Jack Dempsey

Boxer

• Born: June 24, 1895
• Birthplace: Manassa, Colorado
• Died: May 31, 1983
• Place of death: New York, New York

American boxer

Dempsey was one of the greatest sports personalities of the so-called golden age of sports (the 1920’s) and the first boxer to make major contributions to sporting life in the United States.

Area of achievement Sports

Early Life

Jack Dempsey (DEHMP-see), one of eleven children, was of Indian, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. The son of Hyrum Dempsey and Celia Dempsey, he became accustomed to a nomadic existence early in life, a primary requisite for a boxing career. Hyrum had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had moved to Manassa in 1880 because it was a center of Mormon life. Hyrum, however, never was a successful businessman and was regarded as something of a dreamer. The family began a succession of moves from Manassa when Jack was four or five years old; the longest stay was at a ranch near Montrose, Colorado, for two years.

Jack permanently left his family in 1911, when they were living in Lakeview, Utah, and he was sixteen years old. He had already been attracted to the sport that made him famous, for he had begun to fight at about ten years of age, and it had become a way of life. This was a type of boxing in which there were no holds barred, and the biggest and toughest competitors usually won. As a preventive against cuts (which might interfere with his vision and hence his ability to hit and block blows), the budding boxing great bathed his face and hands in beef brine. Cuts were lessened this way, and his hands were toughened as well.

Dempsey was never large, especially if compared to boxers of the late twentieth century. In his prime as an adult, Dempsey stood six feet one and a half inches tall and weighed from 180 to 187 pounds; in his earlier years, he often weighed less than 150. From 1911 to 1916, Dempsey led the life of what one could legitimately call a hobo, though a hobo who worked and would accept any gainful employment. During this time he also fought and sharpened his skills and techniques. His was a rather brutal existence, an existence that forced Dempsey to remain aloof from most other hoboes because of his fear of homosexual attack from older, stronger individuals or groups. This in itself was good training for a boxer; once he is in the ring, a boxer is completely on his own, simply one individual who is pitted against another.

Dempsey was not the only man of his family to box. At one time, his older brother Bernie was fighting under the name of Jack Dempsey. This Jack was one of the more popular earlier middleweights and was known as “The Non-pareil.” One night, William Harrison substituted for his older brother in the ring and used the name Jack Dempsey. This fight in Denver gave him his permanent professional name.

Dempsey needed two more ingredients for a really successful boxing career. Most successful boxing careers are shaped, if not made, by a manager, and an astute boxing promoter of matches can make or break a career. Dempsey’s fights in the West gave him these, for he was introduced to the men who would be the two most important figures in his professional life. John Leo McKernan, or Jack Kearns, was the epitome of the fight manager: a master storyteller whom Nat Fleischer, editor of The Ring, credited with having invented the art of “ballyhoo.” The promoter was George L. “Tex” Rickard, who was to develop boxing’s first million-dollar gates, with Dempsey as the prime attraction.

Kearns was the most successful manager in the history of boxing, until the 1970’s, for producing revenue for his boxers and himself. He managed six world champions, four of whom have been elected to The Ring’s Hall of Fame. Dempsey, Kearns, and Rickard were also lucky: They were at the right place at the right time. Boxing had only recently been legalized in the state of New York, opening the largest populated area of the country to mass spectator sports. For the first time, boxing was being taken from small, seedy arenas that housed only a few hundred or a thousand seats, to the sporting meccas of America.

Dempsey’s first two managers were Jack Price and John “the Barber” Reisler. It was not until 1917, when he was twenty-two, that Dempsey met Kearns and began his rise to fame. By the time he met Kearns, he had knocked out practically every opponent he had faced, but without recognition and the good paydays that went with that accomplishment. By the time he won the heavyweight championship of the world in 1919 from Jess Willard, he had knocked out twenty-one opponents in the first round, and newspapers had begun calling him the “Manassa Mauler” and “Jack the Giant Killer.” From 1917 until 1919, he suffered only one defeat, and by 1919 he had won more than eighty victories.

Dempsey had also married by this time. His first wife, Maxine Gates, was a saloon piano player whom he had met during his early days in the West. He then married Estelle Taylor, an actor, whom he had met after becoming heavyweight champion. They were later divorced and Dempsey married a singer, Hannah Williams. They had two daughters, Joan in 1934 and Barbara in 1936, but again he was divorced, in 1943. Dempsey was given custody of the children. He was married for the fourth time in 1958, to Deanna Piatelli, who survived him. Dempsey also adopted his fourth wife’s daughter from a previous marriage, who took the name Barbara Piatelli Dempsey. She later helped him to write his 1977 autobiography, Dempsey.

Life’s Work

Dempsey’s status as a serious contender was established when he knocked out Fireman Jim Flynn in one round. In July, 1918, he knocked out Fred Fulton in twenty-three seconds of the first round. Dempsey threw the only punch, a right. This got him a title fight with Jess Willard, who had won the title in 1915 but who had defended it only once since then, in a no-decision match with Frank Moran in 1916.

The championship bout with Willard, on July 4 in Toledo, Ohio, made Dempsey a national hero. Willard was five inches taller and seventy pounds heavier, and was the overwhelming favorite. The fight was held in a specially made outdoor arena constructed of rough-hewn planks, a Rickard trademark. Although the ring was set up on the shores of Maumee Bay, it was blisteringly hot. Dempsey began to stalk Willard; he had to stand on his tiptoes to reach the champion. Reach the champion he did, however, for Dempsey knocked him down seven times in the first round, breaking Willard’s jaw in twelve places. Both Dempsey and Kearns left the ring at the end of the first round, believing the fight won. Dempsey had to reenter the ring, but at the end of the fourth round, Willard retired, after taking a frightful beating. Dempsey was now champion.

What is not generally known about Dempsey, however, is that this time of his life was not a particularly happy one. He was not immediately accepted by the public as a champion; indeed, he did not become a real hero until he lost the crown to Gene Tunney. A large part of this lack of acclaim was because of questions concerning his role in the war effort during World War I. Supposedly doing essential work in a Philadelphia shipyard, he had posed for a news photograph while holding a riveting gun and wearing overalls. He was also, however, wearing patent leather dress shoes. The photograph convinced many that he had evaded fighting, and the sobriquet “draft dodger” was hung on him. Partly as a result of this unfavorable publicity, Rickard matched Dempsey with Georges Carpentier, the light-heavyweight champion. Carpentier was advertised as the archetypal hero; he had been decorated while serving in the French armed forces during the war. Rickard shrewdly surmised that many fans would buy tickets hoping to see Dempsey lose. Rickard built one of his stark wooden arenas in an area of Jersey City known as Boyle’s Thirty Acres. A crowd of 80,183 paid $1,789,238 to see the fight it was the first of the legendary million-dollar gates. Carpentier, however, did not stand a chance. He was knocked out in the fourth round.

There were some unpleasantries associated even with the Willard fight. Dempsey maintained that he never received any funds from the proceeds of his share of the fight. Kearns reportedly bet ten thousand dollars on Dempsey to win in a first-round knockout. When Dempsey had to return to the ring, he lost the bet. The rest of the money supposedly went for training expenses. This was the first intimation that all was not well between Dempsey and Kearns. Kearns later claimed that Dempsey’s pounding of Willard was a result of his wrapping of Dempsey’s hands with plaster of paris the previous night, actually a common ploy then used by fighters, especially those employed by circuses and traveling carnivals, who regularly took on all comers. Generally, if the challenger lasted three rounds, he was declared the winner. Most did not, thanks to such ploys.

Dempsey’s next fight after Carpentier was held in Shelby, Montana. This fight is still cited as an example of what small-town promoters should not do: hock the family jewels for a bit of national recognition. Kearns had received a guarantee of $250,000 for Dempsey to fight Tommy Gibbons in Shelby. The fight was held in the oil-rich town, but very few people came to witness Dempsey’s victory in a five-round decision. Nevertheless, Kearns collected the entire guarantee; one of the most fabled stories of sports and gambling concerns Kearns’s foresight in hiring a locomotive and caboose to whisk the Dempsey entourage out of town.

Dempsey actually fought only six fights defending the championship. During this period, there were no boxing commissions or organizations mandating that champions defend their title at least twice a year. He won the title in 1919, then in 1920 defeated, for the second time, Billy Wiske and Bill Brennan, before meeting Carpentier in 1921. It had taken Dempsey twelve rounds to dispose of Brennan by knockout. He did not defend the title in 1922. In 1923, he defeated Gibbons and then fought the famous battle with Luis Angel Firpo of Argentina in New York City. This short fight probably contained more action than any other heavyweight championship bout. Early in the first round, Dempsey was stopped by a right to the jaw, but he was able to knock Firpo down four times. Firpo then knocked Dempsey into the press row. Reporters broke his fall and helped push him back into the ring. Dempsey then knocked Firpo down for the fifth time and all this happened in the first round. The second round was all Dempsey’s, and he finished Firpo off by knocking him down twice.

Dempsey did not fight again for three years. Then came his two losses to Gene Tunney. Tunney, a former marine, won the title from Dempsey on September 23, 1926. More than one hundred thousand spectators witnessed the bout. Dempsey lost by a ten-round decision. By this time, Kearns was no longer Dempsey’s manager and was suing Dempsey for his share of the Tunney purse. A year later, Dempsey challenged Tunney for the title. Dempsey was soundly outboxed, except for the long-count seventh round. Dempsey knocked Tunney down but refused to go to a neutral corner as newer rules mandated. Dempsey stood over the fallen Tunney for at least four seconds before moving to a neutral corner. Only after Dempsey had done so did the referee begin his count. Tunney recovered, and any hope that Dempsey would win was lost.

Dempsey made a comeback in August of 1931, but a loss to Kingfish Levinsky in August of 1932 convinced him to retire again. In 1940, he returned to the ring once again, but only to knock out three stiffs.

During his career, Dempsey fought sixty-nine professional bouts. He won forty-seven by knockout, seven by decision, and one by foul; in five of his fights there was no decision, and four were declared a draw; he lost four by decision and was knocked out once.

While champion, Dempsey had been attracted to the glamour and charisma of the stage and screen. His featured role in a Broadway play was, to say the least, not outstanding. The female lead was played by his second wife, Estelle Taylor, a star of silent films whom he had met while in Hollywood. His Hollywood career was a disaster, however, as was the film Manhattan Madness (1925), in which he appeared.

After the Tunney bouts, Dempsey refereed bouts and tended to his business interests. During World War II, he was unable to enlist in the U.S. Army but joined the Coast Guard as director of its physical fitness program. He held the rank of commander, ending his service in November, 1945.

Dempsey was the first winner of the New York Boxing Writers Association’s Edward J. Weil Memorial Plaque, in 1938, and was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954. By this time, his popularity was at an all-time high, and he was generally regarded as the best boxer in history until the postwar period. Probably the most important reason for this public acclaim was Dempsey’s mellowing personality. His successful restaurant on Broadway in New York City kept him in the public eye, for he was always willing to greet a customer and have his picture taken with him or her. He died on May 31, 1983, in New York City.

Significance

Dempsey is a sports legend, along with such epic American sports heroes as Harold “Red” Grange and the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, of football fame, and the other greats of sports’ Golden Age. Although his record in the ring is possibly overrated, his fights were marked by a ferocity seldom encountered elsewhere in boxing. His long life enabled him to become a genial host in the most populous city in the United States, a position that continued to keep him in the national limelight. The champ thus came to personify much that was good in American life.

Bibliography

Bromberg, Lester. Boxing’s Unforgettable Fights. New York: Ronald Press, 1962. Bromberg graphically depicts the fights with Willard, when Dempsey won the championship, the Carpentier and Firpo fights, and the two Tunney fights. Interesting reading.

Cavanaugh, Jack. “The Long Count Is a Long Memory.” The New York Times, September 22, 2002, sec. 8, p. 9. Recounts the 1927 boxing match between Dempsey and Gene Tunney, in which Tunney was knocked out in the seventh round but eventually won the fight.

Dempsey, Jack, with Barbara Piatelli Dempsey. Dempsey. New York: Harper & Row, 1977. The official autobiography by Dempsey, who was assisted by his adopted daughter. Should be read with care and compared to other sources.

Fleischer, Nathaniel S. Fifty Years at Ringside. New York: Fleet, 1958. Fleischer, editor and publisher of The Ring in its heyday, was considered “Mr. Boxing” after World War II. Provides an excellent evaluation of Dempsey, compared to other ring greats such as Jack Johnson and Joe Louis. Fleischer always considered Johnson to be the greatest champion.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Heavyweight Championship. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1949. Includes excellent comparisons between Dempsey and Tunney, and captures the reasons for which Dempsey was so popular with the public after his defeats by Tunney.

Heimer, Mel. The Long Count. New York: Atheneum, 1969. Focuses on the long-count knockdown in the second Dempsey-Tunney bout; provides good insights into the private life as well as the career of Dempsey.

Kahn, Roger. A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring ’20’s. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999. A biography placing Dempsey in the context of his times. Kahn describes Dempsey as a “wild and raucous champion of the wild and raucous 1920’s.”

Kearns, Jack, with Oscar Fraley. The Million Dollar Gate. New York: Macmillan, 1966. An “as-told-to” autobiography providing Kearns’s version of his life with Dempsey. Anti-Dempsey, it should be read in conjunction with Dempsey’s own autobiography.

Roberts, Randy. Jack Dempsey: The Manassa Mauler. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. The best source for beginning to understand Dempsey’s problems both in and outside the ring.

Smith, Red. “Jack Dempsey Is Dead.” The New York Times, June 1, 1983, sec. 2, p. 4. In-depth obituary of Dempsey, prepared by Smith, who was a noted sports columnist for the Times.

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