Boxing legend Jake LaMotta who was played by Robert De Niro in the movie Raging Bull has died aged 95
By Hannah Parry
Daily Mail
September 20, 2017
Boxing legend Jake LaMotta who was played Robert De Niro in the movie Raging Bull has died.
LaMotta passed away in a nursing home due to complications from pneumonia on Tuesday aged 95.
His wife Denise, 65, told TMZ: 'I just want people to know, he was a great, sweet, sensitive, strong, compelling man with a great sense of humor, with eyes that danced.'
The Bronx fighter had an incredible career, spanning 106 pro fights and winning a world middleweight championship, after he was rejected from serving in the military due to a medical issue in 1941.
The Bronx native earned the nickname 'The Raging Bull' for his rough style in the ring as a middleweight fighter.
But he's most famously remembered for his six-fight rivalry with Sugar Ray Robinson although he only won one match. His brother Joey LaMotta was his manager.
LaMotta retired from boxing in 1954 and published his memoir, Raging Bull: My Story in 1970. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
It was later turned into a movie in 1980, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring De Niro as the troubled boxing champion - a role which saw him gain 50 pounds to portray the older, heavier LaMotta, and netted him an Academy Award for best actor.
The movie captured LaMotta's life, which was just as turbulent outside as inside the ring. He was married seven times and even admitted to once throwing a game for the mob, for a change at the middleweight championship.
The film portrays a self-destructive and rage driven fighter whose ambition and fury eventually destroyed his relationship with his wife and family.
LaMotta was born in the Bronx in 1922 to his American mother and Italian immigrant father.
He began boxing at a young age after his father forced him to fight other neighborhood kids for his and his friends and neighbors' entertainment.
Crowds would throw pennies and dimes into the ring after they fought, which LaMotta's father would use to help pay the rent.
After a stint in reform school, he applied to join the military in 1941, during the Second World War, but was rejected because of a mastoid operation on one of his ears.
Aged 19, he turned to the world of pro boxing.
The following year, came his first clash with boxing legend Robinson.
They met in New York where Robinson earned a 10-round decision.
In 1943, the fought twice with three weeks in Detroit where LaMotta defeated Robinson - his first loss in 41 pro fights. That was the only time LaMotta claimed a victory against Robinson in their six matches, and Robinson same back to beat him within a few weeks.
LaMotta also clashed with many other top-ranked competitors of his time, including Fritzie Zivic and Tony Janiro.
On June 16, 1949 he finally got his chance at a middleweight title when he challenged champion Marcel Cerdan and won via a 10th-round TKO.
Of the claim that Cerdan had to quit because of a shoulder injury, LaMotta said in 1970: 'Something's bound to happen to you in a tough fight, cut eye, broken nose or broken hand or something like that. So you could make excuses out of anything, you know, but you got to keep on going if you're a champ or you're a contender.'
Renowned for his strong chin, and the punishment he could take, and dish out, LaMotta was knocked down only once - in a 1952 loss to light-heavyweight Danny Nardico - in his 106 fights.
LaMotta's first defense was supposed to be a rematch with Cerdan, but the Frenchman was killed when a plane en route to the United States crashed in the Azores in 1949.
So in his first defense, LaMotta outpointed Tiberio Mitri on July 12, 1950, in New York, then on Sept. 13, he rallied to knock out Dauthuille at Detroit.
LaMotta saved the championship in movie-script fashion against Laurent Dauthuille in 1950, before his the sixth and final meeting with Robinson the following year in Chicago.
Trailing badly on all three scorecards, LaMotta knocked out the challenger with 13 seconds left in the fight.
LaMotta threw a fight against Billy Fox, which he admitted in testimony before the Kefauver Committee, a U.S. Senate committee investigating organized crime in 1960.
'I purposely lost a fight to Billy Fox because they promised me that I would get a shot to fight for the title if I did,' LaMotta said in 1970 interview printed in Peter Heller's 1973 book 'In This Corner: 40 World Champions Tell Their Stories.'
LaMotta was 'stopped' by Fox in the fourth round on Nov. 14, 1947, in Madison Square Garden. He didn't get a title shot until 10 fights later.
He finally lost his title in 1951 in his last bout with Robinson - a fight that became known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
LaMotta, a boxer adept at rolling with the punches, gave as good as he got in the early rounds, then took tremendous punishment. He would not go down. A referee finally stopped the match in the 13th round.
He retired from boxing a few years later in 1954.
LaMotta would later own a nightclub for a time in Miami, and dabbled in show business and commercials. He also made personal appearances and for a while in the 1970s he was a host at a topless nightclub in New York.
The boxing champ leaves behind four daughters and his seventh wife, Denise Baker.
Tragically, in 1998, he lost both of his sons. Jake LaMotta Jr., 51, died from cancer in February. Joe LaMotta, 49, was killed in plane crash off Nova Scotia in September.
A funeral in Miami and a memorial service in New York City are being planned, Baker said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I knew Jake because he and my buddy Rocky Graziano were close friends from childhood on.
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