Best known for his portrayal of the mute villain ‘Non’ in the two original ‘Superman’ movies, Jack O’Halloran has many strings to his bow. The 6’6” O’Halloran was a fine heavyweight back in the 1960s and ’70s, Jack facing, among other big names, George Foreman, Cleveland Williams, Ron Lyle, Ken Norton, Joe Bugner, and Rahman Ali.
O’Halloran quit the sport for the silver screen with an official record of 34-21-2(17), yet he says he had a number of other unrecorded bouts, with him sometimes fighting under another name.
Here, the 78-year-old kindly takes the time to speak with Eastside Boxing:
Q: It’s great to be able to speak with you once again, sir. Can I talk mostly about your boxing career?
Jack O’Halloran: “Sure. Where are you from?”
Q: I’m not too far from Manchester, here in the UK.
J.O: “Oh, I know Manchester quite well – Georgie Best country. George Best was a dear friend of mine. He had a nightclub, and people used to ring around the block, trying to get in.”
Q: It’s coming up 50 years since you beat Cleveland Williams.
J.O: “My boxing career was quite interesting. I started out, and they took a physical of me ahead of one of my early fights, and they discovered I had a disease called Acromegaly, which is a tumor of the Pituitary Gland. They told me I should never fight again. I said I don’t think so; it’s my day job. They couldn’t believe how I could get in the ring because it caused such depression in people. Your body pumps out ten percent growth hormone; mine was pumping out 150 percent.”
Q: This was diagnosed when?
J.O: In the late 1960s. I started boxing in ’66. I think it was around 1968 when they diagnosed me with this thing. I was fighting like every month. Not on my record are the fights I had in New England, what they called smoker fights. There were clubs all over the place, in New Hampshire, in Vermont, and every week they were running fights. We used to get in the car and drive to different places, and they’d say, ‘Jack, you got your shoes, your cup in the car?’ Because they needed a bout, you know. I would say, I’m not supposed to do that, and they said, ‘Oh, we’ll have you fight under a different name (laughs).’ I had about 25 knockouts that never were registered.”
Q: There are so many good names on your record.
J.O: “Yeah. I fought [Joe] Bugner in London, at The Albert Hall, a Mickey Duff show (in April 1969). And it was a ten round fight, supposedly. I beat Bugner badly, and at the end of the eighth round, they stopped the fight. They said no, it’s only eight rounds. He [Bugner] could hardly stand up! And they gave him a quarter of a point decision, which was unheard of. People went ballistic. Harry Gibbs was the referee. When I fought Carl Gizzi, the champ of Wales, I fought him, and I beat him hands down, and after the fight, Gibbs came to me, and he said, ‘See, we don’t cheat you all the time.’”
Q: Did you love fighting in the UK, aside from getting robbed?
J.O: “I did like it there. I fought Danny McAlinden at The Grosvenor House; I fought Carl Gizzi. I lost a fight to Jack Bodell, which was a fluke. He caught me a shot, and they stopped the fight right away, which really pissed me off. I walked into a punch, no doubt about that, but I got off the floor, and they stopped it right away. I was beating him up to that point.”
Q: You had that big win over Cleveland Williams in 1971.
J.O: “That’s a funny story. They called me; I was in New Jersey, they called me to fight Terry Daniels. I told them, ‘send me a ticket.’ They were looking for a white guy to fight [Joe] Frazier at The Houston Astrodome. So I went down, and they were like, ‘Wow, you’re in terrific shape!’ I said, ‘aren’t you supposed to be in shape when you come to a fight?’ Anyway, I destroyed Daniels; I knocked him out in the third round. I knocked him out with a left hook, and he was down for about a half-hour. I actually thought I’d killed him. I was with Yank Durham on the plane back to Philadelphia, and he told me that if I fought one more good fighter, I could have the Frazier fight.
“I told him, name the place and send me a ticket. A couple of weeks later, they called me and said I was fighting Cleveland Williams. I said fine. I trained every day, and I beat Cleveland hands down. I had him ready to fall a few times; I told him, ‘hey, we’ve been dancing all night, don’t stop now.’ But he was a great guy. He hit me harder than anyone in my whole career.”
Q: What happened after you beat Williams?
J.O: “Terry Daniels got the Frazier fight! Cleveland Williams fought George Chuvalo on the same card. No one would fight me when they saw me in that kind of shape.”
Q: It’s amazing – you fight Daniels, then three weeks later you fight Williams, then a month later you fight Ron Lyle. How the sport has changed. I don’t know if you still follow the sport?
J.O: “Yeah, I still follow ’em all. When I got done boxing, I got a young kid called Frankie Liles, and I made him super-middleweight champ of the world. That’s where Freddie Roach got his start. I put the corner together; Freddie was living in Micky Rourke’s gym at the time.”
Q: You must get asked this all the time – who was the strongest guy you faced, being a big, strong guy yourself?
J.O: “I never had a problem. When I fought [Ken] Norton, I gave him a terrible beating (Norton winning on points in 1972). I took that on a week’s notice. That was in San Diego, and I gave Norton such a licking, I won the town, and he won the decision. I had him cut over both eyes. He hit me in the back of the head, and I was told, if I couldn’t carry on, I would have the fight won on a foul. But I must have been nuts because I turned that down, and we fought the full ten rounds. He got the decision, and he would never fight me again.”
Q: You retired Muhammad Ali’s brother, Rahman?
J.O: “Yeah, Ali called me on the phone; we were friends. I was actually supposed to fight him when he fought Norton (the first time) – Norton’s people gave Herbert Muhammad $3 million, and Norton got the fight. Anyway, Ali called me, and he asked me to do him a favor and beat his brother and get him out of boxing because he was embarrassing him. I hit Rahman bad in the eighth round; I really hurt him. I went to the dressing room to see him after, and he said, ‘God, you really hit hard.’ I told him, ‘God – what do you know about God! You’re a Muslim!’”
Q: So why did Ali want Rahman out of boxing?
J.O: “He wasn’t as good or as talented as Ali. I guess it was a combination of things: he didn’t want him to get hurt; he was making him look bad. Ali asked me to get him out of boxing, and I did.”
Q: Your memories of the Foreman fight?
J.O: “I was beating George the first couple of rounds; me and George are great friends. But I walked into a punch; again, it was my own fault. But I got up, and they stopped that fight right away. I was pissed off because I got up, and they stopped it, and I said, ‘what are you doing!’ They said I was unable to continue. I went nuts, but that’s boxing, you know.”
Q: Movies or boxing, which is tougher and which is more rewarding?
J.O: “I had a great time fighting; I really enjoyed it. But God gave me a talent, and I abused it. If I had been in great shape every time….. But on my best night, I could really beat a guy. Al “Blue” Lewis, I beat him up bad, I broke his elbow. I beat him from pillar to post. But if I’d had some more time for certain fights, that would have made a big difference. But the fight I really wanted was the Ali fight. I went to see him at Deer Lake, and I said, ‘it’s time we got it on, champ.’ He asked me if I would really try and beat him if he gave me a title shot (laughs). I said to him that if I got a shot at him, I would go away to camp for eight to ten weeks and that he had better bring a gun with him to the ring, that he would need it. He looked at me, and he said, ‘two steaks, please!’ I loved Ali.”
Part 2 of this fascinating interview coming soon.