Of course, I said yes and started preparing for the interview with Actor Jack O'Halloran. I don't take interviews lightly because I know some of these people do a TON of interviews and I want our chat to be one that they have fun doing and they are talking about things that they don't about a lot. So I could guess that Jack gets asked a lot about "Superman", so I watched a bunch of his credits on IMDb until I discovered he was a boxer, then the floodgates opened.
Above is an audio excerpt and below is a written excerpt from the interview where I asked a question that felt like Jack doesn't get asked often by his reaction and the excited tone in his voice.
Doug Dietz: One thing I have to ask you when I was looking at all your bios on different websites. It's pretty cool. You're in the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame.
Jack O'Halloran: In California Hall of Fame, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and new England.
Doug: So, one thing I read on there is you got a phone call from Muhammad Ali. is that true?
Jack O'Halloran: (starts laughing) Yeah, Ali and I were good friends and he had moved in the Cherry Hill. He bought a house in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He was with a guy called Gene Kilroy, was the guy that was around them a lot and they called me from the car, and he said, "you have to do me a favor." I said, yeah, well, I'll do your favor, sign a contract to fight me. Ali said, yeah, we'll work that out, but you're fighting my brother Rahman, get him out of boxing, you know? So, I said, Rahman Ali's your brother? And he said, "yes."
I was fighting Rahman Ali in San Diego. I said, oh shit, I better go in the gym a couple days, I knocked his brother out. He never fought again. Then he and I were supposed to fight, when he fought Norton, he was supposed to fight me, but that's another story. We were all signed, and we had a deal put together, but Norton was owned by some very wealthy people, you know, Bob Byron and art Rifkin, and the took $3 million and went to Chicago and they gave it to Mohammad Ali's father, then he called me on the phone, and he was crying actually.
Ali said," I don't, I don't know how to tell you this, but you know, I don't have any control over it." So, he fought Norton in San Diego and then we were supposed to fight in Australia when he fought Bugner and then we're supposed to fight another time somewhere, but it just never seemed to materialize.
That is just an appetizer of how interesting my chat with Jack O'Halloran was. Jack also talked about his father, Albert Anastasia, who was an Italian-American mobster, hitman, and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia. Plus a story about being there the night before JFK was shot in Dallas and he tells me who shot him.
Listen to the full interview here.
Article written by Doug Dietz
Host of "The Good, The Bad, and The Sequel" Podcast and currently working with Actor Larry Hankin on an Untitled book about his career.
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