An Interview with Clay Hodges(1995)

[Brutu]

Here is a link to a transcription of an interesting article that originally appeared in RING magazine in 1995 with former amateur heavyweight Clay Hodges,


http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/t ... 0879815606

[Caractacus]

you can see former Amateur Heavyweight Clay Hodges(as Jess Willard) in this clip beginning at about 1:07

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd8IwxVHWf4

[Kalan]

I hated that movie... Tweet Williams made the dinkiest, most lifeless, and most uncharismatic Dempsey I've ever seen.

[Kalan]

I thought Russell Crowe did a good job as Jimmy Braddock... He's a good actor but he carried the movie by himself... In the Joe Louis Story a professional Heavyweight boxer played Louis, a guy named Coley Wallace who was a natural actor. He looked like the real deal because he was a dead ringer for Louis... Robert Di Nero did a great job as Jake LaMotta, but he overdid the stupid jerk part of the character... Paul Newman didn't look anything like Rocky Graziano and I thought "Somebody Up There Likes Me" was a little sappy...

The best portrayal was probably Errol Flynn playing Jim Corbett... He was a physical wreck from too much booze, women, and dissipation but he still played a very convincing Gentleman Jim because of his physique, natural charisma, and range as an actor... I would like to see another movie done on Dempsey and they shouldn't screen test anemic looking Middleweights for the role.

[klompton]

Robert Di Nero did a great job as Jake LaMotta, but he overdid the stupid jerk part of the character...

Obviously you dont know much about LaMotta, if anything the movie painted LaMotta in a much better light than he really was. By his own admission he raped two women (that doesnt include the pandering conviction against him), nearly murdered at least one man during a mugging, beat the hell out of his manager throwing him down a flight of stairs in order to compell the guy to cancel his contract, sat in his apartment with his friends getting drunk and playing cards while ignoring the pleas of his wife to take her to the hospital because she had entered into labor with his child, the list goes on and on and on and thats just what HE admits to. According to other people he was famous for his paranoia and distrust of other people, he was a sociopath, and continued to mug people well into his sixties. So no, DeNiro didnt oversell him being a jerk.