{"id":2104,"date":"2010-04-13T22:05:30","date_gmt":"2010-04-14T02:05:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ringsidereport.com\/?p=2104"},"modified":"2010-05-14T17:14:50","modified_gmt":"2010-05-14T21:14:50","slug":"from-the-boxing-ring-to-hollywood-superman-star-jack-o%e2%80%99halloran-speaks-to-rsr-about-his-remarkable-life-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=2104","title":{"rendered":"From the Boxing Ring to Hollywood: Superman Star Jack O\u2019Halloran Speaks to RSR About His Remarkable Life, Part I"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Exclusive Interview by\u00a0Geno McGahee (Reposted for Archive purposes)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cI was given a good talent and I never really took care of it.\u201d\u2014Jack O\u2019Halloran<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most people know Jack O\u2019Halloran from his movie career.\u00a0 His portrayal of the mute super villain \u201cNon\u201d in Superman and Superman II may be his most memorable performance, but before he was fighting the \u201cMan of Steel,\u201d he was in the boxing ring, facing some of the biggest names that the pugilistic world has ever seen.\u00a0 In 1966, the journey would begin, and O\u2019Halloran would destroy Joe Pinto in one round.\u00a0 At a towering 6 feet, 6 inches, and weighing in typically in the 240 pound range, O\u2019Halloran presented an imposing site and was a very promising heavyweight in a time that was considered the golden age for the division.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his first sixteen professional bouts, he compiled a record of, 15-0-1, 7 KO\u2019s, and had the size and durability to be a force in the division.\u00a0 He would lose a decision to the former European Heavyweight Champion, Joe Bugner, and then went toe to toe with the 2-Time Heavyweight Champion, George Foreman before it was stopped in the fifth round, in a questionable call.\u00a0 At the time of the stoppage, O\u2019Halloran was actually ahead on the scorecards.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1971, he would defeat the former World Heavyweight Title Challenger, Cleveland Williams by a ten round decision before facing two of the best fighters of the time, Ron Lyle and Ken Norton.\u00a0 Both were losing efforts, but he did give Norton a run for his money and, in the eyes of many, he won the bout.\u00a0 Amazingly, he would have won the bout had he not let his temper get the best of him in one of the more unusual moments in boxing.<\/p>\n

The boxing life of Jack O\u2019Halloran was a mixed bag.\u00a0 At times, he showed greatness, as he did in the Norton fight, as well as a dominant decision over top ten contender, Alvin \u201cBlue\u201d Lewis.\u00a0 At times, he would show up unprepared and lose to unranked an unknown opposition.\u00a0 The defining fight of his career would have been a crack at \u201cThe Greatest\u201d Muhammad Ali, which both fighters wanted, but the politics of boxing never allowed.\u00a0 O\u2019Halloran would end his boxing career with a, 34-21-2, 17 KO\u2019s, and would leave the game partially due to a medical condition that may have had something to do with his ebb and flow career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RSR had the opportunity to speak with Jack O\u2019Halloran.\u00a0 In this first part, we discussed his boxing career, the on again, off again bout with Muhammad Ali, the incident in the Ken Norton fight, and the medical condition that should have probably kept him away from the ring from the beginning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: You began your boxing career in 1966.\u00a0 What got you into the sport?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was going to play pro football, and there\u2019s a guy that they hired in Philadelphia, and I didn\u2019t like him.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t like things that were going on.\u00a0 Football wasn\u2019t fun anymore.\u00a0 So, Muhammad Ali had just won the title, and I said to my friend, \u201cI can beat him.\u201d\u00a0 I was twenty-three years old and I was a professional athlete, and I couldn\u2019t box amateur.\u00a0 So I had to go right into the pros.\u00a0 I spent six months in the gym training. It was like the beginning of 1966, or late 1965.\u00a0 I had my first fight, I think, in October of 66, in Reading, Pennsylvania with a guy named Johnny Pinto and I knocked him out in 97 seconds of the first round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: How much of a thrill was it to get him out of there so early?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was pretty exciting.\u00a0 It was an outdoor ring and there were a lot of people from Philadelphia that came up to see the fight.\u00a0 I had trained a long time to do this four round fight career, and then I had a couple more fights in Philadelphia, knocking out a couple, and going the distance with a couple.\u00a0 Then, I think that it was Christmas time\u2026December of 66 that I got into a beef in Philadelphia.\u00a0 I got into a bad street beef, and they sent me up to Boston, and I started training in Massachusetts with Johnny who was a guy that trained Terry Downes and a few other world champions at the Front Street Gym.<\/p>\n

I lived in Boston and half of the fights that I had that following year were not even recorded.\u00a0 I used to fight every week, or every two weeks, and there was a guy named Sam Silverman that was Promoting up in Maine and somewhere else in New England and I boxed for a guy down in Boston and they didn\u2019t record fights.\u00a0 Sam Silverman and his partner, Rick Valenti, a well connected guy in Boston and they would say, \u201cHey, you want to fight\u2026\u201d\u00a0 And in those days, you got paid ten dollars a round, so when you go eight rounds, you get eighty dollars.\u00a0 It was a joke, but because they were the people that I was fighting for.\u00a0 So I would take these fights, and banging guys out\u2026it was like gym work, you know, and learning the trade, and then they go on to never record the fights!\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: How many fights do you think that you have had, unrecorded?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember counting one time, and I had twenty six fights in one year.\u00a0 I think on record, I had fourteen, and things were going well.\u00a0 I was banging guys out of there right, left, and sideways.\u00a0 I was also a street guy\u2026I hung around with a lot of street people.\u00a0 I have a book coming out, which tells the truth about who I really am.\u00a0 My father was a famous guy from New York, called Albert Anastasia.\u00a0 He was murdered in 1957.\u00a0 He was shot in a barber\u2019s chair.\u00a0 My father ran a company known as Murder Incorporated.\u00a0 He was one of the most feared Italians in America.\u00a0 So I hung around with that element, and nobody could really tell me what to do.\u00a0 I was a bit of a smart ass, and the problem was that God had given me a great talent.\u00a0 I can fight eight rounds on a day\u2019s notice.\u00a0 I could do eight rounds on my head.\u00a0 I could fight ten rounds on my head.\u00a0 When I got into my career and I went through a period where I was bouncing around all over the place and I wasn\u2019t paying attention to what I was supposed to be doing, and I wasn\u2019t listening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was an era when Ali had taken over boxing and Don King was coming in, and it made it a white\/black situation in boxing.\u00a0 A lot of things were either one way or the other, and I wouldn\u2019t play the game.\u00a0 Every time that I wanted to prove a point, I would fight somebody like Manuel Ramos and I would knock him out, and he was ranked like, number one in the world.\u00a0 What I did that nobody knows is that I took a fight in Johannesburg, South Africa, and I fought eleven days before I fought Ramos in L.A.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I went down to South Africa to get off streets and get into shape, and I trained every day, and when I came back to fight Ramos in L.A., I was the way that I should have been for all of my fights.\u00a0 I had knocked Ramos out in the seventh round, and he had never been off of his feet before.\u00a0 Then, nobody would fight me.\u00a0 I went to London, and fought Joe Bugner, and they robbed the fight by a quarter of a point, and they knew it.\u00a0 Again, it was my own fault.\u00a0 I was out drinking the night before.\u00a0 I abused a great talent.\u00a0 I was given a good talent and I never really took care of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: You did have some decent wins on your record that proved your talent though.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like I said, I would prove a point to people.\u00a0 I would go out and beat Cleveland Williams, and there was a kid, Terry Daniels, up and coming out of Ohio, and he was supposed to be a world beater and I destroyed him in Houston.\u00a0 I beat Williams and they said to me: \u201cWell, if you beat one more good fighter, you can have the Joe Frazier fight.\u201d\u00a0 I said, you name the fighter and the place and I will show up.\u00a0 Send me a ticket.\u00a0 Now, I beat Daniels who was really never defeated, and they give him the fight with Frazier.\u00a0 Then, Cleveland Williams fights George Chuvalo on the same card, because Chuvalo wouldn\u2019t fight me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: You faced George Foreman in 1970.\u00a0 What are your memories of that bout?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe that that fight was in 1969.\u00a0 The Foreman fight\u2026we opened the new garden and I think that I trained three days for the fight.\u00a0 And actually, according to the scorecards, I was beating Foreman.\u00a0 He caught me with a pretty good shot, and they stopped the fight very fast, and he would never fight me again.\u00a0 You know, it really pissed me off.\u00a0 That was the first fight after the Ramos fight.\u00a0 I think that I fought Foreman in February or March of 69.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I then went into a tailspin.\u00a0 I got mad, and just took fights anywhere, and was taking fights on a day\u2019s notice, and I would go the distance with this guy and that guy, and you\u2019re fighting out of town and you\u2019re fighting in other boxer\u2019s back yards, and they robbed a fight from me in England, and I came back and beat Danny McAlinden, and Carl Gizzi, who was the Champion of Wales.\u00a0 He was a hell of a fighter, actually.\u00a0 You know, I would get angry and go into the gym for a few days, and it went like that for a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 1972, I was in New Jersey, and they called me up and said: \u201cDo you want to fight Ken Norton?\u201d\u00a0 And I said, when?\u00a0 They said next week, and somebody had dropped out of the fight and they needed somebody to step in, and I told them to send me a ticket.\u00a0 I was in New Jersey, and I had a lot of indictments for union problems, and I had a lot of problems (laughs) and I said that California is good.\u00a0 So, I got onto a plane and I think that I trained four days and gave Norton the worst beating that he\u2019s ever gotten in his entire life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM:\u00a0 If I\u2019m not mistaken, they gave the decision to Ken Norton.\u00a0 Is that correct?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yes, they gave the decision to Norton, but in the ninth round, people were standing on their chairs and I had cut him up pretty good, and we were standing in the middle of the ring, toe to toe, and they rang the bell three times, and we never heard it.\u00a0 The referee finally separated us, and I was going back to the corner and he ran across the ring and hit me in the back of the head, and drove me into the ring post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: Why didn\u2019t they disqualify him right there?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, the commissioner came up to me and said: \u201cIf you can\u2019t continue, you just won the fight.\u201d\u00a0 But I was angry as hell and said: \u201cWon the fight?\u00a0 I\u2019ll kill this guy!\u201d\u00a0 I was really kind of peeved and went out in the tenth round and said to myself: \u201cWhat am I, crazy?\u00a0 This is his hometown\u2026am I out of my mind?\u201d\u00a0 I actually should have knocked Norton out then.\u00a0 I had him hurt several times, and he won the decision, but I won the town.\u00a0 The crowd just went nuts.\u00a0 So, I shook my head, and said, I think that I will stay a while.\u00a0 Bob Byron and his managers came to me and said: \u201cMy God!\u00a0 We didn\u2019t think that you could fight that well and so on and so forth.\u201d\u00a0 So I stayed in San Diego, and I knocked out several guys in a row, and then I fought for the California Heavyweight Championship, and took it off Henry Clark, who nobody would fight, and I kept on trying to get a rematch with Norton but he wouldn\u2019t fight me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: So, after Norton refused a rematch, what was next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I just flopped around out there for a little bit and then I fought a guy named Alvin \u201cBlue\u201d Lewis.\u00a0 Well, they took my license away for six months for organized crime out there, and they called me up to fight Blue Lewis in Detroit, and they were building him up for a title fight.\u00a0 He fought Ali\u2026went thirteen rounds, and he lost to Ali, but he came back won a fight, and they were building him up to a title fight and was ranked like number one in the world, and they said: \u201cDo you want to fight this guy?\u00a0 And I asked if I could get a license, and they checked it and said: \u201cYeah, we can get you a license.\u201d\u00a0 He was supposed to fight Buster Mathis, SR., but Buster couldn\u2019t get a license.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So, I said OK, and I get on a plane and I go to Detroit and they thought that I wasn\u2019t training because I haven\u2019t fought in a few months.\u00a0 They knew that I had a problem in California.\u00a0 I go out to the Kronk Gym, and Lewis is training there with Emanuel Steward.\u00a0 I was at a gym on the other side of town and Steward had come over to watch me train one day, and he watched me skip rope for an hour, and he knew that they were in trouble (laughs).\u00a0 Then, I got on the speed bag for an hour and that is how I used to get myself into shape, and I ran every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So I fought Lewis in 1974, I think\u2026somewhere around there, and I beat him ten out of ten rounds and he never fought well again.\u00a0 He fought two more fights and he retired.\u00a0\u00a0 I beat him up so bad that it was pathetic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM:\u00a0 After the victory over Lewis, there was some talk about you fighting Muhammad Ali.\u00a0 Why didn\u2019t that bout come off?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ali and I were signed to fight four times.\u00a0 When Ali fought Norton the first time in San Diego, that was supposed to be my fight.\u00a0 I had won five or six fights in a row, and then I won the state title, and Ali and I had talked on the phone.\u00a0 He actually sent me a telegram, arranging with the guys at the sports arena to fight in San Diego.\u00a0 We gave him a hell of a deal and he agreed to it, but Bob Byron and Art Rifkin owned Ken Norton, and they went to Chicago with three million dollars and Herbert Muhammad took the money and they got the fight.\u00a0 Ali cried, and called me on the phone.\u00a0 He said: \u201cI feel so terrible.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how to tell you this, but one day we will fight.\u201d\u00a0 And this was before I beat Blue Lewis, and he said: \u201cOne day, I promise you that we will do it.\u201d\u00a0 In fact, I took him to the hospital the night that he fought Norton and he broke his jaw.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: So there is no doubt that Ali wasn\u2019t ducking you.\u00a0 He wanted to fight you, but it was just the politics of the game that stopped it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, yeah.\u00a0 You see, he didn\u2019t have a say.\u00a0 One day you should talk to Gene Kilroy because he was there when Ali called me on the phone and he felt terrible.\u00a0 It all started one day on the phone, when he called and said: \u201cYou gotta do me a favor.\u201d\u00a0 I said, I\u2019ll do you a favor\u2026fight me!\u00a0 Ali said: \u201cNo, you\u2019re fighting my brother next week, Rahman Ali.\u00a0 He is my brother, and I want you to get him out of boxing.\u00a0 Just hurt him and get him out of the game.\u00a0 He\u2019s an embarrassment.\u201d\u00a0 I said, are you kidding me?\u00a0 He said: \u201cYou do me this favor, and I will give you a fight.\u201d\u00a0 So I fought his brother, and I said, I better get back to the gym (laughs).\u00a0 I was shooting pool when he called me in some bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I went and fought him and he was very quick.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t nearly the fighter that his brother was.\u00a0 He was fast and ran around, and they were trying to steal the fight because he was running and holding onto you.\u00a0 My trainer said to me: \u201cThey\u2019re going to steal this fight from you.\u201d\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t in any great shape to be fighting the way that I should have been fighting.\u00a0 Like I said, I could walk off the street and go ten rounds.\u00a0\u00a0 I had a God given talent.\u00a0 So, I told my trainer not to worry about it.\u00a0 He\u2019s not going one more round. The fight is over.\u00a0 He then said: \u201cYou better do something.\u201d\u00a0 So I told him not to worry about it and I went out there and hit him so hard that it looked like he wasn\u2019t going to wake up.\u00a0 I was like, oh my God!\u00a0 I went into his dressing room after the fight, and he said: \u201cOh my God, you hit hard,\u201d and he\u2019s a Muslim and I said, joking around: \u201cWhat do you know about God?\u201d\u00a0 We had a chuckle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ali called me and said thanks, and we were putting together this fight in San Diego, and Norton\u2019s people went and all of a sudden, he was fighting Ali.\u00a0 After I beat Blue Lewis, I was up at Ali\u2019s training camp, and I was going to fight him in Australia and they gave the fight to Bugner.\u00a0 We were set several times, and I just got very despondent and doing a lot of things, and then it was discovered in San Diego, a doctor discovered that I have this disease called Acromegaly, which I shouldn\u2019t have been boxing at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: What exactly is Acromegaly?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tumor in the pituitary and it\u2019s like Gigantism\u2026it puts a lot of growth hormone in your body and it drains you.\u00a0 It also causes depression and all this other stuff.\u00a0 So they wanted me to quit boxing and get this fixed, and I said no way.\u00a0 I waited and waited and waited and got it fixed in 1974.\u00a0 I was at a point where I had to get it fixed.\u00a0 I was fighting ten round fights and losing decisions to guys that I should have whupped in the first round.\u00a0 I was bad and I just didn\u2019t give a shit and I went to Florida and lost to a guy named Jimmy Summerville, and I went back and knocked him out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

GM: Was your TKO loss to Summerville a good stoppage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, he was an Angelo Dundee fighter.\u00a0 So, when I went back and knocked him out, Dundee wanted to manage me.\u00a0 I guess it was a time for me to stop, and I wouldn\u2019t stop.\u00a0 So, it got to a point when a doctor friend of mine said: \u201cEither you get this thing fixed, or we will revoke your license.\u201d\u00a0 I went and got it fixed, and I was in the hospital in Boston in 1974, and they performed this laser surgery.\u00a0 They had to drill four holes into my head to bolt me to this machine and I was in the hospital for four to five days, and I checked myself out because I had a fight scheduled with Larry Middleton in Baltimore, Maryland, and I went down and trained two days and I still had the scars on my head from the surgical procedure and still went nine rounds with Middleton.\u00a0 Like I said, I had this ability.\u00a0 I had too much balls for my own good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In \u201cFrom the Boxing Ring to Hollywood: Superman Star Jack O\u2019Halloran Speaks to RSR About His Remarkable Life, Part II,\u201d we will discuss the transition from boxing to a successful acting career, an upcoming book, and the Superman Franchise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Advertise Now On RSR<\/a><\/p>\n

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Exclusive Interview by\u00a0Geno McGahee (Reposted for Archive purposes) \u201cI was given a good talent and I never really took care of it.\u201d\u2014Jack O\u2019Halloran Most people know Jack O\u2019Halloran from his movie career.\u00a0 His portrayal of the mute super villain \u201cNon\u201d in Superman and Superman II may be his most memorable performance, but before he was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[105,141,294,319,10614,427,521,547],"class_list":["post-2104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-boxing","tag-cali","tag-george-foreman","tag-heavyweight","tag-jack-ohalloran","tag-ken-norton","tag-muhummad-ali","tag-organized-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2104"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}