Hello folks,
This is my very first contact with this Forum, and it's caused by my curiosity. For many years now I've seen that the famous Western writer Louis L'amour, during his multi-faceted career was also a professional boxer winning 51 of 59 pro fights. this is always what it says on his short bio at the end of each book.
Now I've searched Boxrec, and it's nowhere to be found. The only answer MUST be that they were either unorganized "ship-deck" or "bar-room" fights, or that he had a "fighting name" alias. Assuming that this is so, does anyone know it??
The fighting(boxing) scenes in his books are very artifically contrived and described, and not what I'd expect from a guy with 59 pro fights, even amateure fights, but...who knows??
"Mysterious" boxing record..........maybe?
Well . . .
sort of -- L'Amour did indeed box under different names -- and was involved (in different ways) with several pro boxers, including Dynamite Jackson and Billy Petrolle.
I am reseraching it but it is tough. I will publish an article in IBRO when I have enough.
I have found his boxing stuff well done and capturing the essence of the game -- I suggest to everyone to read The Iron Marshall, for example.
His short pulp stories also have a rugged vitality to them that vault them above the dtandard for the penny-a-word trade.
sort of -- L'Amour did indeed box under different names -- and was involved (in different ways) with several pro boxers, including Dynamite Jackson and Billy Petrolle.
I am reseraching it but it is tough. I will publish an article in IBRO when I have enough.
I have found his boxing stuff well done and capturing the essence of the game -- I suggest to everyone to read The Iron Marshall, for example.
His short pulp stories also have a rugged vitality to them that vault them above the dtandard for the penny-a-word trade.
Thank for the reply Delisa. We don't see eye to eye on the boxing descriptions, but if we did, we'd have no letters exchange.delisa wrote:Well . . .
sort of -- L'Amour did indeed box under different names -- and was involved (in different ways) with several pro boxers, including Dynamite Jackson and Billy Petrolle.
I am reseraching it but it is tough. I will publish an article in IBRO when I have enough.
I have found his boxing stuff well done and capturing the essence of the game -- I suggest to everyone to read The Iron Marshall, for example.
His short pulp stories also have a rugged vitality to them that vault them above the dtandard for the penny-a-word trade.
"Rugged vitality" I'll agree, yes, that's a large part of his attraction to his readers, but even if I hadn't been a reasonably skilled boxer myself, with, by co-incidence, just a few more fights than he had, (although amateur) with a reasonable command of language, I'd still see his fight accounts as I've described in my first letter. I've found similiarly worded and styled fight accounts in books by writers whom I KNOW have never had a glove on.
If he was involved with Jackson and Petrolle, do you hint that it may have been managerial...??? I always assumed, don't know why, that he was about 155-60, which would put him well out of their weight class, if you mean that he may have fought them.
Are you actually a L'Amour afficionado. If so, there is another matter concerning his writing I'd like to bring up, to ask if you noticed it in his later books, which make, to me anyway, his early books by far the best qualitywise. Over the years, I've read about 25-35 or 40....maybe, didn't keep count. I have about 6-8 somewhere around. One thing I DO find is that after a years or two one can read his books again and still enjoy them.