Muhammad Ali: the Birth of a Legend, Miami, 1961-1964 - Hardcover

Matt Schudel Flip Schulke

4.17

6 ratings by Goodreads

9780285635821: Muhammad Ali: the Birth of a Legend, Miami, 1961-1964

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0285635824 ISBN 13: 9780285635821

Publisher: Souvenir Press Ltd, 2000

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In September 1960, Cassius Clay, a young boxer from Louisville, Kentucky, won a gold medal at the Olympic Games in Rome. Barely three months out of high school, Clay had embarked on a career that would lead him to the pinnacle of athletics as a boxer and a social icon. Within four years he would defeat Sonny Liston and thus become the world heavyweight champion, at which point he converted to Islam and took the name Muhammad Ali. By this time, he was already a legend, with a reputation for a strong sense of humor and a penchant for outlandish acts of self-promotion, which earned him the enmity of a few, but the love of most of the world.

Although Ali was certainly famous by the time of his bout with Liston, and his legend grew even more afterward, not much is known about his early years. After the Olympics, Ali moved to Miami in December 1960 to train with the celebrated Angelo Dundee. It was there that he honed his boxing as well as his self-promotional skills and grew into the boxer who would be able to take down the feared Liston.

In three extended sessions in the early 1960s, before he became known to the world as Muhammad Ali, the young Cassius Clay was captured by the cameras of Flip Schulke, himself a young man trying to make his name in the world. Photographing for Life and Sports Illustrated magazines, Schulke presented the young Clay in tender, almost intimate settings that would never be duplicated once the spotlights focused on the young boxer. It was a perfect match of camera and subject; Clay's warm, boyish exuberance beams directly through the lens to reveal a personality of extraordinary confidence and charisma. He would become one of the most widely photographed personages in the world, and these remarkable photographs show him at the very beginning of his journey.

Since that time, Ali's fame has only grown, to the point where he is generally considered the greatest athlete of the century, as well as a role model for young and old fans alike. These remarkable photographs show him at the beginning of his journey. Muhammad Ali: the Birth of a Legend, Miami, 1961-1964 will be a necessary book for anyone interested in Ali's legend.

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Review:

While still a teenager, Cassius Clay approached trainer Angelo Dundee and asked for the chance to spar with one of his professional boxers. The 17-year-old entered the ring with Willie Pastrano and quickly outboxed him. Clay went on to win the Olympic gold medal in Rome. Three months later, Clay moved to Miami to train with Dundee.

Flip Schulke was an up-and-coming photographer on assignment with Sports Illustrated and Life. He went to Miami to cover this upstart boxer. Shulke took to Clay immediately: "I fell in love with the guy the minute I met him. He was so much fun." The result was a series of photographs taken over three extended periods. Muhammad Ali: The Birth of a Legend includes dozens of these photos of the young Clay--including the famous underwater shots first published in Life. Shulke captures the boyish Clay and his bright, broad smile as well as his serious shift to the Muslim faith and his name change to Muhammad Ali. He also sheds light on the pervasive racism Ali endured: though he had won a medal for the United States, he was not allowed to try on a shirt in a Miami department store. ("Once in a while, [Blacks] could try a jacket on because they can slip that on over a shirt. But a shirt's against your skin.") The accompanying text by Matt Schudel features lengthy reminiscences from Schulke about his encounters with Ali. A warm and fitting tribute to The Greatest. --Sunny Delaney

About the Author:

Flip Schulke has been one of America's premier photojournalists for more than forty-five years. He was a contract photographer for Life magazine, and his work has also appeared in National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek, The Saturday Evening Post, and numerous European publications. Schulke has won dozens of national photojournalism awards, including first-prize honors for Picture of the Year. In 1995 he received the Crystal Eagle Award for the National Press Photographers for his documentation of the civil-rights movement. A close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Schulke photographed King on many occasions, and has the largest independent collection of civil-rights photographs in the world.

Matt Schudel is a senior writer for the Sunday magazine of the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

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