Tommy Farmer
Tommy Farmer was an American boxing manager, best known for handling World bantamweight champion Manuel Ortiz. Farmer also handled Jackie Jurich.
According to a piece written by Bill Schutte:
"In the world of boxing history Tommy Farmer is surely most widely known as the manager and/or trainer of top fighters like Manuel Ortiz, Jackie Jurich, Lloyd Marshall, Jack Roper, Chalky Wright, Charley Burley and Holman Williams but to me he is thought of as being one of the great boxing collectors. Tommy was born in Boston during the 1890’s and had quite a life before he died in 1976. He started out as a youngster working as a water boy in various Boston fight clubs. In the 1920’s he moved to Hollywood, CA and worked at various behind the scene jobs at the studios. He was a cameraman, a grip, an electrician, etc.
By the time that the 1930’s rolled around, he had begun to train and manage fighters in Southern California. In 1935 he opened a billiards parlor in downtown Los Angeles the walls of which were covered with old time fight memorabilia. It was said that on almost every evening the place was filled with old fighters like Tommy Ryan and Bud Taylor who would gather there to talk about boxing while surrounded by walls of museum quality boxing photographs. I remember that Al Nelson told me that Farmer had gotten many nice boxing pieces from the old Miah J. Murray pool room and bowling alley which had been located in Farmer’s old home town of Boston. Gloves that had been worn by John L. Sullivan were among the more notable items that Farmer had latched on to along with some super Sam Langford photos matted in a large frame. (Some of the nice old Miah Murray pieces were later given by Farmer to Al Nelson to be displayed at the Jeffries Barn Boxing Museum at Knott’s Berry Farm).
During the 1960’s, after Farmer had stopped working as a boxing manager, his home in Hollywood, which was nick-named 'The Beautiful House of Mugs' became a weekly gathering place for old fighters and collectors to hang out and listen to stories of boxing lore. Los Angeles fight men like manager Suey Welch, promoter George Parnassus, old boxers Kid Mexico (Todd Faulkner) and Sid Marks, were known to make Farmer’s house a regular stop on their Saturday rounds. Farmer, by then a member of the Collectors Of Boxing Lore Association, had most of his house crammed with rare boxing memorabilia of all types. An interesting, unusual boxing piece, the front door to his house was autographed by the various old fight men that gathered there over the years. Different, and cool for sure. Farmer, in later life, sold his collection to Joel Platt. I remember that old time boxing collectors in California at the time (Al Nelson, Floyd “Red” Taylor, and Bill Freitas) were saddened to find that Farmer’s fine collection was headed back East. This man was surely one of the top collectors in the earlier days of American boxing collecting."