December 4, 2007
The Expert Behind the Fedora and Cigar: An Interview with Bert Randolph Sugar (Part 2) Posted by Allen Barra at 08:45 PM EST This is the conclusion of the interview that begins here. Angelo Dundee, with whom you wrote My View From the Corner, is probably the best-known trainer in boxing history. Someone, maybe you, once described the trainer’s job as “a chess master who plays with live pieces.” Is there another boxing trainer would you say was Angelo’s equal as a chess master? In our book, Angelo describes a trainer’s job as one where “you’ve got to combine certain qualities belonging to a doctor, an engineer, a psychologist, and sometimes an actor, in addition to knowing your specific art well. The job also comes with a lot of headaches, which aren’t included in the job specs. In short, the very word “trainer” is a catchall covering a complex job; there are more sides to being a trainer than in a Rubik’s Cube. But there was one area Angie never involved himself in: a boxer’s personal life. In the book he explains that he learned his lesson very early when he had a four-round fighter who “came to me one day and said, ‘That wife of mine, what a pain in the ass she is.’” Distracted, Angie told him, “Well, you know how women are . . .” and left it at that. As Angie tells it, “Wouldn’t you know it, the fighter went home and told his wife, ‘Angie thinks you’re wrong . . .’ and I lost him. So whenever a fighter tries to say something to me about his private life, I just say, ‘look, do me a favor, will ya? Go over and hit the light bag.’” Angie learned at the knees of so many famous trainers, trainers like Chickie Ferrara, Ray Arcel, Charlie Goldman, Freddie Brown, and so many others who lit the way for him and on whose shoulders he stood. He shared their corners, their methods, and their stories and captures them all in the book. One of those he was especially fond of was Ray Arcel, from whom he learned many of the trainer’s “tricks of the trade.“ Especially Arcel’s work in the corner during a fight. Arcel had, according to Angie, “One little trick of cleaning off his fighter, wiping his gloves, greasing him nice and smooth and putting his hair back in place before sending him out of the corner for the next round. Now the opponent figures ‘What the hell’s going on? I thought I was beating the bejabbers out of this guy, and he looks like he’s stepping out of the pages of GQ magazine.’” Another of Arcel’s “tricks” that Angie picked up on was something he learned “watching Arcel one night when his fighter hit his opponent with a shot to the chops and the opponent went down with a thud. The referee started the count, tolling off the numbers at a snail’s pace. As the count finally reached a torturous and prolonged “five,” Arcel showed up at the top of the steps, robe in hand, and put it on his kid, inspiring the ref to quickly pick up the count and count the opponent out. And wouldn’t you know it, Angie used the same trick with his fighter one night at Madison Square Garden, and the ref turns around, sees Angie with the robe in hand, and gave the fallen opponent a quick count. As Angie says, “You learn from watching other people.” And he had the best to watch. Every time I see an estimate of how many books you’ve written, the number seems to change. Here it is, December 5, and as of today how many have you written? Like the woman under oath who, when asked her age, replied, “I’m 39 and a few months,” and in the follow-up answer to the question, “How many months are ‘and a few’?” said, “24,” the answer to how many books I’ve written is subject to the same “and a few” calculation. It all depends on what’s being counted. Is it the books I’ve written or those I’ve complied? Or those books that originally came out under one title and were later reissued under another title? Or updated versions of already published works? Or books I’ve worked on with other authors? My best guess—counting my latest book, My View from the Corner, with Angelo Dundee—is somewhere in the neighborhood of 50—and counting. But, then again, I’m writing ’em, not counting ’em. So, like Jack Benny, all I can do is say that the number is 39 “and a few.” You can fill in the blank for “and a few.” For a couple decades now, people have identified you from your TV appearances—the fedora and the cigar. Yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen that cigar lit. What’s the story there? Almost every thumbnail bio on me starts, “With his trademark fedora and cigar . . .” It’s gotten so I’ve come to believe that without the fedora and cigar I could probably enter the Federal Witness Protection Program and not be recognized. The cigar, however, is more than just a trademark. It is something I enjoy. Call it a habit, a practice or a convention if you wish—sometimes chomping on them, sometimes smoking them, and sometimes, as on television, wearing them. I also hold onto them, because at my age it gives me something to hold on to in case I’m falling down. Yes, I more than occasionally light one up. To me a good cigar is more than just a smoke. It’s a pleasurable way of living. Others have found cigar smoking a pleasurable way of living as well, including Mark Twain, who is quoted as saying, “If I cannot smoke cigars in heaven then I shall not go.” And he lived life to its fullest, as did Grouch Marx, Milton Berle, and George Burns, a happy group of mummers who, to listen to those antismoking folks, undoubtedly were killed by cigars at the average age of 89. Damn the P.C.-ers and do-gooders who would have me call homeless people “urban outdoorsmen” and hookers “human relations specialists.” The pursuit of happiness is one of our basic freedoms, and I'm free to smoke cigars whenever and wherever I want—just not in television studios.
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