Albert “Chalky” Wright: Plain Fact and Pulp Fiction from Mae West to the Featherweight Title to Boardwalk Empire

By Chris “Man of Few Words” Benedict

“Boardwalk Empire” creator Terence Winter and the assemblage of brilliant writers, directors, and actors all embraced the necessity for densely layered personal and emotional subtext, not to mention painstaking historical accuracy, even if they gleefully had fun with the facts which sometimes shared only a nodding acquaintance with reality. Many of Boardwalk’s most renowned recurring personalities-public enemies such as Al Capone, Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Johnny Torrio, Joe Masseria and Dean O’Banion-were meticulously researched and wonderfully performed but heavily embellished versions of their actual selves.

More liberal creative license was taken with the likes of Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson (based on Atlantic City Treasurer and political fixer Enoch “Nucky” Johnson), The Commodore (Louis Kaestner on the show-played by Dabney Coleman, Louis Kuehnle in real life), and Mickey Doyle, the main man in Nucky’s whiskey warehouse with the girlish giggle whose historical counterpart is Polish bootlegger William Michael Kusick who used the Irish-sounding Mickey Duffy as one of his aliases. Some characters-I’m thinking here of Valentin Narcisse as well as Michael Shannon’s Christ-crusading, self-flagellating Bureau of Internal Revenue Agent Nelson Van Alden (later lapsed Catholic, door-to-door salesman, and Capone stooge George Mueller)-were possibly composites while others-including Gyp Rossetti, the gangster with the hair trigger temper and penchant for auto-erotic asphyxiation, as well as the maimed WWI sharpshooter become half/faced Prohibition hitman Richard Harrow-were entirely and deliciously fictitious.

So, what of the equally contradictory Albert “Chalky” White? The partly truth/partly fiction African-American whose sphere of influence was centered within Atlantic City’s segregated black community known as Chicken Bone Beach but radiated outward in an authoritative circumference which overlapped Nucky Thompson’s inner circle, has a backstory unique to that of the show’s other protagonists in that its roots manage to wrap inexplicably and most delicately around the realms of both bootlegging and boxing. Which makes perfect sense when you think about it. Mobsters and prizefighters do, of course, quite often make for cozy bedfellows.

Albert Wright, due to an erroneous listing of his birthplace being Durango in an early edition of the Ring Record Book, is still sometimes misidentified as a fighter of Mexican origin. He came into existence, however-the seventh child born to James Wright and Clara Martin-on February 1, 1912 in Wilcox, Arizona which is situated in Cochise County. Boardwalk’s Chalky White explains to his daughter Maybelle, who is soon to be wed and suffering conflicted feelings, that he was subject to the disapproval of his future father-in-law who disparaged him as a “half Apache”, a curious but probably inadvertent connection to Chalky the boxer’s Cochise (an Apache chief) County seeing as though Chalky the gangster “came up from Texas” rather than Arizona.

Alice Martin, a second cousin to Chalky Wright, fills in some vivid detail to the previously skeletal outline of his early years courtesy of a fascinating family history on Wright’s findagrave.com dedication page wherein she categorizes his father James as a “cattle raiser” and “day laborer” and mentions that his mother Clara shared ownership with her brother William of the 640-acre Martin Ranch which was inherited from their father Caleb, a runaway slave from Natchez, Mississippi. “Albert spent his early childhood years in Bonita, AZ with his family who were ranch owners and cowboys,” Martin writes on the website. “They spoke fluent Spanish. English was their second language. Albert left Arizona with his mother Clara about 1918 and moved to Colton, CA in San Bernardino County. It was there that Albert developed a love for boxing.” Not to mention, although it’s unfortunately not clear how, it was also where he apparently picked up the nickname Chalky.

Wright began fighting “more for survival than glory” according to Alice Martin, making (and winning) his professional debut on February 23, 1928 against Nilo Balles at San Bernardino’s Orange Belt Athletic Center (home to two-thirds of Chalky’s first 36 bouts), a mere three weeks removed from his 16th birthday. Competing at an astounding rate not uncommon in those days, Chalky often fought not only several times a month but twice a week on several occasions, rummaging repeatedly through a recycle bin of opponents such as Balles, Ray Davis, Joe Hernandez, Pastor Calope, Ray Billobas, Mose Bailey, Ray Montoya, Huerta Evans, Mike Cordova, Martin Zuniga, Al Greenfield, and Baby Jack Dempsey.

The third season finale of Boardwalk Empire found Nucky and many of his associates hiding out in a lumber yard following an assassination attempt by Gyp Rosetti. With nerves already frayed and patience worn thin, Chalky White and Al Capone go toe-to-toe, circling around and sizing one another up but are halted before the altercation can escalate. Chalky Wright did tangle with a later-to-be Capone comrade, Mickey Cohen, at Los Angeles’ Olympic Auditorium on April 11, 1933. Seemingly destined for a life of crime, Cohen was manufacturing bathtub gin in the back room of his family’s Los Angeles pharmacy at the age of seven and attempted his first robbery-of a theater box office with a baseball bat-just two years later. Introduced to boxing through the Big Brothers program, Mickey (like Chalky) turned pro at sixteen but quit three years later with a 7-11-1 record. Chalky Wright knocked him out in the third round of what would be Cohen’s second to last fight. Mickey subsequently ran with Al Capone’s Chicago gang before being forcibly relocated back to Los Angeles where Meyer Lansky got him a gig as Bugsy Siegel’s bodyguard which ultimately led Mickey to assume that outfit’s top spot after Bugsy’s premature demise due to causes most unnatural in 1947.

Six months after bumping off Cohen, Chalky was back at the Olympic to challenge Eddie Shea for the California State Super-featherweight title. Wright’s first round knockout loss was the product of having to do some dirty business in the often unclean fight racket where some short-end money or long-term reciprocal promise to be kept in your pocket for future use served as compensation for those willing to morally and financially justify the balancing of the scales between risk and reward.

When she was held up in her own limousine by a handful of hoodlums, one of whom had been an employee of hers and on Al Capone’s payroll prior to that, Mae West sought the services of “chauffeurs” who would prevent this sort of nastiness-or worse-from occurring again. The blonde bombshell (or “The Ringside Belle” as Springs Toledo referred to her in his series about West for The Sweet Science) preferred the company of boxers and mobsters, specifically Owney Madden and (later on) Chalky Wright’s old ring nemesis Mickey Cohen, which invited the potential for volatile situations either out in public or behind closed doors. She presumably found the inherent danger titillating. For all of the above reasons, Mae hired Chalky to “drive her to the fights at the Olympic on Tuesday and Friday nights in a chocolate-colored Rolls Royce” as Springs Toledo tells it, and very possibly invited Wright to come up sometime and see her-an offer West had likewise extended to Joe Louis and William “Gorilla” Jones.

Under Mae’s patronage, Chalky ended a ten-month period of fistic stagnation in March 1936 and would suffer one lone defeat (to Baby Arizmendi, who had also beaten Wright in his dismal year of 1935) and two draws (with Cecil Payne and then Georgie Hansford who Chalky would outpoint three weeks after the fact) going into 1938. West, meanwhile, had replaced Chalky as her driver with his little brother Lee, an underwhelming welterweight who traded punches for the first five years of his career under the moniker “Young Chalky Wright”. One can only imagine that Mae’s considerable influence was responsible for Lee’s having bypassed prison and gone virtually without interruption back into the ring after having shot light-heavyweight prospect James “Cannonball” Green in a Sunset Boulevard phone booth. Sportswriter Jim Murray wrote in a 1961 edition of the LA Times that “Cannonball was even prepared to be understanding about that-it was accidental, after all-but he did feel sorry that it closed out his career.” For the record, Green did fight three more times following the incident, managing only one win and a pair of draws before retiring to become a trainer.

Chalky’s recent resurgence had earned him a non-title bout with Henry Armstrong, who would soon after relinquish his featherweight belt to focus on the lightweight and welterweight divisions, at the Olympic on February 1, 1938. Armstrong blew Wright out like a birthday candle (it was Chalky’s 26th that night) with a third round knockout courtesy of a “right cross over Chalky’s famed left hook” as the result of which “he seemed to fly through the air several feet to land on the canvas, out cold” as Henry remembers in his autobiography Gloves, Glory and God. Armstrong’s account reveals that, in their early days, they had been stablemates under the management of “One Shot” Wirt Ross who was now deliberately distributing some “pre-fight inside dope” by playing up an angle in the press of the master (Wright) testing the mettle of the pupil (Armstrong) to boost the gate and run up the odds in Chalky’s favor. Chalky allegedly told Henry that “I don’t want you to have any bad feelings towards me.” Armstrong answered, “I don’t. May the best man win,” and, with that, “reached out for that powerful right hand which was his greatest asset and shook it.”

This speaks-albeit in cryptic whispers-to the speculation abound in certain circles as to the fighters’ complicity in any pre-arranged shenanigans, being that they both were all too familiar with the crooked nature of the boxing beast. Whatever the case may be, Henry and Chalky further strengthened the bond of a mutually beneficial friendship. Wright followed Armstrong back to the East Coast where he would set up shop and gain greater exposure, not to mention becoming a fixture at Armstrong’s Pompton Lakes training camp as Homicide Hank prepped to take Barney Ross’ welterweight crown and, two and a half months later, swipe the lightweight belt belonging to Lou Ambers. Chalky not only busted Henry’s bottom lip during a sparring session prior to the Ambers bout, but made his Madison Square Garden debut on the undercard of Armstrong’s lightweight title win by knocking out Al Reid in the fourth round.

Chalky White’s bootlegging stomping ground of Atlantic City would not become a boxing mecca until decades later (although, as depicted in the show, Jack Dempsey used it as his training site before his showdown with Georges Carpentier at the newly built Boyle’s Thirty Acres), but Chalky Wright-having already fought in Garfield and several times in Jersey City-did venture out to the boardwalk’s Garden Pier on May 21, 1941 where he decisioned Norment Quarles for his 114th career victory. Three and a half months (and five additional wins) later, Chalky made the most of having finally secured his first shot at a world title when he knocked out NYSAC Featherweight champion Joey Archibald in the eleventh round at Griffith Stadium in Washington DC. Legend has it that Mae West conspired with matchmaker Morrie Cohen to pull the strings necessary to get the fight to happen as a favor for her old friend.

Chalky fought eighteen times but made just two successful defenses during his fourteen month reign (over Harry Jeffra and Lulu Costantino) before being unseated by the 53-0 Willie Pep, a 2-to-1 betting favorite, at the Garden in what is generally considered the opening of the gates to the golden age of featherweights. Although the AP scored the contest 9-6, referee Arthur Donovan and the two ringside judges all gave only four of the fifteen rounds to Chalky who Pep recalls as “a great champion” in his book Friday’s Heroes.

They would meet twice more in 1944, exceedingly decisive points wins in New York and Cleveland for the Will o’ the Wisp who was establishing himself as a legend in his own time. Pep points out that their first rematch marked “the first time ever a fight was televised from Madison Square Garden and it started the long series of Friday Night Fights.” He elaborated that “Chalky and I each got $400 for the television rights.” Chalky and Willie got together for a fourth and final time to benefit the Gilead Lodge of B’nai B’rith in Milwaukee on November 27, 1946. Described in the late edition of The Milwaukee Journal as “futile”, Wright “missed a hard left hook as the third round began, then let go another which left him open for a one-two punch” from Pep who the paper said looked “magnificent” by contrast. Chalky “pitched on his face and was counted out.”

Wright’s last fight occurred at Salt Lake City’s Fairgrounds Coliseum just a little more than three months after his Wisconsin engagement with Willie Pep and his final farewell was an ignominious one for a veteran of 229 instances of professional fisticuffs when he was unable to answer the bell for the fourth round against Ernie Hunick. Chalky retired with an astounding career record of 162-45-19 and imparted some of his accumulated wisdom onto “Chocolate Ice Cube” Tommy Campbell, a perennial lightweight contender. By 1951, however, Jet magazine saw fit to include Chalky in a ‘where are they now?’ type feature. The claim that “Wright was destitute” was punctuated by the story of how “a Maryland attorney recently pleaded for Wright for a $1,000 purse held up several years ago by the boxing commission of that state.” Indeed, Chalky had recently separated from his second wife Jennie with whom he had a son, his only child Albert Jr. (a first marriage to Gertrude Arnold was short-lived and produced no offspring), and had moved in with his mother Clara, earning money by washing dishes and greasing pans in a Los Angeles bakery.
An odd little twenty-five cent novel appeared on paperback racks in 1954 bearing the title Me An’ You, the lurid tag-line “A Two-fisted Negro Challenges the White World” above an illustration of a black man standing menacingly over a buxom red-head, and a dedication to “Chalky, the gentle Hedonist.”

The byline is another curious case of obfuscation. Wright is said to have claimed authorship of the book under the pseudonym Jay Thomas Caldwell in a 1954 Jet magazine article. Trouble is, there was an actual Caldwell. An ex-convict with no other writing credits to his name, he would die in 1956 of wounds received during a shoot-out with California police following a drug store robbery in the suburb of Paso Robles. Whoever the author, the story fictionalizes Chalky as Daniel “Tiger” Jones who, interestingly enough, is visited in his dressing room after winning the welterweight title from Willy Archer (a thinly-veiled depiction of Joey Archibald) by none other than a congratulatory Albert “Chalky” Wright. Dealings with Chalky’s wives, former managers, and select opponents are given the prurient pulp novel treatment and further muddy the waters so that it is no small task to attempt the process of filtration of fact from fiction. There is even a character named Tommy White, a prizefighter turned preacher who was a two-division champion (failing in his bid at a third in the book), based on Chalky’s old pal Henry Armstrong.

The recently launched Confidential magazine, a tawdry Hollywood publication which boasted that it Tells The Facts and Names The Names, ran a salacious cover story in its November 1955 edition entitled “Mae West’s Open Door Policy-For Muscle Men” accompanied by a photo of the screen siren with Chalky Wright. He had unwittingly contributed to its content (though no more than “mundane facts about West’s cleanliness and generosity” as reported by Springs Toledo in his Sweet Science piece) after accepting $200 from whom he was made to believe were movie producers and atoned for his innocent transgression by signing an affidavit denying any impropriety between the two after Mae filed suit against the tabloid. Chalky was supposed to have appeared as a character witness for West on August 25, 1957 when the matter was brought to trial. On the 12th, his mother Clara returned home to discover Chalky’s lifeless body in the bathtub with the water running and a towel rack having been torn free from the wall. Given his relations with Mae West and white women in general, not to mention a questionable past history with corrupt boxing managers and shadowy mobsters, foul play was very heavily suspected. The Los Angeles County Coroner eliminated any such fear when his report revealed “no evidences of bony injury either old or recent” and that “the scalp is free of any evidences of injury” contrary to previous reports. Albert “Chalky” Wright’s official cause of death was “aortic stenosis due to old valvulitis, inactive” or, in layman’s terms, fatal inflammation of his heart valves. Friends to the end, Mae West not only attended but paid for Chalky’s funeral.

Muhammad Ali later put Chalky Wright on a short list of “the best fighters the world ever saw” along with Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Archie Moore, Johnny Bratton, Kid Gavilan, Sandy Saddler, Jersey JoeWalcott, Ezzard Charles and Floyd Patterson who inspired him with their “new styles and powerful punches.”

Michael Kenneth Williams expertly infuses his characterization of Chalky White with the nuances of a complex individual who may be illiterate but is a smart man never to be underestimated and who refuses to accept the roles of subservience thrust onto him by society whether they be the tethers of domesticity, sycophancy, or racism. Williams also bears a very prominent facial scar resulting from having been slit from just beneath the hairline to his right cheek with a razor during a street fight outside of a Queens bar, almost a mirror image of Joe Louis’ trainer and dear friend Jack Blackburn. The reason I mention this is because when Chalky celebrates the grand opening of his own boardwalk nightspot-the Onyx Club- he playfully squares up in period-appropriate pugilistic stances with the insufferable cutlery salesman George Baxter whose jokes are only ever funny to himself and says this night to White with their bunched-up fists held up to their chins, “I heard you knocked the stuffing out of Joe Gans in back of a barn.” Now, Chalky Wright was born a year and a half after Gans had died, but Blackburn did fight the Old Master. Three times no less. Am I reaching for something that simply isn’t there? Probably. Boardwalk’s writing team may well have plucked Gans’ name randomly out of thin air to fit with the times but even that one striking similarity between Jack Blackburn and Michael Kenneth Williams is enough for me to toss yet another puzzle piece which doesn’t quite fit into the mix nevertheless and complicate the clarity of the big picture with peculiar details just a little more for the fun of it.

The show, like Albert Wright’s life and the world at large, is a constant negotiation through the blinding smokescreen of fact and fiction. Chalky White does offer up this clever observation to Nucky’s brother Eli after first using his daddy’s tools to sever the finger of a Ku Klux Klan Grand Cyclops suspected (wrongly, it turns out) of lynching one of his men: “There’s a point in which if a man still sticks to his story, that’s a man that’s telling you the truth.”

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