By Dan Hanley...(Joey was 82 years old when the following conversation took place)
DH: Joey, where are you originally from?
JG: I was born in Buffalo, New York.
DH: Tell me about growing up in Buffalo in the 1930s.
JG: Well, I grew up one of 13 kids during the depression in an Italian neighborhood where everyone was on welfare. But I was young and we knew no other life. I helped out the family by shining shoes in saloons and (laughing), earned a bit more by being the only Italian kid who could sing an Irish song.
DH: How did boxing enter the picture?
JG: I was about 13 years old and one day I got beat up and robbed of my shoe shine kit. I wanted to learn how to take care of myself and wandered into Singer’s gym. It was there I met Mike Scanlon, who taught me how to box.
DH: What kind of amateur career did you have?
JG: I did well. I won the Buffalo Golden Gloves featherweight championship in 1947 and the lightweight title in 1948.
DH: The decision to turn pro, was this something you always intended?
JG: Well I knew there was money in it and I liked it, so it was an easy decision.
DH: Who did you turn pro with?
JG: Mike Scanlon was my manager and Johnny Russo became my trainer.
DH: You turned pro in Canada in ’49. Was there any rule barring you from turning pro in the States, since you were just under 18?
JG: No, that just happened to be where I got signed on my first card and it was just over the border from Buffalo. I fought a guy who came out in a fancy robe and I was so green I didn’t even know what the referee meant when he told me to go to a neutral corner. I was thinking (laughing), “What’s a neutral corner?” But I knocked him out in the second round.
DH: It’s hard to believe in this day and age, but you ran off 28 fights over the next three years before you fought your first 10 rounder. And even then you were thrown in with future world champ Joey Giardello in back-to-back fights. Tell me about your first two fights with Giardello.
JG: Well, the first fight I was robbed. We fought in his hometown of Brooklyn and his own fans were booing the decision. I got him in the rematch and beat him badly.
DH: After the Giardello fights you really came into prominence and worked your way up to the leading contender for the middleweight title with wins over Bernard Docusen, Tuzo Portuguez and Italo Scortichini. But suddenly you disappeared for 14 months. What happened?
JG: (laughing) I got drafted! I was in the Army for two years. But the funny thing was, I had been in the Naval Reserve for five years before that. (laughing) I just didn’t think they’d come and get me. But I was very well known entering the service and became a boxing instructor. I gotta tell you, I felt like an officer the way I was treated and they even allowed me to continue fighting professionally.
DH: You resumed your career in ’55 and ran off four wins in succession on the comeback trail when you got a call for a non-title 10 rounder with middleweight champ Bobo Olson in the San Francisco Cow Palace. How did that come about?
JG: Well, Olson’s people knew I was still in the Army and obviously didn’t think I was in shape. They were just using me as a tuneup for his upcoming fight with Sugar Ray Robinson.
DH: I have an article on that fight that begins with the line, “A new star glistened over the fight world today in the person of Joey Giambra.” Tell me about that fight.
JG: It was like the first Giardello fight. I thought I beat him and so did all his hometown fans who booed the decision in his favor.
DH: After the Bobo Olson fight you were once again among the top ten with wins over Johnny Sullivan and Rocky Castellani. Then you signed for Gil Turner in Madison Square Garden. Joey, I know so little of this fight. Tell me about it.
JG: It was an outstanding fight. I was very aggressive and completely outboxed Gil. I think I won every round, but still it was a good fight. Gil had a lot of class and winked at me afterwards.
DH: Back then fighters seemed to have a lot of respect for one another. Did anyone ever get under your skin?
JG: Ahh…just once. A fighter named Tuzo Portuguez. I beat him twice but in out first fight the referee was letting him get away with all kinds of rough stuff. And once, while breaking, the ref is standing on my foot and Portuguez actually came over the ref’s shoulder and decked me. Man, I just thought, “I’m gonna kill that bastard!”
DH: A second win over Rocky Castellani soon followed, as well as a rare stoppage of Chico Vejar, when you had your first two fights with Rory Calhoun. This interrupted an eleven bout unbeaten streak. Tell me about those fights with Calhoun.
JG: Well, the first fight was a draw, but not too many people know that in the second fight I got my jaw broken somewhere within the first five rounds. I was wearing wires for eight weeks afterwards.
DH: By this time had you relocated to the west coast?
JG: Yes, my manager and I had moved to San Francisco by this time, but they weren’t exactly lining up to fight me. Sometimes it was tough getting fights.
DH: Many years ago I read a detailed article on your third fight with Joey Giardello in San Francisco in ’58. Tell us about it in your own words, starting with the events leading up to the fight.
JG: Joey Giardello was really being pushed for a title fight at this time and they needed the win over me to continue this drive. We knew one of the judges had been bought but someone approached my manager Mike Scanlon on throwing the fight. He sarcastically, but unintentionally agreed. Like how you would just say, “Yeah, yeah!”, but never accepted any money and never told me. I went out there, did my job and won the 10 round decision. I find out afterwards what went on after a commotion in my corner and Mike says to me, “We gotta get out of here!” We had to get out of the Cow Palace fast and Mike sends Johnny Russo out to bring the car around back. I was still in my boxing gear when Mike and I ran out the back, tore ourselves up jumping a barb-wire fence, and made it back to New York as quickly as we could. See, I was a kid from the street. Everyone knew me from back in the day when I was shining shoes. And it was because I was well-known that I got a sit down with Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino. The only thing that saved us was that Mike never took any money. They couldn’t and wouldn’t have helped us if he had and as a result they put out the word, ‘hands off’ of us.
DH: You were off for about nine months after that fight. Were you still worried about repercussions?
JG: Yeah, I was trying to get it all cleared up.
DH: By the late ’50s, many articles were referring to you also as a young actor. Were you trying your hand in the trade while on the coast?
JG: Well, what happened was, while recuperating with the broken jaw from the Calhoun fight, I had time on my hands, so I went to drama school. I was messing around with that as well as boxing and one night, after I won a fast knockout in Reno, Clark Gable came to my dressing room telling me he loved my fights. We struck up a friendship and I got a part in ‘The Misfits’ with Gable and Marilyn Monroe. That was fun but I got in a bit of trouble on the set.
DH: What happened?
JG: There was a lot of posing and pictures being taken on the set and one day Marilyn wants to get a picture with me. Now, Marilyn was really stacked. So, we’re standing together and she’s really leaning them into me when one wiseguy yells out (laughing), “Hey, Joey, you got a hard on!” Well, Arthur Miller, who was the screenwriter for the movie and also Marilyn’s husband at the time, gets hot and wants to come at me. I just said, “Hey, hey, that’s not a good idea!” Miller wanted me off the picture, but Gable says to him, “If he goes, then I go!”
DH: You were on another winning streak that took you to your rubber match with Rory Calhoun in November of ’60. What did you do so differently in your third fight?
JG: I was still very angry over the broken jaw in our second fight. I trained very hard and fought very aggressively in this fight and won a good tough decision.
DH: It appeared that right after this fight that negotiations began for a 10 rounder with former champ Carmen Basilio. Why did this fight not take place?
JG: Nothing ever came of it. Carmen was a game fighter and I think it would have been a great fight. But if I was going to give my opinion on why it didn’t happen. Well, it’s all about the money, isn’t it, Danny?
DH: Joey, you had been taping your knuckles for over 10 years by this time. Did you ever come close to sitting down at a table negotiating a shot at the world title?
JG: Well, Gene Fullmer was the one I wanted at this time. He was world champ, but I was never even considered for a shot. The best I got with him was an exhibition bout in the 1970s. He’s trying all his rough stuff on me during an exhibition and I really had enough of it and knocked him to his knees with a body shot, just to let him know to cut it out. You know he actually came to my dressing room while I was in the shower complaining that I was too rough and it was only supposed to be an exhibition.
DH: Joey, by ’62, it looked like you were on the downside of your career. You were about 31 years old, had recently lost to Yama Bahama and Farid Salim – good fighters, but not in your league – and you sign to fight one of the most feared bangers in the division in Florentino Fernandez down in Miami. I don’t think anyone gave you a chance. Tell me about the fight.
JG: First of all let me say that you’re right, he could really hit, but he was also a very dirty fighter. I mean he was butting me throughout that fight. I was always a clean fighter but I got a bit fed up and retaliated once. A purposely missed punch that I followed with a well-placed elbow. Just to let him know I had enough. As for the fight, despite his tactics, I boxed him and cut him pretty bad. At one point I nailed him with a shot that sent blood spraying over a couple of ladies at ringside and the fight was stopped in the 7th round. You know I made $7,000 for that fight, but bet $5,000 of it on myself to win at 6-1 odds against me. I cleaned up in that one.
DH: In October of ’62 you finally received your long-awaited title shot, but it was for the inaugural junior middleweight title. What was your feelings on this new division?
JG: Hey, I didn’t care. To me it was for a title. That’s the way I looked at it.
DH: Tell me about your 15 rounder with Denny Moyer for the vacant title.
JG: We fought in his hometown of Portland, Oregon and at the end of 15 I didn’t have a mark on me. I thought I won. Sonny Liston was the referee for this fight and came up to me before the decision was announced and whispered to me, “You won it, baby!” But Moyer got the decision.
DH: Your last fight was in April of ’63. You came in as a substitute and lost a disputed decision to Joe DeNucci in his hometown of Boston. Even the Boston Press said you were robbed, yet, you retired. Were you just discouraged by this point?
JG: Yeah, I was done with it. Y’know, it was embarrassing because DeNucci just conned me at the weigh-in. He’s telling me that he just wants to get through this fight because his wife was expecting any minute now and that’s all he’s thinking about. Well, I’m feeling sorry for the guy, but in the ring he was ready and fighting rough. He was hitting on the break constantly and you know what? I find out later his wife wasn’t due for a few months. Between this and a car accident I was in, I was just done with the game.
DH: What did you get into when the boxing career ended?
JG: I worked at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas. I was a blackjack dealer. I worked there the same time Joe Louis was there as a greeter.
DH: Joey, what was the one fight out there that just escaped you?
JG: At the top of my list would have been Sugar Ray Robinson for the middleweight title. I pressed him about this at the time and he told me in no uncertain terms, “Joey, I don’t like the way you work inside.”
DH: Joey, at 82, how is your health?
JG: Well, I had a series of strokes awhile back and between that and the housing market bust here in Las Vegas, it really set me back. My son Joey Jr., whom I should tell you put himself in a position of great personal and financial loss, stuck with me, as did my daughter Gina. And, although I still have a few issues, I feel good today because of them.
DH: What’s Joey Giambra up to these days?
JG: Dan, over the years I’ve been inducted into no less than seven boxing hall of fames and have written a book recollecting some of the events in my career. It’s called “The uncrowned champion: Boxing and the Mafia in the golden era”, which was published through Author House. And today, they’re even talking about a movie on my life.
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Simply put, without the right connections in the 1950s fight game, one had less of a chance of a title shot than a 1980s heavyweight had of ignoring a buffet table. Although having his ups and downs in life, Joey has been blessed with a wonderful family, whom I also had the privilege of talking to. And, although never a world champ, the name Joey Giambra will always be synonymous with what was indeed a truly golden era.
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(Many thanks to Dan Hanley who has personally allowed that transcript for inclusion on this page)
