![]() ![]() Don't know what held him up, but when Gus left the ring that night he was a dead man. ![]() In the 1956 movie "The Harder They Fall," the fictionalized story of Carnera's rise and fall through the heavyweight ranks, the Max Baer character, who was played by none other than Baer himself, says: "You know I'm the guy who nailed Gus, murdered him for 15 rounds. This chain of events has long been considered part of boxing lore, which Baer helped perpetuate. When Schaaf died after fighting future heavyweight champ Primo Carnera in a Februry 14, 1933, bout, many attributed his death to the beating he had taken at the hands of Baer. Baer knocked out Ernie Schaaf, rendering him unconscious, in the tenth round of their August 31, 1932, fight. Baer's career was revitalized when former heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey took a financial interest in the boxer and taught him to shorten his punches. He lost four of his next six fights according to one opponent who had beaten him in that period, Tommy Loughran, Baer was telegraphing his punches with a looping attack. When Baer returned to boxing after the layoff, he was a different fighter, shy to go on the offense against his opponents. Plagued by nightmares for many years, he also took up smoking, which was not very wise for a fighter who depended on his wind in the ring. claims that this is when the Max the Clown (one of his nicknames was "Madcap Maxie") emerged, as a way of dealing with his torment. He quit the ring for several months after Campbell's death, and Max Jr. Though the manslaughter charges ultimately were dropped, Baer had to deal with the psychological burden of having taken another man's life. Campbell had died after being KO'ed by Baer, and criminal charges were filed against him. He was a very dangerous fighter, and in 1930 he was suspended from the ring in California for a year after the death of one of his opponents, Frankie Campbell (the brother of pro baseball player Dolph Camilli). In 1929 he turned professional and racked up 22 wins in his first 24 fights, nine via first-round knockouts. Baer developed tremendous physical strength as a ranch hand, and when he turned to boxing, he trained in a most dedicated fashion, a regimen he did not keep to when he reached the zenith of his craft. The family moved first to Colorado and then to California, where he dropped out of school after the eighth grade to work with his father on a cattle ranch. Max Baer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on February 11, 1909, to a Jewish father, Jacob Baer, and a mother of Scots-Irish descent, Dora (Bales). Blessed with what "The Boxing Register: International Boxing Hall of Fame Official Record Book" terms the most powerful right hand in heavyweight history, Baer used that right to gain a fearsome reputation as a California prizefighter before moving to New York and taking on the top ranks of the heavyweight division. says that his father wanted to be an actor, an insight that explains the flashy persona he displayed in and outside the ring as he wisecracked and clowned his way through careers as a boxer and performer in movies and nightclubs. Some fight fans thought that it was his good nature, which they attributed to his clowning, that eventually did him in, as he would not bear down on his opponents in the latter part of his career. Ironically, it was his acting in the latter film that likely led to his misrepresentation in "Cinderella Man" as being something akin to a monster, when actually, according to his family and those who knew him, he was an amiable man. Cinephiles also will remember the colorful Max from his numerous bit roles in films, including Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's Africa Screams (1949) to his near-autobiographical turn in the Budd Schulberg boxing expose The Harder They Fall (1956) starring Humphrey Bogart. was boxing's heavyweight champion of the world for all of 364 days, from the time he knocked out Primo Carnera on June 14, 1934, to the day he lost his title to Jimmy Braddock on June 13, 1935. However, old-timers, followers of the sweet science and viewers of the film Cinderella Man (2005) all know that Max Sr. Max Baer is arguably best known today for siring Max Baer Jr., the actor who played Jethro Bodine on the classic TV series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962).
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