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| A FLAME OF PURE FIRE | |
 February 4, 2000 
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The new book is "A Flame of Pure Fire," and it tells the rags-to-riches story of prize fighter jack Dempsey and his era, the Roaring 20's. Dempsey was heavyweight champion of the world for seven years, from 1919, when he defeated Jess Willard in Toledo, Ohio, until 1926, when Gene Tunney took the title in Philadelphia in a match fought in the rain. The next year Dempsey lost to Tunney again in a fight sports enthusiasts still argue about. Roger Kahn wrote the new Dempsey biography. He's the author of 16 books, including "Boys of Summer," a portrait of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Thanks for being with us. What drew you to Dempsey, Mr. Kahn? Why Dempsey? ROGER KAHN, Author, "A flame of Pure Fire": Well, I met Dempsey when I was a young journalist, and I met Dempsey under unusual circumstances. He had a restaurant on Broadway long after he'd ceased fighting, and I would go up there from time to time to ask him about boxing. He was very generous, and would give me his views and give me his thoughts, and after a long discussion one day, he said, "you know, I'd really like to get my story set down right. Would you be interested?" And I said, "yes, I would, champ." And he said, "well, there's another writer I have to talk to first, because he's a little older than you, and I promised him first crack. But if he doesn't want to do it, maybe you'll do it for me." And I said, "who's the other writer, champ?" He said one word: "Hemingway." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: (Laughs) You write that at his peak, he was the greatest fighter that ever lived. Why? What do you think made him so great? ROGER KAHN: Well, when you see Dempsey fight, you see somebody coming out of the mining camps, out of the tremendously rough America at the turn of the century in the Rocky Mountains, where he would walk 30 miles through the desert to pick up a five-dollar purse. He said, that five-dollar purse meant I could maybe get a hot meal. He always fought that way, he always fought like somebody with the hounds of hunger and poverty at his heels. And aside from the technical gifts of his boxing, which were very profound, this was somebody the writers called a cougar or a wolf or a tiger or a cyclone, there was such intensity in his boxing, and the answer was... His thought was, "I have to get you quick 'cause otherwise you might get me." ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you came up against that ferocity once when you said something to him about how a fight maybe should be fought, right? Read to us from that part of your book. ROGER KAHN: Well, there was a fighter named Ingemar Johansen who had been fairly impressive, with a big right hand, and I went up to see Dempsey to ask how he would fight Johansen if indeed there was such a match. And Dempsey said, "well, let me ask you something, son. How would you fight Johansen?" And I said, "I'd crowd him." And Dempsey said, "why would you do that? "I'd stay inside his big right hand." And Dempsey said, "okay, show me." "And I've done it now," I thought, "first I tell Dempsey how to fight, now I've got to spar with him. But he's always been a genial sort, at least to me. After these years, he's probably harmless." He was 65. "I want you to crowd me," Dempsey said, "and then I'm going to show you my old one- two." I looked at him. Quite suddenly, Dempsey was considering me with no geniality at all. His eyes were pitiless. It was as if he neither knew nor cared who I was. The knuckles on his fists looked like an eagle's talons. As ordered, I moved in. The fastest left-hand punch I ever saw creased the right side of my face. A right I never saw cracked into my mid-section. I spun back and lowered my hands. Dempsey drove an even harder left along my jaw. "One-two," I said, "one-two-- that's three." "Keep your guard up at all times," Dempsey said in a cold, flat voice. Then it was over. He put his own hands down, the menace fled from his face, he patted my back. "Pal, you deserve a drink. This is my place, so I'll be buying." And for the next three hours, until the dinner customers came in, Dempsey told me stories from the saga, the epic poem that was his life. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Hmm. The book is about that epic poem. It's also about the era in which he lived, and it's really about the beginning of sports as big business. You see our time of very big business sports as going back pretty much to him, don't you? Why? How did he start big-money sports? ROGER KAHN: Well, when Dempsey began, when he fought for the championship, there were less, fewer than 20,000 people in Toledo, Ohio, watching him. When he was fighting at the end of his championship career there were crowds of 130,000 in Philadelphia, 110,000 or so in Chicago to watch him fight Gene Tunney. And there were suddenly not million-dollar gates, there were two-million-dollar gates. And boxing became a social event. People like John D. Rockefeller went to see it, Al Jolson, George M. Cohan, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Dempsey made millions and millions of dollars, far, far more than Babe Ruth. He became, for a time, Jack Dempsey, Inc., the richest athlete of his time. With Dempsey, there was suddenly an awareness: Sports is not only sports; sports is a big-money business. And I think we see that every day today. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And yet he became famous partly because of the great writing about him. Your book is about the sportswriters, too. There was just... There was some great writing about Jack Dempsey. You quote much of it in the book. ROGER KAHN: Well, it was a flowering. People talk about an Elizabethan England, the flowering around Shakespeare. There was a flowering after World War I of American sports writing. Heyward Broun, Ring Lardner, Damon Runyon, Grantland Rice. Grantland Rice would do a poem before a Dempsey fight. He'd said, "when Homer smote his loom and lyre--" people then knew that homer was not a long ball, but was a Greek epic poet. Ring Lardner assumed the persona, the American rube. Dempsey was going to fight Willard in Toledo, and he wrote something, "The Toledo blues: I do not care whether Dempsey win or lose 'cause I got them there Toledo blues." Damon Runyon... (Laughter) Damon Runyon, of course, was in "Guys and Dolls." It was just such an amazing flowering, and even H.L. Mencken, the dour sage of Baltimore, covered a big Dempsey fight, Dempsey-Carpentier. It was a terrific fight. Mencken did not do much of the story because seated two rows behind Dempsey was a young lady... Two rows behind Mencken was a young lady in a tight pink dress, and instead of watching the fight, H.L. Mencken, the great H.L. Mencken watched the lady in the tight pink dress. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us just briefly about that second fight with Tunney, the long count that people still talk about. You believe Dempsey should've regained the title that night. ROGER KAHN: I did. In the very early fights, Dempsey would hit his opponent from behind, the way he had in the bar fights, in the fights in the saloons of the old West. So now the rule was changed, that when somebody was down, you had to go to a neutral corner to give the man a chance to rise. In the great second Tunney fight, there was tremendous betting action, Al Capone being on the side of Dempsey and a crowd from Philadelphia being on Tunney's side, and there was much maneuvering with the referee. In the seventh round, Dempsey knocked Tunney down. Referee would not start the count until Dempsey went to a neutral corner, and maybe Tunney had 18 seconds to get up. A round later, Tunney hit a quick right hand into Dempsey's jaw. Dempsey was off balance, he went down, and the referee sprang over Dempsey-- there's a picture of it in the book-- and the referee said, "One..." He did not say to Tunney, "Go to a neutral corner." The long count is famous as an American miscall. The short count, the following round says, at least to me, that here was a referee in the pay of gamblers, here was a crooked referee. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Hmm. And just briefly in the time we have left, what happened to Dempsey after the fighting stopped? He actually lived... He lived to be 88, didn't he, and he had a very full life, and he also gave money to poor fighters. ROGER KAHN: He lost $3 million in the 1929 crash. He lost his beautiful movie star wife. He began to referee fights, he fought exhibitions, he started a restaurant in New York. Any broken-down fighter-- and boy, their name is legion-- went into that restaurant and said "I'm in trouble champ" would get a $100, $200, $500. He became just an enormous figure helping indigent fighters. And at the age of 80, he was still riding his bicycle through Central Park. People say, "well, wasn't he afraid to be mugged?" Nobody mugged jack Dempsey. ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Roger Kahn, thanks for being with us. ROGER KAHN: My pleasure, Elizabeth. |
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