Monday, April 10, 2006

Dear father,
One of the few subjects you ever talked to me about was The Famine.
(but more of that later)

The other was Jack Doyle. I found cutting under your mattress after you died, mostly from The People newspaper, detailing many of the savory – and unsavory – incidents that peppered his daily existence. I remember you telling me once how you traveled to Cobh once to see him in concert, and that he had spent to first half of the show in the pub next door getting roaring drunk. He then came on stage and started a riot – finishing off by urinating on the front row of the audience. You thought it was great sport.
You were there too the day he was buried; ‘he died a pauper but they gave him a send-off fit for a king. Thousands lined the streets of Cobh; a lone piper played ‘The Minstrel Boy’, and there was just a single red carnation on the coffin. I couldn’t get near the grave, but do you know what I did boy? I came back a week later and put my own carnation on the grave’
You loved that man and I still don’t know why. I always thought you had an unforgiving nature, but you were willing to forgive Jack anything
I have since learned that a red carnation was Jack’s trademark. I have learned a lot about Jack since then; in fact I am sure it will please you to know that I have written a play about him. It is called ‘The Gorgeous Gael’ and has been performed at the Kings Head Theatre in Islington, where it went down very well.
I don’t think I ever mentioned it, but I did know Jack myself. I first met him in Kilburn around 1968. He used to frequent the Admiral Nelson pub in the area, which was then owned by Butty Sugrue. Butty, originally from Kerry, had been a wrestler and a circus strongman, and had gained fame by pulling London red buses with a rope gripped in his teeth.
Butty’s latest publicity stunt was to have his barman, Mick Meaney, buried alive in a coffin in the back garden of the Admiral Nelson, in an attempt to break the world record.
Mick stayed underground for 61 days and duly broke the record, and Jack, never one to miss a bit of publicity himself, made sure the reporters didn’t miss him when they came to take their pictures and write their articles.
By now Jack was a has-been, an alcoholic, who lived a precarious existence in a flat in west London, supported by his long-time girlfriend, Nancy Keogh, and singing for his supper in Irish pubs like the Admiral Nelson.
It was a far cry from his heyday in the 1930/40’s when he and his wife, Movita, could not walk down the streets of a city or town without being mobbed, or when 90,000 came to see him fight Eddie Phillips at the White City stadium – and another 90,000 outside if you were to believe Jack! I bumped into Jack on and off over the years after that; I was working on the Buildings and Jack was always in Irish pubs like the Wellington in Shepherds Bush and The Hoop in Notting Hill, and quite frequently ‘at the dogs’ in the White City. He was always willing to talk for the price of a few pints, and some of the stories he told me might have been true – or the might have been figments of his imagination. One statement never varied though; whenever he was asked what caused his down fall it was always the same answer; ‘fast women and slow horses’.
The following is an article I wrote based on my talks with Jack.
It was the greatest moment of Jack Doyle’s life so far. His idol, Jack Dempsey, had taken time out from running his restaurant to come and watch him spar at his training camp in New Jersey. He even took charge of some of his training sessions and gave him the benefit of his priceless advice. Jack was delighted to have finally met his boyhood hero and told him: “I want to fight like you and sing like Count McCormack”. Dempsey, who liked to joke, replied: “Wouldn’t it be too bad, Jack, if you could only sing like me and box like McCormack”. It was a throwaway line, but it was to haunt Jack for the rest of his boxing career: the nearly man of the boxing ring.
In 1933, Jack drew 90,000 fans to the White City to see him box. He was also earning £600 a week as a singer. He was 19. The boy from Cork had the world at his feet. By the time he was 30 he had earned and squandered a quarter of a million pounds. His motto was “a generous man never went to hell”, and he lived his life like a hellraiser. In his heyday, his popularity rivalled that of Flynn and Gable, yet when he died in London in 1978, he was shoeless and destitute.
………………………………….
Joseph Alphonsus Doyle was born in the Holy Ground area of Cobh on August 31, 1913. He was so big, 14lbs, that his mother, Stacia, a tiny woman from Tipperary, could hardly lift him. His father, Michael, was 23 years older than his mother and permanently disabled, as a result of injuries to his leg and the loss of an eye, both sustained in accidents at work. The weekly parish relief of ten shillings wasn’t nearly enough to sustain the family, and Stacia was forced to take work wherever she could find it..
Home was in a large tenement house that fronted the docks - three or four families to each house. It was a cold, and often hungry, existence - the local joke was if you could see Spike Island it was going to rain and if you couldn’t it was raining anyway. The children ate the “Penny Dinners” at the nearby Bon Secours Convent. They went barefoot during the week, but on Sundays the St Vincent De Paul Society loaned them shoes, for it would have been seen as disrespectful to go barefoot to Holy Communion.
Entertainment, at least, was free, and during the winter nights the family gathered round the fire to listen to their parents sing, and their father play the melodeon. Jack developed a fine soprano voice, and learned to play the melodeon and the mouth organ.
He left school by the age of twelve, with the reputation of a hard case. Already nearly six foot tall and weighing over eleven stone, Jack got his kicks from the unofficial fights arranged in a place called the Arena, a disused quarry nearby. Very few his own age would take him on; soon he was beating those a good few years his senior, so that by the time he was sixteen he was handing out beatings to seasoned Dockers and other so-called hard men.
Work, what there was of it, was scarce. It was mostly unloading the coal boats in the harbour, and it was back-breaking toil; twelve hour shifts, and there was no slacking; if you couldn’t do the work you were out. It made a man of Jack though, and probably contributed to the magnificent physique that was subsequently to have some of the most beautiful women in the world panting for him.
By now he knew what he wanted; to be heavyweight champion of the world. Like his hero, Jack Dempsey, had been. Though Dempsey had recently lost his world title to Gene Tunney, he had been world champion for seven years, and the savagery of his fighting style had ingrained itself on Jack’s fertile brain. He had also been given a book - How To Box by Jack Dempsey - by a local businessman named Tim McCarthy, and this reinforced his belief that his and ‘the maestro’s’ boxing philosophy were similar.
McCarthy was interested in furthering Jack’s career; he had seen the awesome power of his punching when he had laid out a donkey with one blow; but an attempt to enter him in a boxing tournament at Crystal Palace failed when he was told he was too young. Come back when you’re eighteen, they said. Jack tried to join the Irish Army. The same story - too young. There was only one thing for it. Jack sailed to Pembroke and enlisted in the British Army, signing up for three years in the Irish Guards. He was just turned seventeen.
By the time he left eighteen months later, he’d had 28 fights and won all of them - 27 of them by knockouts. The army were reluctant to let him go, but when Dan Sullivan, a well known boxing promoter from south London, put up the money to buy him out, they had no choice
A year later he was living in a different world. The glitzy world of fame and adulation. Wherever he went he was mobbed by autograph hunters, and he was mixing with some of the biggest names in the sporting and showbiz scene. Ten fights and ten knockouts had propelled him to the top of the British heavyweight fight game, and now the question on every lip was not if he would win the world title - but when.
London, too was agreeing with Jack. He loved the limelight, loved the adulation. Loved going to the expensive Mayfair establishments like the Café De Paris and The Kit Kat, and mixing with the cream of society. It was here that he made the acquaintance of Phyllis Kempton - very rich and very upper crust. Phyllis was the wife of Arundel H Kempton, and co-owner of a string of racehorses and greyhounds, including Mick The Miller. The story goes that she was a bird of prey who got her talons into Jack, made him her Mayfair pet, thus giving him the first taste of the high life that was ultimately to destroy him. She disputed this - naturally.
“The Embassy and The Café De Paris were the in places. The food was delicious and you could hear all the gossip. It was a wonderfully glamorous time. The womens’ clothes and jewellery were amazing, very swish. I must admit we were lazy bitches…we didn’t have a thought about anything else. I was interested in boxing and used to go to lots of fights. That’s how I met Jack Doyle. I found him handsome and charming. But an affair with him?…Really!…The stories the media concoct. I thought it hilarious. I wouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole. He was just a thick Irish peasant. He was big and brawny, and may possibly have appealed to some society women. But not me…”
Whatever the truth was, Jack discovered that the world was full of Phyllis Kempsons, and he was having to fight off the waves of females now throwing themselves at him. Not that he tried very hard. As he himself said. “I just love women, I adore the creatures. I can’t help myself”. Women worshipped Jack. They flocked to his training sessions, just to catch a glimpse of him. With his matinee-idol looks and his magnificent physique, he was never short of female company.
Jack courted the press, which resulted in tremendous publicity. He could also sing ‘like a bird’, and this brought him a guest spot at the Palladium with Bud Flanagan and The Crazy Gang, resulting in offer of work from many quarters - and a recording contract with Decca. Over the next seven years he was to cut ten records with Decca.
A little over a year after his first pro fight, he was being lined up for a crack at the world title. But first there was the little matter of Jack Peterson to overcome for the British title. The fight, held at the White City, was a sell-out , but it lasted a mere 213 seconds, ending with Jack being disqualified for persistently hitting Peterson below the belt. The first round had seen a continuous onslaught from him, low blow after low blow thudding into his opponent.
What nobody knew was that Jack was in no condition to fight anybody, and that first-round barrage was his only realistic hope of winning. He was suffering from the effect of venereal disease, picked up from one of his female conquests. It was said afterwards that he had been set up; that many in the boxing establishment felt that he was getting too big for his boots, perhaps even jealous of his rapid progress.
To make matters worse the Boxing Board withheld his purse and banned him for six months. The savagery of this sentence can be gauged from the fact that in the intervening years no boxer has been dealt with anyway near as severely by the BBBC.
Although Jack was heartbroken, he refused to let it get him down. He took his case to the High Court, and in the meantime concentrated on developing his blossoming showbiz career. He was soon touring England and Ireland in a show that combined his singing and boxing talents, and filling theatres wherever he went. Jack, the showman, had arrived!
Jack won his case in the High Court, but the Boxing Board launched an immediate appeal to the House of Lords. Almost a year after the fight the Lords ruled in favour of the Board, and refused Jack leave to appeal. He was devastated - and so angry that he vowed never to fight in England again.
…………….
Two years later Jack was stepping into the ring in Elisabeth, New Jersey, to trade punches with a black fighter called Bob Norton. He had never seen anything like it: a small open-air arena filled to bursting, surrounded by slum dwellings, their windows filled with people shouting abuse; “kill the black bastard”, “if you don’t win Doyle, we’ll kick the shit out of you”. Jack didn’t hang around; he knocked Norton out in the second round. “I saw the savagery in their eyes. That was no fight audience, that was a lynch mob”… It was Jack’s welcome back to the real world.
The intervening two years had mostly been one long merry-go-round of parties and socialising. New York, Hollywood, wherever he went he was in big demand. Whether he could fight or act made little difference: he could talk a good fight, and even if couldn’t act his way out of a cardboard box (as some had suggested), he had a film-star profile. Before long he was to be found in the company of stars like James Cagney, Clark Gable and Errol Flynn. And he discovered that Hollywood women were no different from those anywhere else. They ,too, were throwing themselves at him.
Gable took him to task once because of his friendliness with Carole Lombard, telling him; “Stay away from my dame, bud”. Jack couldn’t resist taunting him: “She said you had big ears and a small penis”. The enraged Gable took a swing at him, but Jack easily sidestepped and tapped him gently on the jaw to bring him back to his senses. Flynn, too, fancied himself in the ring, and Jack sometimes worked out with him. “I was never too hard on him”, he said. “The truth was they both liked being seen with me. It was good for their hard-men images”.
About this time Jack met the actress, Judith Allen, and after a short courtship they got married. Judith had been Max Baer’s girlfriend before meeting Jack, and he used this to hype up his challenge for Baer’s world heavyweight title. “I will meet Max Baer in the ring or at a game of hearts - and I will beat him at both”. Jack had learned a thing or three in his short career!
In the event, he never met Baer for the title, but his younger brother, Buddy, in what was supposed to be an eliminator. The fight lasted just two and a half minutes, and ended with Jack having taken a battering. He claimed afterwards he had been hit low, displaying a massive purple bruise on his groin as evidence, and he felt that he had once again been ‘stitched up’. This was it, he said, he was turning his back on the fight game for good.
As often with Jack, ‘for good’ never lasted too long. Within six months he was back in England, hoping to pick up his career where he had let off. He was still in dispute with the BBBC, however, and until he settled with them there was no fight forthcoming. In the meantime, there was a living to be earned, and he and Judith had put together a variety show which was soon packing them in. Then they took the show to Ireland and it went disastrously wrong.
Judith was an American divorcee, Jack an Irish Catholic, and it didn’t go down very well. A sense of outrage gripped Ireland over the marriage, and soon he was being openly condemned from the pulpits by bishops and priests for “living in sin with that Allen woman”. They returned to England without performing, Jack disillusioned and angry that his own people had turned against him.
The marriage itself was beginning to show cracks too. Jack just couldn’t keep his hands off other women. Judith was aware of it and decided she’d had enough. She returned to Hollywood - and her career.
Jack finally settled his dispute with the Boxing Board , but his fight with Alf Robinson at Wembley was marred with controversy when he was once again disqualified, this time for hitting Robinson when he was down. Did Jack ‘lose his cool’? Was this the fatal flaw that meant he would never be anything more than a rough-and-tumble brawler who couldn’t learn to fight fair? If so, it didn’t bother Jack; he was back on the roller-coaster of good times and high living with a vengeance. And the women were still toppling like ninepins.
Delphine Dodge was one of the Detroit Dodges, the motor manufacturers, and incredibly wealthy. Her brother, Horace, owned St Leonards, a 120-acre estate overlooking Windsor Park, and through his interest in boxing had met Jack during his training sessions at The Star and Garter. They hit it off straight away. Soon Jack was using St Leonards as his base. The mansion, with its own ballroom and concert room, was like a palace. It had over 100 rooms and 50 servants. There was a golf course, a lake, tennis courts, and riding stables. It was another world to Jack; a world of opulence and immense wealth, that so far he had only been able to visualise in his dreams.
And there was Delphine on one of their many visits to the estate. It was clear to Jack pretty soon that Delphine was his for the asking. She was captivated by him; clearly it was love at first sight on her part. Whilst Jack did not love her, he certainly loved her money, and when she returned to the States, ostensibly back to her husband, but in reality to set in motion a divorce action, Jack promised not to be far behind. He was still married to Judith Allen, but planned to rectify matters in Reno!
By following Delphine, Jack left behind a string of broken commitments - and a lot of bad feelings. But then, why should he worry? - it was rumoured that one of Delphine’s wedding presents was to be a cheque for £150,000.
Unfortunately for Jack, Delphine’s mother, Anna, had other ideas. A former piano teacher from Dundee, and a strict Presbyterian, it was inconceivable that her daughter could marry a Catholic. “This romance will not end in marriage”, she announced. And ensured that it wouldn’t by taking her daughter into protective custody. Jack was told in no uncertain terms to make himself scarce and had a gun held to his head to reinforce the point. To soften the blow he was paid off. This, plus the ‘presents’ already received from Delphine, meant he did very well out of the affair.
Jack returned to London and a string of music-hall appearances, but a return to the ring was inevitable. His first fight was to be against Eddie Phillips, the former British cruiserweight champion, but now a heavyweight. Jack had been out of the ring for a year and a half and found it difficult to summon up the discipline required to knock himself into shape for a fight with a man as experienced and competent as Phillips. The years of partying and soft living were taking their toll, and he found his enthusiasm for the fight waning. At the weigh-in he was almost 17st, his heaviest ever fighting weight, and he realised that his only chance of winning lay in a first-round knock-out.
He tried everything, but Phillips refused to topple. Early in the second round, he took a wild swing at Phillips, missed, and went spinning out of the ring. He landed on top of the press table, and was counted out with the time-keeper pinned beneath him! Thus he became the first fighter in history to knock himself out. Was it accidental? Who knows!
Two days later he was on his way to America again, leaving behind a trail of unsettled accounts. He was aware there might be a problem gaining entry, as he had heard he had been banned due to alleged syphilis, and planned to get in via the Canadian border. This he succeeded in doing, where he immediately booked into the Waldorf Hotel and began hitting the Broadway nightspots. Hiding away was alien to Jack; he couldn’t live without press attention; but now he found attention of another kind. The emigration authorities were hot on his trail, and he was arrested and thrown in jail as he stepped off a plane in Los Angeles.
He had to spend a weekend in the same cell as a murderer and a rapist, before being released on bail. Hordes of newspapermen had filmed him behind bars, and when he got out he found himself splashed on the front pages of newspapers across America. He was big news once more, and found himself the hottest guy in Hollywood. Everyone wanted to shake his hand, invite him to a party. Movita, the current Hollywood favourite, was no exception. When she heard he wanted to meet her, she cancelled a weekend date with Howard Hughes and came to Jack’s party instead.
For both of them it was love at first sight, and within two weeks he had proposed. The path of love was not to run smooth however; at his court appearance he was ordered to leave the country by Dec13th or face deportation. He tried everything to stall it, but it was no use. On a cold December day he waved goodbye to a sobbing Movita on the quay at San Pedro and boarded the Italian ship Cellina on the first leg of his journey down the Pacific Coast en route to Europe. With Jack banned from America, Movita wondered if she would ever see him again.
However the ship called at El Salvador and Jack recalled that the new ruler, President Martinez, was an old acquaintance from his early days in London. A contact was made and he was made a welcome guest by the President, who, when he heard of his predicament, arranged for visas which allowed him to travel to Mexico. Within three days he was in Mexicali, a Mexican border town, regaling Movita with his love. Three thousand miles in three days…greater love hath no man.
They were married in Ensanada early in the new year of 1939 but the honeymoon was brief because of Movita’s film commitments in Hollywood. Jack got restless kicking his feet around the tin-pot border town, seeing his love once or twice a week. He was soon cabling his contacts in London telling them he was fighting fit again.
There was only one fight that interested him – a return with Eddie Phillips. It was duly arrange and Jack returned to England without Movita, who was to follow on when her film work was completed.
London had never seen anything like it. A vast crowd was on the move, all sweltering under a merciless sun. Every road to White City was choked; cars abandoned, buses that could not move – West London was at a standstill. Police estimated that as many as a quarter of a million people were in and around the area.
Jack was in no shape to fight Phillips. He had been out of the ring for nearly two years, and he hadn’t trained properly. His only hope was to catch Phillips early on. Still, if he was worried he didn’t show it; he was serenading the crowd locked outside from his dressing room window fifteen minutes before the fight!
The fight itself was an anti-climax. It lasted less than two and a half minutes, ending with Jack counted out flat on his back. Jack had tore into Phillips, bombarding him with pinches, hoping one would connect, before walking into a couple of big lefts from his opponent. A combination of a lack of fitness and the large amount of brandy he had downed before the fight meant he was a goner. The same fans who were cheering him before the bout were now jeering him. It was the end of Jack as a fighter.
Jack might have been down, but he was never out for long. Soon he and Movita were touring, drawing massive crowds wherever they appeared. To say they were the Posh and Becks of their generation would be no exaggeration. By now war had broke out, but Jack and Movita carried on touring, entertaining the troops and visiting hospitals. Then due to a series of business mishaps Jack was declared bankrupt. He began drinking heavily and mistreating Movita. On Christmas day 1941 he beat her so badly she suffered a miscarriage. Their relationship deteriorated as a result; the touring and entertaining the troops ceased, and Jack was asked to ‘dig for victory’.
Jack was highly insulted. The great Jack Doyle being asked to dig trenches! They didn’t ask Eddie Phillips to do likewise! He offered his services to the Irish Guards but was told it was either dig or leave the country.
By the time they hit Dublin in early 1943 Jack had re-invented himself. He and Movita were going to get married again – a proper church wedding this time. They were married in St Andrews Church in Westland Row amid tumultuous scenes, and afterwards they opened their show at the Theatre Royal. It broke all records. It ran for weeks and weeks, people queuing from early morning to get tickets. They were earning a fortune, but the marriage was a sham. Movita couldn’t wait to get back to America, and had only agreed to come to Ireland until Jack got back on his feet. However, because of the war, there was little chance of getting away. She was stuck with Jack.
Jack reverted to his bad old self soon enough; drinking, womanising, abusing Movita. She seriously feared for her life and ran away several times, but he always found her and brought her back. The shows, too, had become a disaster; Jack turning up drunk on the stage, even urinating on the audience on occasions. After he had tried to strangle her one night, Movita was spirited away by some friends, and eventually out of the country. Jack never saw her again.
From then on Jack’s life was all downhill. Soon after Movita left him he was living in a broken down taxi in Henrietta Street, doing his famous ‘O’Connell Street walk every day. Still looking every bit the gentleman – he had his clothes cleaned and pressed by friends working in nearby hotels- and always wearing his trademark carnation, he strutted up and down O’Connell Street, being wined and dined by his many well-wishers.
It was during this period that he met Nancy Keogh, the young woman from Tipperary who was to be his companion for the next thirty years.
Jack eventually pulled himself together to an extent and they both returned to London in 1949. He tried to resume his singing career, although he was now singing in dingy Irish clubs and pubs instead of venues like the Palladium. He also tried his hand at wrestling and had some memorable bouts, such as when he threw Two Ton Tony Galenta out of the ring at Dalymount Park, and when he fought Butty Sugrue at the Puck Fair in Killorglin..
His decline was relentless though; deeper and deeper, lower and lower he sank. It was as if he didn’t care anymore once Movita had left him.
Eventually, even Nancy could stand it no longer. When the end came in 1978 he was living on the streets, undistinguishable from any of the other winos he was mixing with. The Gorgeous Gael was no more.
……………………………………..
It is an indicative of how well-remembered Jack was is the fact that when people learned of my play, many contacted me with offers of help. The Irish Guards, Jacks old regiment, let me have boxing gloves and badges and hats and other props, and sent A number of representatives to see the play. Henry Cooper also phoned me and wished me well with the show. Henry told he had toured Ireland with his brother Jim, on the pretext of finding another Jack Doyle. Really it was a benefit tour for Jack. Jack was also on the bill, and was supposed to sing a few songs as his contribution, but they couldn’t drag him out of the pub on most occasions. Little wonder that he show folded after little more than a week! Henry told me that his last sighting of Jack was at White City dog track one night; ‘Jack had some old duchess on his arm and when he saw me he winked at me and gave me the old charming smile. He was a boy’.
Well there you are, father. It’s a pity you couldn’t have been around to see the play
Your loving son
Tom