Nine Ten and Out! The Two Worlds of Emile Griffith - Softcover

Ron Ross

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0979994721 ISBN 13: 9780979994722

Publisher: AuthorHouse, 2008

Synopsis

Emile Griffith, one of boxings all-time greats is the first high profile prizefighter and probably the most celebrated athlete ever to step forward and state I am gay! The product of a culture and a time, victimized by his own celebrity, it took this Hall of Fame world champion a veritable lifetime - 67 years - to bridge his two divergent worlds.

About this title

About the Author:

Author of the highly acclaimed biography/social history BUMMY DAVIS VS MURDER, INC and the comedic novel THE TOMATO CAN, Ron Ross has also contributed numerous boxing articles to various magazines, newspapers and internet websites. He was also a consultant and appeared in the feature length documentary THE RING OF FIRE; THE STORY OF EMILE GRIFFITH. A native New Yorker, Ron has been involved in almost every phase of the boxing world.

Review:

One of the Caribbean's greatest boxers has just had his biography published in which he discusses being a bisexual sportsman in an era that did not readily accept gays in the post-war years.

Emile Griffith was a welterweight and middleweight world champion in the Sixties.

He was the first fighter from

Griffith was selling his book Nine...Ten... And Out. The Two Worlds of Emile Griffith at the second staging of the Caribbean Awards Sports Icons in the Bahamas in November.

Openly bisexual from a young age, Griffith was ahead of his time in terms of being a professional sportsman who was not ashamed of his sexuality.Sadly, Griffith is best known for a controversial 1962 welterweight title fight in which Benny Paret died ten days after being knocked out.

Paret was a former friend who suddenly started taunting Griffith s sexuality in the build up to their fight. Consensus was that Griffith was so enraged with the gay baiting that he literally beat Paret to death.

The facts are though that Paret had a pre-existing medical condition and he could have died in any fight around that time.

In 1971 Griffith married Mercedes (Sadie) Donastorg who was a member of the dance troupe Prince Rupert and the Slave Girls at the time, only two months after meeting her. Griffith adopted Donastorg's daughter.

In 1992, Griffith was viciously beaten and almost killed on a New York City street after leaving a gay bar. He spent months in hospital and has never fully recovered.

Never hiding his sexuality, Griffith was nevertheless not always willing to publicly explain his feelings. He once said in Sports Illustrated: "I like men and women both. But I don't like that word: homosexual, gay or faggot. I don't know what I am. I love men and women the same, but if you ask me which is better ... I like women. "

He recently said in Newsday: "I keep thinking how strange it is ... I kill a man and most people understand and forgive me. However, I love a man, and to so many people this is an unforgivable sin; this makes me an evil person. So, even though I never went to jail, I have been in prison almost all my life. " --Ron Shillingford, 10 February 2010

About this edition

• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0979994721
• ISBN 13: 9780979994722
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 268