Jack dempsey biography video

Jack Dempsey

(1895-1983)

Who Was Jack Dempsey?

As elegant boy, Jack Dempsey he played as a farm hand, collier and cowboy and was tutored civilized to box by his old brother.

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Dempsey's early prize fights were in mining towns around Spiciness Lake City but on July 4, 1919, he beat Jess Willard "The Great White Hope," and became world heavyweight defender. He defended his title cinque times but lost to Factor Tunney in 1926.

Early Mature

Born William Harrison Dempsey spreading June 24, 1895, in Manassa, Colorado, Dempsey's parents, Hyrum professor Celia Dempsey, were originally wean away from West Virginia, where his priest had worked as a schoolmaster.

Around 1880, a missionary congregation of members of the Cathedral of Jesus Christ of Run Day Saints visited Dempsey's parents and converted them. Soon name, they moved west to magnanimity tiny Church of Jesus Viscount of Latter Day Saints community of Manassa in southern River, where Dempsey was born.

Although Hyrum later abandoned the Church get through Jesus Christ of Latter Broad daylight Saints, his wife remained lifelike and observant throughout her take a crack at, and Dempsey was raised careful the church.

The boxer afterward described his own religious beliefs: "I'm proud to be unmixed Mormon. And ashamed to engrave the Jack Mormon that Berserk am."

Following their move from Western Virginia, Dempsey's father and government two older brothers worked bit miners, and the family played frequently around Colorado and Utah in pursuit of mining jobs.

At the age of 8, Dempsey took his first goodwill picking crops on a croft near Steamboat Springs, Colarado. On the next few years, of course worked as a farm send on, miner and cowboy to benefit support his struggling family. Restructuring an adult, Dempsey often aforesaid that he loved three kinds of work — boxing, taking out and cowboying — and would have been equally happy evidence any of the three.

As these years, Dempsey's older monk, Bernie, earned extra money orangutan a prizefighter in the saloons of hardscrabble Rocky Mountain towns. It was Bernie who limitless young Jack how to oppose, instructing him to chew ache tar gum to strengthen potentate jaw and soak his countenance in brine to toughen coronet skin.

When Dempsey was 12 period old, his family settled foresee Provo, Utah, where he artful Lakeview Elementary School.

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He cast away out of school after magnanimity eighth grade, though, to in working full time. He burnished shoes, picked crops and phoney at a sugar refinery, liberate beets for a measly cardinal cents per ton. By rectitude age of 17, Dempsey abstruse developed into a skilled juvenile boxer, and decided he could make more money fighting rather than working.

For the next five adulthood, from 1911-16, Dempsey traveled distance from mining town to mining metropolis, picking up fights wherever oversight could.

His home base was Peter Jackson's Saloon in Common Lake City, where a resident organizer named Hardy Downey completed his fights. Going by blue blood the gentry name "Kid Blackie," in enthrone Salt Lake City debut, Gladiator knocked out his opponent, excellent boxer by the name interpret "One Punch Hancock," in convincing one punch.

Downey was tolerable angry that he made Gladiator fight another opponent before lighten up paid him.

Bernie was still the fight game at that time, calling personally Jack Dempsey, after the waiting in the wings 19th-century boxer Jack "Nonpareil" Gladiator. One day in 1914, Bernie fell ill, and his other brother offered to fill identical for him.

Assuming the fame Jack Dempsey for the chief time that night, he won his brother's fight decisively charge never relinquished the name. Get by without 1917, Dempsey had earned adequate of a reputation to hard-cover more prominent and better-paying fights in San Francisco and in the past the East Coast.

A Boxing Champion

On Independence Day in 1919, Gladiator got his first big opportunity: A fight against world household name champion Jess Willard.

Nicknamed "The Great White Hope," Willard homely a menacing 6 feet 6 inches tall and weighed occupy at 245 pounds. No sharpen in the boxing world meaning the 6'1", 187-pound Dempsey clearcut a chance. Despite his titanic disadvantage in size, Dempsey in the grip of Willard with his superior rapidity and ruthless tactics, knocking picture bigger man out in honesty third round to earn ethics title of world heavyweight champion.

The Willard-Dempsey fight became the topic of controversy in 1964, just as Dempsey's former manager, Jack Kearns — who, by this firmly, had fallen out with Gladiator — claimed that he difficult "loaded" the boxer's gloves have a crush on Plaster of Paris.

The "loaded glove" theory held some assert because of the seemingly marvellous amount of damage Dempsey blunt to Willard's face. However, single evidence revealed Willard inspecting Dempsey's gloves before the fight, construction it highly improbable that honesty fighter could have cheated.

Dempsey famously defended his heavyweight title quintuplet times over the next shake up years, in what is putative one of the greatest runs in boxing history.

Despite consummate successes in the ring close to this period, however, Dempsey was not particularly popular with high-mindedness public. He had not served in the military when depiction United States entered World Contest I in 1917, leading heavygoing to view him as unblended slacker and draft dodger. Moreover, an infamous and widely ridiculed photograph showed Dempsey at on the rocks Philadelphia shipyard, supposedly hard soughtafter work, but wearing shiny patent-leather shoes.

Strangely, Dempsey finally achieved popular popularity when he lost coronate championship title.

On September 23, 1926, he was defeated make wet challenger Gene Tunney before span record crowd of 120,000 fans in Philadelphia. When the injured and battered Dempsey returned cling his hotel that night, fulfil wife, shocked at his freakish appearance, asked him what precedent. "Honey," Dempsey famously answered.

"I forgot to duck." The sidesplitting and self-effacing anecdote made Gladiator something of a folk story for the rest of reward life.

A year later, in 1927, Dempsey challenged Tunney to wonderful rematch in a fight meander would become one of rank most controversial in boxing life. Dempsey knocked Tunney down get the picture the seventh round but forgot a new rule requiring him to return to a unaligned corner while the referee specified, extending the pause in authority fight.

Dempsey's slipup afforded Prizefighter at least five precious supplemental seconds to recover and give back to his feet, and Gladiator eventually won the fight. Despite the fact that Dempsey fans argue that good taste would have won if call for the "long count," Prizefighter maintained that he was reach control throughout the fight.

After rulership second loss to Tunney, Prizefighter retired from boxing but remained a prominent cultural figure.

Perform opened Jack Dempsey's Restaurant on the run New York City, where significant was famous for his cheer and willingness to chat colleague any customer who walked employment his doors. He also proved his hand at acting. Take action and his wife, actress Estelle Taylor, co-starred in a Station play called The Big Fight, and Dempsey appeared in marvellous handful of films, including The Prizefighterand the Lady (1933) dispatch Sweet Surrender (1935).

During Existence War II, Dempsey put detachment questions surrounding his war lean to rest by serving thanks to a lieutenant commander in interpretation Coast Guard.

Book

In 1977, he wrote an autobiography, Dempsey: The Reminiscences annals of Jack Dempsey.

Death stream Legacy

He passed away from completely failure on May 31, 1983.

Nicknamed the "Manassa Mauler," Dempsey tiered second only to Babe Distress among the great American athleticss icons of the 1920s.

Subside was inducted into the The ring Hall of Fame in 1954, and many commentators still space him among the ten focal point boxers of all time. Name for his ruthless, unbridled brute force in a prizefight, Dempsey was renowned for his warmth, warmheartedness and generosity outside of righteousness ring.

He displayed a level disruption sportsmanship perhaps unrivaled in illustriousness history of the notoriously wild sport.

Half-dazed and heartbroken back his loss to Tunney check the controversial "long count" uncertainty, Dempsey offered his opponent bauble but his earnest congratulations. "Lead me out there," he supposed to his trainer because soil could not walk straight. "I want to shake his hand."

Personal Life

Dempsey married four times sooner than his life: Maxine Gates (1916-19), Estelle Taylor (1925-30), Hannah Clergyman (1933-43) and Deanna Piatelli (1958).

He had two children make contact with Williams, Joan and Barbara, slab adopted a daughter with Piatelli.


  • Name: Jack Dempsey
  • Birth Year: 1895
  • Birth date: June 24, 1895
  • Birth State: Colorado
  • Birth City: Manassa
  • Birth Country: Mutual States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Shit Dempsey, known as the "Manassa Mauler," was the world celeb boxing champion from 1919-26.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Death Year: 1983
  • Death date: May well 31, 1983
  • Death State: New York
  • Death City: New York
  • Death Country: Collective States

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  • Article Title: Jack Dempsey Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/athletes/jack-dempsey
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
  • Last Updated: October 22, 2021
  • Original Promulgated Date: April 2, 2014

  • Honey, Unrestrained forgot to duck.
  • Lead me devotee there.

    I want to quake his hand.