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Unfortunately, I only met Emile Griffith once.
It had to be around 1998 or 1999, at an event Gerry Cooney’s F.I.S.T. organization was throwing at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York City. There were plenty of heavyweights there that night, and not just “Gentleman Gerry.”
Former middleweight champion Vito Antuofermo and I got lost trying to find the Staten Island Ferry, and another 160-pound titleholder, Jake LaMotta, asked me how much I was paying him when I inquired about an interview.
But the highlight had to be meeting Emile Griffith, the Hall of Famer who once ruled the welterweight and middleweight divisions back when being a champion meant you were something special, and not just one of dozens holding the same belts.
I was a bit awestruck to see the man who my father always talked about as one of the best of the best, but I still approached him, and everything you’ve heard about Griffith being the kindest and most affable gentleman you will ever meet in boxing was true. We chatted for a few minutes and I then committed the Cardinal Sin for a then-aspiring writer. I asked him to sign my notebook, prefacing it with “I know this isn’t professional…” He laughed and said “Don’t you worry about that” as he gave me one of the few autographs I’ve picked up over the years.
The next day, still riding on a cloud, I told a buddy of mine about meeting Griffith. He startled me when he blurted out “Did he try to hit on you?”
Apparently, the legendary Griffith’s sexual preference was a fairly open secret back in those days, and even during his fighting prime. It was news to me. Maybe I was oblivious, or maybe more accurately, I just didn’t care. If you grow up in New York, knowing someone who is gay or being around gay people is as commonplace as realizing that the best pizza is in the Big Apple. It’s really not a big deal. Well, the pizza thing is, but…
I never gave my friend’s comment much thought after that, but as the years passed and Griffith’s health declined, there was a push of sorts to have him tell his story before there would be no more opportunities to hear it from the source.
There was the stirring documentary film Ring of Fire by Dan Klores, and the biography Nine…Ten…And Out! by Ron Ross. But the be-all, end-all chronicle of Emile Griffith and not just the life he lived but the world that he lived in is unquestionably the recently released book by Donald McRae, A Man’s World: The Double Life of Emile Griffith.
McRae’s name should be a familiar one to anyone who appreciates boxing writing – or any writing, for that matter. The author of Dark Trade, which should be in the top five of anyone’s boxing library, McRae also contributes pieces to Boxing News magazine in the UK, as well as the Guardian, and his work always mixes top-notch research, equally key insights and stellar writing. This book is no different, and while it centers on a boxer and his sport, with everything that comes along with that focus, this is more than a boxing or sports biography.
Griffith’s career was largely contested in the 60s and 70s, two of the most turbulent decades ever, and as a gay man (which is how he identified himself, even though he had relationships with women as well), he was on the front lines at a time when homosexuality was actually outlawed in most of the United States. It may seem bizarre to even think about that these days, but that was the reality then, and Griffith had to hide and sneak around to simply live his life.
To do so in the machismo-laden sport of boxing made it even more of a struggle for a young man who just wanted to be happy. And when the man who became Griffith’s greatest rival, Benny “Kid” Paret, attacked him verbally for his sexuality, it set up a Shakespearean tragedy of sorts, as Griffith’s fists ended Paret’s life in their third fight in 1962.
The cover of the book quotes Griffith saying, “I kill a man and most people forgive me. However, I love a man and many say this makes me an evil person.”
It’s sad, but it’s also the reality Griffith had to deal with for many of the years following the third Paret bout. Yet McRae does what few writers want to do these days when recounting the lead-up to the tragic bout, the bout itself, and its aftermath – he takes himself out of the equation and simply tells the story, letting the intriguing cast of characters imbed themselves in our brain long after it’s over.
And that’s the real victory of A Man’s World, as it not only tells Griffith’s story, but those of his contemporaries like Paret, Willie Toweel and Luis Rodriguez, his manager Howie Albert and trainer Gil Clancy, the widow of “Kid,” Lucy Paret, as well as an important look at the first openly gay boxer, Orlando Cruz. And it’s done with care and respect, as well as honesty, a mix that doesn’t always show up in books of this nature.
When it’s done though, I do have a nagging question about Griffith and his life. For someone who was seemingly always on top of the world when seen in the public eye, was he at least able to die happy, even though dementia had robbed him of most of his memories before he passed away in 2013 at the age of 75? I hope so. He lived in a cruel world, made his name in a cruel sport, and both were made crueler by the prejudices he suffered. But while he kept a lot of his pain locked up, he also smiled to the people he met and tried to make their day better. That includes one writer who wishes he had the chance to thank him for making his day all those years ago. I may not have known the whole Emile Griffith story back then, but now that Donald McRae has told it, I appreciate that chat in the Downtown Athletic Club even more.
