing the same scene over again. Same thing we did in the long shot. One take again. Next: reverse on Mazurki. One shot. Three takes for a scene that would ordinarily require 35 to 40 takes.

"These features that’re shot in ten days, the director says, ‘Do you know your dialogue?’ ‘Yessir.’ ‘OK, let’s shoot it. Print it.’ He doesn’t care whether you got your finger up your nose, up your ass, or what. They’re fightin’ time. They got two weeks to finish the picture. Ten days, twelve days. They’re not gonna wait to see if your thoughts are the same as the script. But who cares?" (Mike is more proud of his career in the ring than on the screen. He will unflinchingly play a loser in films but he would never throw a wrestling match. Besides, since wrestling was what led to his motion picture success in the first place, he remains faithful. Making movies is a sideline to Mike.)

"When I got started, wrestling was at its peak," he says. "This was during the Depression. Hell, everybody looked up to a wrestler then. Today, they wouldn’t care if you walked down the street and did a handstand. They’d look at you and say, ‘He’s a fruit or something.’ But in those days it was an honor to be a wrestler because wherever you went they would sell out the arenas. We walk down the street or stroll into a hotel and we’re top banana. Just like the rock singers of today—biggest cars, tailor made suits, best looking dames, top hotels.

"Today you have to be some kind of freak. In the old days it was no frills. Oh sure, sometimes we’d put a little spin on things. For example, if I was wrestling you, and you were a favorite, if you got a hold on me, like an armlock, rather than go down with it I would put my foot on the ropes. That would make them boo me. And then they’d start yelling, ‘He’s yella!’ So I might throw an elbow smash into your heart."

Someone out of nowhere asks Mazurki if he wasn’t married to some dish in the news, and Mushy is painfully reminded that his wife Jean is in the hospital. When they met, Jean was a showgirl on the Orpheum Circuit, an acrobat and dancer. She had the female lead in a few Sennett features. Unlike Mushy, Mazurki is a grizzly who goes off early at the mention of his first wife—but then Jean had given Mushy’s Irishness substance through conversion. His son is the Catholic priest who taught Ilene Segalove video at Loyola University.

"My first wife bamboozled me into marrying her," Mazurki kvetches. "Newspaper reporters got a knack that way. We were married, but I kept traveling a lot, and while I was away she threw parties all the time. She was a boozer. Deserted the kids when they were ten, twelve years old. When I finally got a divorce, the kids said, ‘Dad, you’re gonna marry Sylvia and we’re gonna give you away.’ Syl’s helped raise them since they were little. We went up to Las Vegas and sure enough, they gave me away ."

Maria Bernardi sits at the next table eavesdropping and talking simultaneously—a familiar phenomenon at the Cauliflower Alley Club. Maria says she almost went to jail after her first husband. They got into a fight at the Garden after the Louis-Conn fight. She bet on Louis; he bet on Conn.

"He was prejudiced, and I won. When I asked him for my money, he slapped me. I knocked him all over the place. Drew a bigger crowd than the main event. When we got home he started to get tough so I dropkicked him down the stairs." Her husband filed for divorce and charged Maria with barbarous assault.

"The Club is elite and prestigious," Jack Ellis murmurs with syrupy hyphens between each syllable, a pattern developed in response to Jack’s passionate affair with his collection of lexicons. Every object has two satellite adjectives in Ellis’s verbal universe. Soon he will meet a younger woman who will take him for every penny he has. Jack is trying not to faint. His memorized punchlines have left him as surely as if he’d received a right to the ribs from Gorilla Jones.

"My friend, my friend," Gorilla whispers. His head is also nodding like a teaspoon balanced on a finger.

"Kid Chissel," Mike calls. Eyeballs twitch and in walks a man carved by his name: Noble Kid Chissel, Middleweight Boxing Champion of the U.S. Navy, Pacific Fleet, World War Two. Most good fighters then were doing a stint in the service. The competition was stiff, and Kid was popular. After every match, his opponent prone on the mat at his feet, Kid would sing Back Home in Indiana. Now his voice is still melodious and true, but Kid doesn’t have much to sing about. His house has burned. Particularly painful is the scrapbook loss.

Without them a large chunk of Kid’s identity is ashes. He has lost the evidence to back such claims as being best man at Marilyn Monroe’s secret wedding. A kind of visual castration has taken place. Devoid of pictures, Kid is reduced to being like everyone else. He cannot endure this and is compelled to brag more now than ever before. And that’s saying something.

Kid fiddles with the bolo tie dangling beneath his Indiana granite jaw—part of his physique that constitutes an endless source of pride. His shtick today is being columnist for a chain of newspapers whose raison d’etre is filing notices for the County Clerk’s office.

He spots one of the Great Maestro Brothers and waves his Stetson. Dick Maestro publishes The Boxing Record. He is eating with Doc Levin. Doc invented the mouthpiece.

Sitting on the other side of Doc is Count Billy Varga, the vain and handsome wrestling champion who retired and bought a goldmine. The Count is waiting for a paparazzo to pick him out of the crowd, but Kid is unimpressed. He wants to start Sylvia Mazurki yakking about Marilyn Monroe, who she knew when she was younger. It’s not a tough job.

"Marilyn used to come and socialize with me every Saturday. We sat in my office and chatted away, and she seemed to enjoy herself. It was obvious she needed to talk to another woman. This was before she shared that apartment with Shelly Winters. She was a little girl who was very smart, who had everything, but for some crazy reason never felt terribly secure. And she always had some gentleman—some man—making decisions for her. It was a pattern she fell into early on. She seemed miserable. Over here, Honey!"

Heads turn toward the entrance and the gang waves and whoops. Mazurki has been upstairs at the offices of George Parnassus. Mike and George have been trudging down memory lane with their old grappling buddy Jim Londos, the Golden Greek, who has just come up from his avocado ranch in Escondido.

Across the room Jimmy McLarnin is getting nobly besotted—the only person who gives the appearance of paying no attention to Mazurki. He keeps an eye on the popular wrestler the way Ernest Hemingway described Wyndham Lewis watching Ezra Pound in A Moveable Feast: "Carefully without seeming to look at him, as you do when boxing."

Coincidentally, Hemingway wrote that at a time when Jimmy McLarnin was the most brilliant boxer on Earth—a time when men like Hemingway and Clark Gable stood outside Jimmy’s dressing room hoping to shake his powerful hand.

McLarnin is now staring at gnarled hands, which look unnatural outside a pair of gloves. They convey a brief history of the art of boxing. Jack Dempsey is said to have soaked his fists in salt water to toughen them; McLarnin’s hands look like they were soaked in active volcanoes. His face is unblemished and he has no cauliflower ear. Jimmy obeyed only one rule in the ring: never get hit.

I’ve met men who did it both ways, and Jimmy’s way was right.

He might get drunk but he is not punch drunk. As he weaves toward his wife, waiting at the door to take him home, no one makes a crack. His glare indicates those who only recognize fighters famous from motion pictures.

"We were just talking about you." Sylvia winks at Mike. "Kid wants to write your life story."

"Oh, Jeez," Mike whines at Chissel. "Sylvia knows more about me than I know about myself. You got any questions, you ask her."

"We were talking about Marilyn Monroe."

"That’s more like it."

"Sit down and talk to us, Honey," Sylvia says.

Mike obeys, schoolboy style.

"Marilyn was very friendly," he tells Kid, looking at Sylvia to see if that’s enough. (It isn’t.) "She was particularly friendly to the members of the cast. If you made a joke, she’d laugh with you. She’d have lunch with you or something like that, but at that time she was going with... who’s the guy again?"

"Miiiike! Arthur Miller!" Sylvia bends confidentially to Kid and says, "Mike felt that Miller was very manipulative, and if he couldn’t be the boss he wouldn’t play. He wasn’t a good sport."

"Did you ever talk to Miller?" Kid asks, sensing an explosive story and grasping his slim reporter’s notebook with hands like grenades.

"Are you kidding?" Mike fires back.

"We never talked to him because we knew who he was, and we knew he was a bastard. Every time he was on the set Marilyn wouldn’t mix with anyone. He’d take her on the set and take her back. This is off the record, naturally."

The air fills with derisive hissing sounds when Kid asks Mike if he knew many gangsters.

"Christawmighty! I knew a lot of hoods, Kid. What is this? All these gangsters were nice guys. All of ‘em—the top hoods—they were all nice guys. But they figured the parts I played was the way I was. Listen to this: when I was doing Guys and Dolls in Chicago, one night a guy comes up to me and says, ‘The boss wants to see you.’ I thought he was pulling my rib because I was a gangster in the show. He had a big car, drove me to this huge beautiful house. Turned out he was with Nitti, for chrissake! The top gangster in Chicago. So when I come in, Nitti says to all these guys sittin’ around, ‘Hey, folks. It’s Big Julie from Cicero.’ He believed I was the part I was playing. Becomes real friendly. ‘Go to these restaurants and just sign my name," he says. "Tell ‘em Nitti sent you. And go to my tailor and get yourself a suit of clothes.’"

"Did you?"

"Sure! He was a hood. I might as well do what he wanted. Bugsy Siegel owned a hotel. ‘Be my guest,’ he always told me. I was their guest everywhere I went. You know that."

"A simple soul, Mazurki," Sylvia sighs.

"Was Raft a hood?" Kid asks of Mike and Sylvia’s recently deceased friend.

"They all respected George. Everybody thought he was a top grade gangster who had access to all the big wheels. That’s why everyone was so friendly to him, always sucking up to him and everything."

"We were close to George. He was a lovely man, courtly as hell to me," Sylvia recalls. "He had the most beautiful hands, and no facial hair whatsoever. But he would never say who his partners were. He had a casino in Cuba and one in London. Got kicked out of both of ‘em."

"No, he would never say what his connections were. I do know he never took any checks after the IRS got after him. If you used him in a picture, you had to pay in cash. I had to do that once. George was clever. He could always top you. And he was such a dancer! Once we were in a restaurant and all the girls were coming up to pat his face. I said, ‘George, can you explain your charisma with women?’ He looked at me real serious and said, ‘Sylvia, will you notice with whom I am sitting?’ He was a ladies man. Married once or twice.

"When he died they said George didn’t have any relatives, but that isn’t true. He had a grandchild by a lady from his youth, who had a daughter. George wanted to marry her, but she wouldn’t marry him. God knows why. She had the child out of wedlock and married someone else. What was her name, Honey?"

"Who the hell knows? Maria Something."

"And that child had a boy. That’s not part of the public record. But George visited him. He was crazy about that kid . Did you know that George’s grandfather introduced the merry-go-round to America?"

(Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1934)

George Zaharias, roughest of the roughers in the wrestling game, tangles with Man Mountain Dean, bearded, 317-pound Georgia mancrusher, over the three-fall finish route in tonight’s main event at the Olympic

In making his local debut as a feature eventer, the bearded hillbilly faces one of the toughest top-notch heavyweights in the country, one who has crushed Jim Browning in straight falls, beaten Hans Steinke, Ray Steele, Jim McMillen and many others of this caliber.

Dean has attracted national attention with his quick smashing victories over wrestlers who are considered both rough and tough, but because of his weight, and the fact that twenty out of the last twenty-three opponents have either ended up with bad injuries or been knocked cold, the game’s outstanding heavyweights have avoided him as being dangerous.

Matching the Man Mountain with Zaharias is believed to be the first step in the campaign of the game’s leading heavyweights to put a stop to the Georgian’s climb toward the top. Unless he is defeated, the high-ranking heavyweights see the danger of being forced to meet this man-crushing giant and risking serious injury any time any of them step in the same ring with him.

Everette Marshall, the most popular of all the young stars ever turned out on the Coast by Lou Daro, returns after an absence of more than three years to engage Count George Zarynoff, the acrobatic contortionist and one of the cleverest pieces of wrestling machinery seen in action in this section.

This is a bout that is expected to sparkle with speed, clever and scientific mat work, and which will probably give the final event a run for the spotlight. Marshall has been a sensation in the East. He has more ability and mat color than when he was on the Coast.

Probably the most improved young star returning to these parts on this card is "Jumping" Joe Savoldi, the ex-Notre Dame gridder, who faces Dinosaur Johnson, a huge and powerfully built 306-pound Swede, in the semi. They meet in a thirty-minute time-limit event.

The supporting bouts should be packed with high-speed action. Leo Numa, the toehold king, faces Pat O’Shocker, red-headed mat star from Salt Lake City, in the special. paul Boesch, the Brooklyn flash, will tangle with Bonnie Muir of Australia in the second, while Howard Cantonwine, rough and rugged Iowa giant, mixes with Mike Strelich in the first.
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(Los Angeles Examiner, August 16, 1934)

Man Mountain Dean, a dead ringer for Henry the Eighth in looks as well as in behavior, last night tossed off another bothersome burden with all the nonchalance of King Hank ridding himself of last year’s wife.

Unlike his bewhiskered double of English history, the bearded hillbilly of the big bounce and ballyhoo business did not require the services of a headman’s ax as he tamed the terrible George Zaharias before 11,000 exclaiming fans in the main event of last night’s wrestling show at the Olympic. Not Man Mountain Dean.

All that he needed was 318 pounds of hillbilly heft and a little more than four minutes in which to nurse his steadily mounting wrath. Once his temper was raised to the boiling point by the curious ire-provoking antics of his playful 228-pound opponent, the Man Mountain swung into action.

It was then short and sweet. Sweet to everybody in the house but Zaharias, that is. After suffering an injured chest, fractured ribs and a possible spinal injury in 4 minutes, 36 seconds, Zaharias was carried out feet first, bundled into an ambulance and carried off to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. There it was that Police Surgeon James R. Dean diagnosed Gentleman George’s troubles as reported above and those were reasons enough why Zaharias never came back for another fall. One was plenty.

It was like crushing an egg, and most of the 11,000 patrons in the over-stuffed house must have thought somebody or other was an egg at that judging by the way they howled for the Man Mountain to subdue that rough and ready man Zaharias who has been playing the heavy villain in these parts for lo, these many months.

Zaharias tried about all the tough stuff he knew and at the four-minute mark he had Dean’s knee buckling for the first time in the Olympic, the bearded face wincing and the big man backing away. George suddenly knocked Dean down to the mat and then picked him for a body slam. Dean’s weight was too much and Dean came down on top. George was just beginning to go out for the night when the infuriated Man Mountain landed plunk on the former’s back for the kayo. A flapjack turn and a body pin and another bad man bit the dust at the hands of the modern King Henry VIII.

In the semi-windup, Everett Marshall allowed Count George Zarynoff to show off his clever holds and cat-like defenses for 38 minutes, 56 seconds, then pinned the Ukrainian with a body lock.

Luigi the Daro announced that next Wednesday night’s championship bout between Jim Londos and Jim Browning would be held at the Olympic at popular prices instead of outdoors as rumored.

Joe Savoldi scored as a pretty a drop kick as Notre Dame football ever saw, to knock out Dinosaur Johnson, 308-pound Scandinavian, in the feature preliminary. Johnson chased Savoldi around the ring for about a minute, during which time "Jumping Joe" tried vainly to bring his opponent to the mat with body bumps. Joe simply bounced off, and presently he found himself bouncing through the ropes almost into the press row. He came back and was bounced out again, but the second time he came through the ropes into the ring. He did so feet first and knocked Johnson out cold in 1 minute and 46 seconds.

Leo Numa, 215 pounds, and Pat O’Shocker went 20 minutes to a draw. It was a good, clean bout.

Paul Boesch, 215-pound boy who is being ballyhooed for future gallery attractions, required 10 minutes and 51 seconds to defeat Bonnie Muir with a series of bumps and a body pin.

In the opening bout, Howard Cantonwine won from Mike Strelich in 3 minutes and 27 seconds, with four punches to the jaw, a rabbit punch and a body slam.
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(Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 18, 1956)

Ivan and Karol Kalmikoff battled a throng of chair-throwing spectators as well as Leo Nomellini and Ilio DiPaolo to score another wrestling victory at the Armory Tuesday night.

The final decisive pin came at nine minutes when Ilio missed a flying tackle and flew into the third row. He staggered back into the ring with the aid of spectators. One spectator attempted to hit Ivan with a chair, missed and banged Ilio across the eyes. The pain-racked Ilio then gave up.

While all this was going on, Nomellini was pummeling Karol in the other corner of the ring.

The first fall was credited to Nomellini at 8:43. Leo first threw Ivan into the ropes with a whip and then caught him coming off the ropes with a shosulder block. From then it was an easy matter to make the pin.

Karol pinned Ilio at 2:57 to even the count. After Ilio spun Ivan outside the ropes and followed him outside, Karol caught Ilio int he ribs, then used a knee stomp for the win.

Results:

Hans Schmidt, 248, Munich, Germany, pinned Carl Gray, 257, Milwaukee, Wis. (2:28); Roy McClarity, 237, Winnipeg, pinned Johnny Moochy, 256, Centuria, Wis. (28:44); Jim Bernard, 250, and Red Bastien drew, 30 minutes.
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(Allentown Morning Call, Mar. 9, 1987)

By Sylvia Lawler

What’s a soft-spoken, intellectual type like Channel 39’s producer-director Kerwin Silfies doing trekking around the country with the barbarian likes of Hulk Hogan and Randy "Macho Man" Savage?

Making a name for himself directing big-time wrestling on both network and syndicated television, is what. And helping producers rack up huge ratings in the doing.

Silfies, a Bethlehem native, is in his second season as director of NBC’s "Saturday Night’s Main Event," the 90-minute taped World Federation of Wrestling bash seen on the network the weeks that "Saturday Night Live" is not. Obviously, a director of wrestling chooses angles and directs the camera action, not the fake-foolery going on in the ring.

Silfies has just about cornered the market in calling the shots for professional wrestling on television. He has been doing all the WWF shows for the past three years. Their three syndicated shows, "Superstars of Wrestling," "Wrestling Challenge" and "Wrestling Spotlight," are seen around here largely on Saturday mornings.

When Vince McMahon head of the WWF’s parent company, Titan Sports, and his co-executive producer, Dick Ebersol, were about to embark on "Saturday Night’s Main Event," it was natural that they approach Silfies, who already had a reputation as a director of wrestling. (Ebersol, the former producer of "Saturday Night Life," is married to actress Susan Saint James. Silfies is married to Channel 39 on-air personality and the station’s director of special projects, Shelley Brown Silfies).

This coming Saturday at 11:30 p.m., audiences will see an unusual (for television) 20-man over-the-top-rope Battle Royale featuring a score of wrestling superstars including The Hulk. "It’s a good show of particular interest," says Silfies; "a free-for-all where the wrestler are eliminated one at a time as they get thrown over the top rope."

He also does the live, once-a-year major event "Wrestlemania," which is shown on closed-circuit screens around the world and is set for later this month in Detroit. Silfies, who has a degree in broadcasting from Temple but says he really learned his trade over his 17 years with Channel 39, is getting a kick out of all of it. He does not disdain wrestling as so many do.

"I think it’s wonderful. Having done a whole lot of both collegiate and professional wrestling work for television over the years, I think it’s a great sport. In college, it’s wonderful for conditioning and for discipline. Professional wrestling? It’s about as entertaining an event as you can go to. I have seen thousands of people come into arena and they always go away happy."

But isn’t professional wrestling really programmed for the lowest common denominator? "That perception couldn’t be further from the truth," Silfies said. "Audiences are almost always more upscale than you would think. There’s also an enormous group of closest fans who wouldn’t miss the shows."

Must be so. It’s boggling to realize that among all syndicated programming, the three shows Silfies directs for Titan Sports are third in the ratings, after only "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy."
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BASEBALL FLOP TURNS TO RING

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 15, 1988)

(Allentown Morning Call, March 5, 1988)

By Gay Elwell

Professional wrestler Randy "Macho Man" Savage greeted a former fan’s autograph request with a body slam, according to a lawsuit filed recently in Northampton County Court. The suit says Savage, a Largo, Fla., resident now billed as a "good guy" on the World Wrestling Federation circuit, stood over the bleeding, injured man and said, "How’s that for an autograph, boy?"

Phillipsburg attorney Joseph J. Russo filed the suit on behalf of David Peschel of Washington R.1, N.J. Peschel is seeking compensatory and punitive damages from Savage, whose real name is Randy Poffo.

Criminal charges are pending in Northampton County Court in the alleged May 7, 1986, attack on Peschel. Savage, who is 6-feet-4 and weighs 280 pounds, according to the suit, also has criminal charges pending against him in Florida for allegedly assaulting a 65-pound 9-year-old fan who asked him for a "high five."

According to Peschel’s complaint, he had attended a pro wrestling match featuring Savage on May 7, 1986, at Agricultural Hall in Allentown. Savage, whose picture was on the cover of the program, was at the time the holder of the WWF’s "Intercontinental Championship." He had won that title from Tito Santano at the Boston Garden "after striking Tito Santano’s head with a blatantly illegal blow utilizing a hidden weapon," the suit says.

Peschel, who is about 20 years old, was driving home along Route 22 when he spotted Savage, driving east in a blue Mercedes Benz. Savage was accompanied by his wife and manager, "Miss Elizabeth," and a 6-foot-tall, 350-pound bodyguard.

Savage exited at 13^th Street in Easton, and Peschel followed. Savage stopped for a red light and Peschel motioned to him to autograph his program, then got out of his car and approached Savage’s.

Savage, Miss Elizabeth and the bodyguard all got out of the Mercedes and Peschel politely asked the wrestler for an autograph, the suit says. In response, Savage struck Peschel in the face, then lifted him above his head and threw him to the ground in a body slam.

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Aug. 18, 1990)

Pat O’Connor, a former standout on the professional wrestling circuit, died of cancer Thursday night at Jewish Hospital. He was 65.

Mr. O’Connor, a native of New Zealand where he was an amateur champion, was recognized as the world champion by the National Wrestling Association after defeating Dick Hutton at Kiel Auditorium on Jan. 9, 1959.

He held the NWA title until June 30, 1961, when he lost to Buddy Rogers before a paid crowd of 38,622 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. That crowd is believed to be the second-largest in United States pro wrestling history.

Mr. O’Connor’s last match was on promoter Sam Muchnick’s last card, at The Arena on Jan. 1, 1982. Mr. O’Connor was a matchmaker for several years and retired about three years ago. He also was a partner in a wrestling operation in Kansas City and divided his time between Kansas City and St. Louis.

"Pat was a true main-eventer from the time he came from New Zealand," said Larry Matysik, the local promoter for the World Wrestling Federation.

"Pat wasn’t really a big man, but he was a real athlete with a very smooth and fluid style. He was a great crowd pleaser, especially in his matches with Lou Thesz, Fritz Von Erich, Gene Kiniski and some others.

"Pat was the first to do the reverse rolling cradle hold. He beat Hutton for the title with a spinning toehold and he went with the sleeper hold late in his career."

Mr. O’Connor served in the New Zealand Royal Air Force in World War II. He competed in the Pan-American Games in 1948 and the British Empire Games in 1950. He lived in Minneapolis, Chicago and Kansas City before moving to St. Louis in 1983.

A memorial service for Mr. O’Connor will be held at 3 p.m. Sept. 1 at Valhalla Chapel of Memories, 7600 St. Charles Rock Road. There will be no visitation.

He is survived by his wife Julie; three daughters, Carly Alvarado, Erin Diven and Robyn O’Connor, all of Kansas City; and a brother, Mervin, of New Zealand.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Wyoming Wildlife Association. Mr. O’Connor was a hunting guide in Wyoming.
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(Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Jan. 10, 1990)

By Patrick Reusse

Ron Nagurski was on the phone from the family homestead on Rainy Lake in northern Minnesota.

"I’m looking around the house," Ron said. "There are a few pictures, a few interesting things, but it isn’t a monument to Dad or anything like that. The house never had a trophy room. I think Dad knew his place in history, but it didn’t seem to matter that much to him."

You can’t find a loftier place in the history of American sports than was occupied by Ron Nagurski’s father.

Baseball. Babe Ruth.

Football. Bronko Nagurski.

There you have it: The two great American sports, and the two names that have been attached to them for the ages. Babe and Bronko.

Nagurski suffered with arthritis for more than 20 years. Respiratory problems followed, and then his heart went bad. Late Sunday night, at 81, Bronko died at a hospital in International Falls, Minn.

Monday, four of the Nagurskis’ six children - Jane, Eugenia, Kevin and Ron—were gathered at the lake home where they were reared. Two other brothers, Bronko Jr. and Tony, will arrive today.

"That’s why we put the funeral back to Saturday," Ron said. "We wanted everyone to have a chance to get here. There are so many grandchildren."

It takes some time to get to International Falls. You don’t just walk to the counter at the airport in Mobile, Ala., where Bronko Jr. lives these days, and say, "Put me on the next non-stop to the Falls."

A few years back, the president of the Chamber of Commerce in International Falls said: "Wherever I travel, people ask me two things—is it really that cold, and does Bronko still live there?"

The answers to both questions were always yes. A dry climate might have reduced the pain in his arthritic joints, but Bronko wasn’t willing to leave the north country.

"It would’ve been awfully tough to get Dad out of here," Ron said. "He loved the Falls, living on the lake, the fishing and the hunting. He taught all of us to fish. He loved it."

The Nagurskis could walk down to the dock in the front of the house and, odds were, they could reel in a Rainy Lake walleye.

"The house is three or four miles from town," Ron said. "It was a lake cottage that originally belonged to one of my grandmothers. Mom and Dad moved into the cottage, and then they kept adding on rooms as the kids came along. We were all raised here on the lake."

Eileen Nagurski was six years younger than her husband and, according to Ron, she was in charge on the home front. "Mom was outgoing . . . she was more active in the church and the community, and she ran the show around the house," Ron said. "That’s the way Dad liked it. When Mom died in 1987, it seemed to me that his health started to deteriorate more rapidly."

For years, newspaper and magazine writers made pilgrimages to International Falls, seeking interviews with Bronko. The Babe died in 1948, but this legend was still pumping gasoline at the Pure Oil station he owned, or making the morning trip to town, to drop off Eileen at work and make a stop at the post office.

Mostly, Bronko would turn down the interviews. His legs were swollen from the poor circulation. The glasses he wore were as thick as the cliched Coke bottles. Nagurski once explained his reluctance to grant the interviews: "I wanted people to remember me as I was, not as I am."

The disappointed reporters often returned from the Falls to report that Nagurski had become a recluse, but Bronko was never to sports what J.D. Salinger is to literature. Bronko wasn’t in hiding. He was quiet.

Reporters weren’t the only ones who had a tough time getting Nagurski to talk about his football prowess. It wasn’t often that he told stories about George Halas or Red Grange or Doc Spears, even when he was sitting in the fishing boat with one of his sons or around the dinner table with his family.

"I remember one time he got rolling on the stories: It was at my sister’s wedding and one of his old football-playing buddies was there," Ron said. "They were talking about the old days, and it was a lot of fun. Then, Dad noticed the audience he had attracted, and that was the end of that."

In 1984, Bronko surprised almost everyone—including his family—by accepting the NFL’s invitation to be the honorary coin tosser at the Super Bowl. The game was played in Tampa, Fla. Bronko sat through a lengthy interview session a couple of days before the game.

"One reason he went was that the whole family had a chance to go along," Ron said. "We all had a great time. It was tough for Dad to get around, but he enjoyed it. That day, Bronko told the reporters: "I have so much arthritis that, as soon as I move, my joints start barking."

In 1979, the University of Minnesota Gophers retired Nagurski’s number - the famed 72. He played for Minnesota from 1927 through 1929. As a senior, he was named to the 11-man All-America team at both fullback and tackle, the only player ever to hold that distinction.

Bronko then played eight years for the Chicago Bears, gaining his most fame as the unstoppable fullback, until Halas wouldn’t give him the $6,000 he wanted to play the 1938 season. Bronko went back to International Falls and started a career as a good guy on the professional wrestling tour.

"Some of the matches were fixed, some weren’t," Bronko once said.

Nagurski wrestled until 1953, returning to play for the Bears in 1943, when they were short of players because of the war. In the late ‘50s, Bronko bought the Pure Oil station and pumped gasoline there for about 10 years.

"I worked there with him for most of those years," Ron said. "In the summer, people from out of town would make sure to stop at the station for a couple of bucks’ worth a gas, and they would get an autograph, too. Every day, the mail would have letters from people who wanted Dad to send them autographs. He had stenograph pads made up, with one of the pictures of him as a football player stenciled on it. He would write back on that paper. The people liked that."

Nagurski was a charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. They placed Bronko’s bust in the Hall of Fame, and they gave him a duplicate to take home to the Falls.

"The high school wanted the bust to be put on display there, so Dad let them have it," Ron said. "As far as I know, it’s still up there. It’s not here at the house."

The cottage on Rainy Lake was never a museum to the legend of Bronko Nagurski. It was a home. Monday, a reporter called Kevin Nagurski’s residence in the Falls. He was told Kevin was not there.

"Kevin is at the lake with his brothers and sisters," the lady said. "Bronk’s place."
_______________________________

(St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Nov. 12, 1991)

By Keith Schildroth

Richard Afflis, known to wrestling fans locally and around the country as "Dick the Bruiser," died Sunday afternoon at his winter home in Indian Rocks Beach, Fla.

He was 62.

Mr. Afflis died of internal bleeding, according to a spokesman for Sun Coast Hospital in Largo, Fla. His widow, Louise, told The Associated Press her husband had been weightlifting at home and ruptured a blood vessel in his esophagus.

There will be no funeral or memorial service, said his daughter, Michelle Replogle.

Staying fit was almost an obsession with Mr. Afflis. He worked out daily with weights and also did a vigorous series of calisthenics. He still wrestled throughout the Midwest and wrestled in St. Louis in 1989.

Born June 27, 1929, in Lafayette Ind., Mr. Afflis attended Purdue University in 1947 on a football scholarship and was named to the All-Big Ten Conference team. He transferred to Nevada later that year and finished his college football career there.

He was one of the heavier players in the National Football League when the Packers selected him in the 1951 draft. A 5-foot-11, 252-pound tackle, he was chosen in the 16^th round.

He earned his nickname while playing for the Packers because of his style of play.

Mr. Afflis left football for professional wrestling in 1954 "to make a better buck." His decision turned out to be profitable.

In his prime in the mid 1960s, Mr. Afflis earned $100,000 a year, one of the first in his profession to do so.

His trademark scowl, crew cut and gravel voice, the result of a football injury to the larynx, helped earn him the prime-time marquee billing as "the world’s most dangerous wrestler."

Mr. Afflis held the distinction of "world champion" five times in the Worldwide Wrestling Association and the National Wrestling Alliance. He wrestled on many cards in St. Louis at Kiel Auditorium.

Often billed as the villain early in his career, his style was straightforward, rough and always unpredictable. His matches at the Chase-Park Plaza Hotel in the 1960s-70s on "Wrestling at the Chase," a live TV show, often were memorable.

"A lot of people didn’t understand Dick," retired wrestling promoter Sam Muchnick said. "If I had to walk down a dark alley with a lot of money, Dick is the guy I would have wanted as my body guard. I went to his daughter’s wedding and saw him cry when he walked her down the aisle. This guy had a big heart."

Mr. Afflis was known for his wild ringside manner. He often would break the pens of autograph seekers and tear down the signs of fans. However, a match with Black Jack Lanza, in the mid-‘60s, turned him into a fan favorite.

"I always think the fans deep down liked Dick because he was their type of wrestler, he was a man’s man," wrestling promoter Larry Matysik said.

"You never knew what Dick was going to do. He was the first real tough guy and a great draw. They talk about [Hulk Hogan selling out. Hogan couldn’t touch Dick."

Matches against Pat O’Connor, Lou Thesz, Cowboy Bob Ellis, Johnny Valentine, Fritz Von Erich, Wilbur Snyder and later Jack Briscoe, Dory Funk Jr. and Ric Flair were fan favorites.

"He was the toughest man I’d ever faced in the ring," said Bobby Heenan, who now works in the World Wrestling Federation as a manager. "He was so tough I thought he would live till he was 200 with the will he had."
______________________________

(Daytona Beach News-Journal, July 14, 1997)

By Ken Willis

DAYTONA BEACH—This is a true story. At about 6:15 Sunday night, a man who looked to be in his 20’s was met outside the Ocean Center by another man who was apparently a friend. The friend presented the man with what looked to be a ticket for Sunday night’s wrestling show, which was to begin in 45 minutes.

The man kissed the ticket. Only in America, most likely. Only in Daytona Beach, no doubt.

Anyone who worries at all about the direction this country is taking would’ve done well to stay away from Sunday night’s show. Anyone who worries about our town becoming the Ellis Island for those who missed the cut at the Maury Povich auditions, well, you too were better off at home.

For the latest proof that no one or nothing is too bizarre for Daytona’s beachside, you have Dennis Rodman, the headliner for Sunday night’s World Championship Wrestling affair, which played before a sellout house of 9,000-plus at the Ocean Center and a pay-per-view television audience. The 9,000 figure doesn’t include the entourages hanging out backstage, so the actual attendance figure was probably around 112,450, give or take.

Ocean Center officials not only sold the 9,000 tickets—priced at $12-$50 -- but they received more than 1,000 calls from people over the weekend wanting unavailable tickets. Upon hearing the tickets were sold out, one man offered the Ocean Center’s Chad Smith $600 for six ringside seats—a 100 percent markup. No noticeable upgrade in Smith’s wardrobe Sunday, so we can assume he passed on the offer.

A sellout. Many of those tickets at $50. True story.

They got what they came for—a loud, colorful and (yes) entertaining show. There, I said it, it was entertaining. Entertaining in the way many nights beachside are entertaining. Men wearing masks and tights, women escorts wearing clinging skirts, and the occasional victim tied up in ropes. And then there was the action in the ring. Rasslin’, ‘90s style, involves a lot of "cartoon characters" in the squared circle. In the old days, outlandish was Gorgeous George in a mink with hair bows. Today, he would hardly draw a second look.

Today, it’s face paint, armored suits, and female escorts whose outfits are nearly as tight as the rasslers’. Today, it’s Michael Buffer introducing the featured match. Buffer’s the man who has made a fortune uttering five words in the richest of baritones: Let’s get ready to rummmmmmmble. Word is, Buffer has copyrighted his famous intro, so don’t try this at home, or you may wake up to a driveway full of lawyers. And today, rasslin’ is Dennis Rodman, the man whose NBA bad-boy act has just about run its course. For some reason, he thought rasslin’ would be a good outlet for his cross-dressing, rule-breaking lifestyle.

For a night, anyway, he was right. Given the heavyweight lineup assembled—Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Roddy Piper, Kevin Sullivan—the show may have sold out anyway. Throw in Rodman, you not only guarantee the sellout, but you can make another 10 grand or so in T-shirt sales. Throw in Rodman, and you also get a pretty decent show.

Rodman, whose day job is forward for the Chicago Bulls, entered the ring with his partner, Hogan, at about 9:20 p.m. to face the tag team of Lex Luger and The Giant. Their match followed a classic tussle between Piper and Flair, two comic geniuses from a bygone time often referred to as the "Gordon Solie Era."

About eight minutes into the main event, Rodman tagged with Hogan and finally entered the ring. About 10 seconds after that, a crumpled paper cup hit him in the head. Rodman was wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, and earrings in his ear and nose. Given the crowd at one of these shows, he stood out about as much as your neighbor Joe the plumber.

Yes, Rodman pushed the referee, but he never head-butted him. And no, he didn’t kick anyone in the groin, but he did receive one of the Giant’s knees to the, ahem, tender region. And the highlight: The Giant dropped Rodman like a sack of flour and proceeded to spank him.

In the end, Rodman and Hogan lost when Hogan succumbed to a submission hold—Luger’s dreaded "torture rack."

Maybe as a reminder of the "good ol’ days" of rasslin’, Dory Funk Jr. wandered around backstage, chatting with old friends and new friends, and wearing a hat touting his Internet Web site (www.doryfunk.com, by the way).

"I write some stories about the wrestling game, about the old days," said Funk, who then showed his old form by slapping his spinning toe hold on an usher. (OK, that part’s not true, but at a rasslin’ show, it could’ve happened. And no one would’ve given it a second look.)
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(Sports Pointers, St. Louis, Jan. 30, 1948)

Iron Mike Mazurki’s history would make an even more remarkable film than most of the stories in which he has carried top roles. Aside from acting and wrestling, his versatile career includes everything from playing All-American football, collegiate championship basketball to working as a runner for a Wall St. brokerage house, amateur boxing, professional football—and Mae West’s bodyguard.

He was born in western Ukrania on Christmas Day and came to America when he was just six years old. During 13 years on the mat he has had more than 1,500 matches and has won 80 percent of them. His favorite hold is the intricate "Figure Four Hook Scissors" made famous by the great Joe Stecher. Among the souvenirs he brought from his meetings with matdom’s kingpins were a broken shoulder, smashed nose, three cracked ribs, busted knees, twisted vertebrae and a cauliflower ear.

Mike fell so much in love with the first drama editor who interviewed him that he married her. His wife, the former Jeanette Briggs of the Glendale (Calif.) News-Press, abandoned her career to become a housewife and mother.

(Sports Pointers, April 23, 1948)

Whipper Watson ALMOST did it again. He almost won the world title, and he almost broke his neck trying, literally that is. The wily Longson retained his crown when Watson misfired on a kangaroo kick. Billy suffered a unilateral cervical dislocation in the process. The commish medicos ordered Billy to take a complete rest for two weeks and, said one of the learned gents with the stethoscopes, "If yours was the ordinary neck we’d have put it in a cast and keep it there for six weeks." Besides the rest, x-rays were ordered.

Other results on the last card (April 9) . . . Jimmy James and Bobby Bruns drew, Terry McGinnis beat Wee Willie Davis, Ed Meske got the verdict over Kay Bell, Warren Bockwinkel and Frank Taylor won over Henry Piers and Joe Dusek . . .

Kay Bell, a graduate engineer, gave his college education a thorough going over during his intermission appearance on KSD-TV. With an assist from Frank Taylor, Beoll gave the TV fans a close-up on grips and counters, and a right smart recital of verbs. IOncidentally, if any of you fans who own television sets of your own, or see the shows around town, have any comments about the "Here’s How" series, we’d sure like to have them . . .

An old horse player, Solie took the last, to happen in the next few weeks.

"In the first place, I don’t have much of a voice left anyway, and in the second place we got computers, we got e-mail and I got pretty good handwriting, so the choice was easy," Solie whispered Friday between bites of a flattened Cuban sandwich and garbanzo soup sips at the Palma Ceia Golf Club men’s grill. Tampa food at an old Tampa sports site as we two old friends sat uncommonly close together, so I could hear him the first time and avoid repetition.

No more smoking. None. And after 56 years, "it’s driving me up a wall," said one of the last three-martini, half-a- pack lunch men. Later, when I escorted him to his red Sterling, I noticed the ashtray was filled with ashes and at least two empty cigarette packages were in the side-door pocket, because, "I still like the smell, but I keep that around to remind me what I am not supposed—what I won’t do ever again."

Solie is down to 135 pounds, his old Minneapolis teenage weight, and by golly, looks good, except when he struggles to walk on an artificial hip. He needs to beef up for the surgery.

All this "really bad stuff started about four years ago," me not feeling so well, then his wife Eileen, known as Smokey, died in July 1997, and he stopped talking for a while. I knew why. He and Smokey were a fit, so much in love, he so admiring of her artful and cultured ways, and how she took care of herself and he did not. But it was Smokey in whom cancer was first found, moving to her brain, in its fateful, fatal way.

Toward the end, "she came home and one early morning with me lying beside her, she woke at 4 o’clock and in the last words she would ever speak, she told me she was having a little trouble breathing. I made her comfortable as I could, then lay back down, we holding hands. I woke up just before 5, and she was gone. I have been so lonely without her, and I wake every morning now at 4 and stay awake for an hour. Always will, I guess...

"So, with good cook Smoke gone and me left in the house with Aimee, our French poodle, I have eaten poorly - like soup and a peanut butter sandwich. Then other long habits began to have an effect."

Solie developed lung and liver problems and finally went to have himself checked. Yes, the smoking and hard living were taking a toll, so why not have a throat biopsy, too.

That was when the throat cancer was discovered, and the choices laid out for him by his doctor, and, of course "in time we will think about an artificial voice box. But one thing at a time," whispered Solie, the one-time voice of "Championship Wrestling from Florida," then for wrestling at Atlanta, as well as the unmatched voice of sprint car racing at old Plant (Pepin/Rood) Stadium during the Florida State Fair races, and at old Golden Gate Speedway. He could make the dullest of races and wrestling matches exciting, and he was the originator and master of the deadpan interviews of two wrestlers at a time from the old Sportatorium. There would be Cowboy Luttrall, then Eddie Graham, with Solie in the middle, the wrestlers menacing each other while he stayed straight and calm.

An old friend and pupil of his from those times, Gil Cabot, then of WALT, now a TV-movie director/producer in Los Angeles, called me and told me of Solie’s impending surgery. While Solie said he did not want sympathy or gifts of any kind, "the way the world is today, I could just see somebody somewhere jumping on this and putting out a call for contributions for his own benefit - on the Web, so, yes, you tell it like it is."

And also, Solie said, "please say that if I had my 56 years to do over, I would do the same thing. Hey, a .38 caliber slug could have killed me in seconds. I am not on a stump, not on a campaign, except to live as long as I can enjoy the world today, the memories, lunch with old friends, and my family," which includes five kids, seven grandkids and four great- grandkids, meeting old friends "and my home in South Pasco with my little dog Aimee, who suffers from Addison’s Disease. "Oh," whispered Solie, "A fine thing happened recently when the World Wrestling Federation honored me with a swing through Florida cities and revived in my mind the days of the Briscos, Haystacks Calhoun, Johnny Valentine, Buddy Colt, Hiro Matsuda, Don Curtis and Dusty Rhodes, of Pete Fose, Pancho Alvarez and Buzz Barton in the sprint cars. But that was yesterday. Then, wistfully, "I guess the old ego can’t help but showing itself when I think that I am losing the very thing that made me get where I got."

(Calgary Herald, Thursday, May 28, 1953)

Lou Thesz, world’s heavyweight wrestling champion, arrived in Calgary this morning to wrestle Kinji (Mighty Kojo) Shibuya at Victoria Pavilion tonight in the main event of a four-bout program arranged by the Foothills Athletic Club.
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(Calgary newspaper, May 29, 1953)

In a wild and riotous battle that reached a climax when the crowd of more than 3,000 almost tore Victoria Pavilion apart at the seams in efforts to mob Kinji (Mighty Kojo) Shibuya, world’s heavyweight wrestling champion Lou Thesz Thursday night came within an eyelash of losing his title to the tricky Japanese grappler.

Only the intervention of the crowd, which pulled Thesz through the ropes when Shibuya had him pinned, and the action of referee Les Watson in moving to hand out a disqualification, kept Shibuya from getting a stranglehold on the crown.

Earlier in the bout Shibuya became one of the few wrestlers to take the first fall from Thesz when he used a throat chop, shoulder throw and press to pin the champion at 11:21. Later, Thesz evened the count, only to have Shibuya blind him with salt and go for the winning fall. However, fans grabbed Thesz by the legs and pulled him under the ropes while Watson disqualified Shibuya, who was already proclaiming himself in mid-ring as new champion.

In an equally wild semi-windup, Rebel Russell and Con Bruno brawled their way to victory over Joe Campbell and George Gordienko. Russell took the first fall from Gordienko at 11:10 with four blockbusters and throat stomps, but George evened matters at 4:39.

He did it by rubbing Russell’s own elbow bandage into the Rebel’s eyes and then slamming him in a wild session of barroom-type brawling. After that Bruno, who had supplied most of the fireworks in the early stages, clinched the verdict by pinning Campbell.
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(Calgary Herald, May 29, 1953)

Kinji (Mighty Kojo) Shibuya, Calgary’s wrestling villain, almost took over the world’s heavyweight wrestling title from Lou Thesz at Victoria Pavilion Thursday night, before more than 3,000 fans. Lou Thesz won the match by disqualification to Shibuya.

If not for Shibuya’s use of illegal work during the third and final round, Thesz’s crown would have been placed on a new champ today, even though many fans wouldn’t have liked it that way.

Since Thesz has held the world’s heavyweight wrestling title it was the first time that he lost the first fall of a match.

With his great strength and rough tactics, he gave the Japanese grappler quite a going over at the beginning of the first round.

Shibuya, who never has been beaten in Calgary, solved the awkward southpaw style of Thesz and went to work to capture the first fall at 11:21 with a throw to the ropes and a slap followed up with a press.

Thesz’ tricky work earned him a tying fall at 7:21. While continuing his first-round working over, Thesz used a dropkick from the ropes, followed by a press to even the match.

There were more fireworks in the final round, with Shibuya holding the edge over the titlist, but illegal tactics brought the match to a sudden end with the disqualification of Shibuya, leaving Thesz as winner.

In the semi-windup, featuring Con Bruno and Bob (Rebel) Russell against George Godienko and Joe Campbell, the villains Bruno and Russell won the best two of three falls to win the match. The match was timed at 45 minutes.

Jean Baillargeon was disqualified in the special event and Ted Christy won the match at 9:21. The opening bout featured Leo Numa taking the one-fall event over Big Bob Mike with body slams and a press at 12:20.
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(Minneapolis Star, June 28, 1953)

For the first time since Ed (Strangler) Lewis became his manager, wrestling champion Lou Thesz will be "on his own" Tuesday night for a big time defense of his heavyweight title.

Thesz is scheduled to stake his crown at the Minneapolis Auditorium Tuesday against Verne Gagne, the No. 1 challenger.

But Lewis, the one-time world mat king who took over as Lou’s pilot five years ago (sic), won’t be here. His extensive business interests, he told promoter Tony Stecher, will require his undivided attention Tuesday.

For the five years that the Strangler has piloted Thesz, Lou has been undefeated. Son of a Hungarian cobbler and middleweight matman, Lou has had the benefit of instruction and coaching from Lewis, always in the Germany language, for all important matches.

Thesz asked Stecher twice to postpone the bout and got two cold turndowns.

With a "neutral," Bob Foster of Des Moines, Iowa, scheduled to referee and with a hometown crowd to cheer for him, Gagne will get his best chance to win the world title that experts have assured him will soon be his. He edged Thesz in a Chicago meeting, according to many experts, but go no better than a draw from the referee.

Kinji Shibuya, the Japanese mat master from Honolulu, returns in the semi-windup to face Farmer Marlin. Bigger than ever, the Oriental sleeper hold artist now scales 231.

Joe Pazandak meets Billy Darnell, a topflight easterner making his local debut, in the special event. A fourth bouth will be signed.
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(Minneapolis Star, June 30, 1953)

Promoter Tony Stecher Monday refused a last-minute plea by Lou Thesz that the sleeper hold be barred for his wrestling title defense against Verne Gagne at the Minneapolis auditorium tonight.

The fact that the Gagne "sleeper" is banned in St. Louis, Lou’s home town, is no reason why it should be outlawed here, Stecher said.

Gagne has hinted that he hopes to clamp the lullabye hold on Thesz sometime during their one-hour clash tonight and lift the heavyweight crown which Lou has held for several years.

The champion will have to struggle along without his manager, Ed (Strangler) Lewis, who was kept away by press of other business.

The referee will be Bob Foster, one-time mat star from Des Moines, Iowa, and now the leading grappling official in Iowa.

Kinji Shibuya, the Japanese matman who wrestles out of Hawaii, returns in the semi-windup to face Farmer Marlin.

Other bouts send Billy Darnell in his local debut against Joe Pazandak, and Boston Mike Clancy against Tony Baillargeon. Starting time is 8:30 p.m.
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(Minneapolis Tribune, July 1, 1953)

Lou Thesz and Verne Gagne wrestled to a 60-minute draw at the Minneapolis Auditorium Tuesday night before 8,641 fans.

Thesz, the National Wrestling Alliance champion, was not the aggressor in this bout. The crowd booed lustily the draw decision of referee Bob Foster, who was imported from Omaha to handle the match.

With Ed (Strangler) Lewis, Thesz’ manager, absent, Joe Pazandak took over in the champion’s corner.

Police protection was needed for Pazandak as the pro-Gagne crowd took issue to Joe being in the champion’s corner.

Gagne tried desperately to pull out a victory in the last minutes. Gagne used a rolling leg split to throw Thesz around in his final bid for victory. The last time Gagne slammed Thesz to the mat, Lou appeared to be knocked out. As the time keeper called out the 60^th minute, Thesz lay prone on the mat, virtually senseless.

Consequently, had it no been for the time limit elapsing, Gagne might have pinned the champion and taken the title.

Twice during the bout, Gagne applied his deathly sleeper hold, but on each occasion he failed to render Thesz unconscious because both men