From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Max Baer
Statistics
Real name	Maximilian Adelbert Baer
Nickname	Livermore Larupper
Weight	Heavyweight
Nationality	United States of America
Birth date	February 11, 1909
Birth place	Omaha, Nebraska
Death date	November 21, 1959
Style	Orthodox
Boxing record
Total fights	84
Wins	72
Wins by KO	53
Losses	12
Draws	0
No contests	0

Maximilian Adelbert "Madcap Maxie" Baer (February 11, 1909 – November 21, 1959) was a famous American boxer of the 1930s, onetime Heavyweight Champion of the World, and actor.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Professional boxing career 2.1 Cinderella Man 3 Acting 4 Family 5 Death 6 Legacy 7 Selected filmography 8 TV guest appearances 9 References 10 Other Sources 11 See also 12 External links

Maximilian Adelbert Baer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of German immigrant Jacob Baer (1875–1938) and Dora Bales (1877–1938). His older sister was Fanny Baer (1905–1991), and his younger sister and brother were Bernice Baer (1911–1987) and boxer-turned-actor Jacob Henry Baer, better known as Buddy Baer (1915–1986).

Baer's father was a butcher. The family moved to Colorado before Bernice and Buddy were born. In 1921, when Maxie was 12, they moved to Livermore, California, to engage in cattle ranching. Baer often credited working as a butcher boy carrying heavy carcasses of meat for developing his powerful shoulders.

Baer turned professional in 1929, progressing steadily through the ranks. A ring tragedy little more than a year later almost caused him to drop out of boxing for good. Baer fought Frankie Campbell (brother of Brooklyn Dodgers star Dolph Camilli) on August 25, 1930, in San Francisco and with only two blows, knocked him out. Campbell never regained consciousness. After lying on the canvas for nearly an hour, Campbell was transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he eventually died of massive brain hemorrhaging. An autopsy revealed that Baer's devastating blows had knocked Campbell's entire brain loose from the connective tissue holding it in place within his cranium.

Although Baer has never been documented as boasting about Campbell's death, the incident earned Maxie the reputation as a "killer" in the ring. Campbell's death was used for promotional purposes to make Baer seem dangerous. This publicity was further sensationalized by Baer's return bout with Ernie Schaaf, who had bested Baer in a decision a few years earlier. At the close of the 10th round, Baer nailed Schaff square in the temple with what some witnesses claimed to be the hardest right hand that ever connected in boxing.^{[citation needed]} Schaff was saved by the bell, though he ended up losing the bout by way of decision. Several minutes passed before Ernie Schaff was revived and able to stand under his own power. Schaff was never quite the same after that bout. He complained frequently of headaches and his ring performance lagged immensely in succeeding bouts. Six months after the Baer fight, Schaff died in the ring after taking a weak jab from the Italian behemoth Primo Carnera. Although Carnera was vilified as a "man killer" by some, it was obvious to others that Schaff had died as a result of damage previously inflicted by Baer.^{[citation needed]}

The death of Campbell and accusations over Ernie Schaff's demise profoundly affected Baer, even though he was ostensibly indestructible and remained a devastating force in the ring. According to his son, actor/director Max Baer Jr.:

My father cried about what happened to Frankie Campbell. He had nightmares. "In reality, my father was one of the kindest, gentlest men you would ever hope to meet. He treated boxing the way today's professional wrestlers do wrestling: part sport, mostly showmanship. If I were to make a comparison, he was more like Muhammad Ali than the Sonny Liston of his day. He never deliberately hurt anyone." He helped put Frankie's children through college.^[1]

In the case of Frankie Campbell, Baer was charged with manslaughter. Baer was eventually acquitted of all charges, but the California State Boxing Commission still banned him from any in-ring activity within the state for the next year. Baer gave purses from succeeding bouts to Campbell's family, but lost four of his next six fights. He fared better when Jack Dempsey took him under his wing.

In 1933, Baer fought heavyweight Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium. His trunks displayed an embroidered Star of David[1], which Maxie swore to wear in every bout thereafter. He dominated the rugged fighter from Germany into the tenth round when the referee stopped the match. Because Baer defeated Schmeling, Hitler's favorite, and Baer had a Jewish grandfather (on his father's side), he became popular among Jews.

On June 13, 1935, one of the greatest upsets in boxing history transpired in Long Island City, New York, as Baer fought down-and-out boxer James J. Braddock. After a grueling back-and-forth battle, Braddock won the heavyweight championship of the world as a 10-to-1 underdog. Braddock took heavy hits from Baer, but kept coming at Baer until he wore Maxie down. At the end, the judges gave Braddock the title in a unanimous decision. The fight has since become a boxing legend.

The Baer-Braddock bout was depicted in the 2005 motion picture Cinderella Man. The film's portrayal of Baer has since been criticized for depicting him in an unfairly negative light. Baer was shown as arrogant and even sadistic, and his deep remorse over the death of Campbell was not portrayed in the film. However, boxing historians know that Campbell's death bothered Baer greatly. Rather than swaggering, in actuality Baer is remembered as jolly and often joking. In film footage of the Braddock fight, Baer frequently smiles broadly, feigns a near knock-down for laughs, and, in defeat, is gracious to Braddock——not at all in the villainous manner as director Ron Howard portrayed him in the film. Although in the film the Star of David that Baer wore on his trunks for the fight with Braddock is visible (on the left leg), nothing is said about it. The film does not show that Braddock wore a four-leaf clover on his trunks. Except for the use of Irish-style music, the film passes over ethnic politics in U.S. history during the 1920s and 1930s.

The film does show Baer accepting defeat graciously, smiling and clapping at Braddock's victory. It can also be argued that the depiction of Max Baer in the film is no different than his depiction in the press at the time, and the image of a menacing, savage boxer was often used by promoters to attract interest in Baer's fights. And, while he shows little remorse for the death of Campbell in the film, the Max Baer on screen never actually boasts about killing Campbell, either (as some have claimed). However, the movie was based on the life of Braddock and Braddock's perception of Baer at the time. As mentioned previously, Baer was frequently described in the press as a killer. Perhaps more significantly, his depiction in Cinderella Man is much less hostile than the boxer Baer played in the movie The Harder They Fall, a role which was clearly based on himself.

Max Baer boxed in 84 professional fights from 1929 to 1941. In all, his record was 72-12-0 (53 knockouts), which makes him a member of the exclusive group of boxers to have won 50 or more bouts by knockout. Baer defeated the likes of Walter Cobb, Kingfish Levinsky, Max Schmeling, Tony Galento and Tommy Farr. He was Heavyweight Champion of the World from June 14, 1934, when he knocked out the massive, 125-kg (275-pound) Primo Carnera, to June 13, 1935 -- his reign ending in the aforementioned Braddock fight.

Baer fought Lou Nova in the first televised heavyweight prizefight, on June 1, 1939, on WNBT-TV in New York. His last match was another loss to Nova, in 1941. Baer and his brother, Buddy, both lost fights to Joe Louis, Buddy's two losses to Louis coming in world title fights. In their 1935 fight, Louis knocked Baer out in the fourth round, the first KO Maxie suffered in his career. Ernest Hemingway, who was at ringside covering the fight for Esquire magazine, described the Louis-Baer mismatch as "the most disgusting public spectacle, outside of a hanging, that your correspondent has ever witnessed." [2]

Baer was inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1968, the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1984 and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1995. The 1998 Holiday Issue of Ring ranked Max Baer # 20 in "The 50 Greatest Heavyweights of All Time." In Ring Magazine's 100 Greatest Punchers (published in 2003), Baer is ranked number 22.

Baer's motion picture debut was in The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) opposite Myrna Loy and Walter Huston. In this MGM movie he played Steven "Steve" Morgan, a bartender that the Professor, played by Huston, begins training for the ring. Steve wins a fight, then marries Belle Mercer, played by Loy. He starts seriously training, but it turns out he has a huge ego and an eye for a women. Featured were Baer's upcoming opponent, Primo Carnera, as himself, whom Steve challenges for the championship, and Jack Dempsey, as himself, former heavyweight champion, acting as the referee.

On March 29, 1934, The Prizefighter and the Lady was officially banned from playing in Germany at the behest of Joseph Goebbels, then Adolf Hitler's minister of Propaganda and Public Entertainment, even though it received favorable reviews in local newspapers as well as in Nazi publications. When contacted for comment at Lake Tahoe, Baer said, "They didn't ban the picture because I have Jewish blood. They banned it because I knocked out Max Schmeling."

Baer acted in almost 20 movies, including Africa Screams (1949) with Abbott and Costello, and made several TV guest appearances. A clown in and out of the ring, Baer also appeared in a vaudeville act and on his own TV variety show. Baer appeared in Humphrey Bogart's final movie, The Harder They Fall (1956), opposite Mike Lane as Toro Moreno, a fictionalized version of Primo Carnera, whom Baer defeated for his heavyweight title. Budd Schulberg, who wrote the book from which the movie was made, portrayed the Baer character, "Buddy Brannen", as bloodthirsty, and the unfounded characterization was reprised in Cinderella Man.

Baer additionally worked as a disc jockey for a Sacramento radio station, and for a while he was a wrestler. He also served as public relations director for a Sacramento automobile dealership and referee for boxing and wrestling matches.

Baer had two wives, actress Dorothy Dunbar (married July 8, 1931-divorced 1933) and Mary Ellen Sullivan (married June 29, 1935-his death 1959). With Sullivan, he had three children, actor Max Baer Jr. (born 1937), James Baer (born 1941) and Maude Baer (born 1943). During a separation from his first wife, Max had an affair with movie star Jean Harlow.

Baer never lived to enjoy the TV and movie success of his son, Max Baer Jr. (who played Jethro Bodine in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies). At the time of his death on November 21, 1959, Baer was scheduled to appear in some TV commercials, which he had planned to do in Los Angeles before returning to his home in Sacramento.

Since Max Baer Sr. was unable to defend himself from Ron Howard's unflattering portrayal in Cinderella Man, the task of rehabilitating his father's reputation has fallen to Max Baer Jr. [3]

After refereeing a boxing match in Phoenix, Baer traveled to Los Angeles and checked into the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. While shaving in the morning, he suffered a heart attack and summoned a doctor. Although Baer hung on for a while, he eventually died in the hospital.

Baer is interred in Saint Mary's Mausoleum, Sacramento.

There is a park named for Max Baer in Livermore, California, which he considered his home town, even though he was born in Omaha. There is also a park in Sacramento named after him. He was honored by the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.

• "The Prizefighter and the Lady" (1933)
• "Africa Screams" (1949) - with his brother, Buddy
• "The Harder They Fall" (1956)

Portrayed In:

• "Cinderella Man" (2005) - which is a depiction disputed by his family

• (1956) (Screen Gems TV, CBS) ... Mike ... episode: Requiem for a Heavyweight
• The Lone Ranger (1957) (The Wrather Corp., ABC) ... Sampson, foreman (uncredited) ... episode: The Sugarfoot (1957)

1. ^ Jethro says Opie distorts Baer facts. New York Daily News (2005-06-03).

• Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1934, pg. 12, Germany Bans Film Of Baer
• Los Angeles Times Magazine, Mad Max, J.R. Moehringer (Times Staff Writer), January 7, 2007

• List of heavyweight boxing champions
• List of male boxers

• The True Story About the Life of Max Baer
• Site about Max Baer
• Max Baer at the Internet Movie Database
• Watch Max Baer in Africa Screams
• Max Baer clips
• International Boxing Hall of Fame biography

Preceded by Primo Carnera

Heavyweight Champion of the World 1934–1935

Succeeded by James J. Braddock