Finding Tony Zale

Wining in the ring, losing in life

Tony Zale (1913-97) was an Indiana boxer who won the National Boxing Association middleweight title in 1940. He successfully defended it in 1941 and then spent four years in the Navy. After his discharge, Zale again successfully defended the title, the start of the only part of his boxing career that is remembered. He defeated New York tough guy Rocky Graziano in 1946 in the first of their three legendary fights. Graziano took the title from Zale in 1947, but Zale took it back in 1948. Zale retired 1949, at age 36, with nearly 50 years ahead of him. The long post-ring phase of his career is detailed in Tony Zale: The Man of Steel, a book written by his nephew Thad Zale and Clay Moyle (2014; cover photo below; all pages numbers refer to this book).

Zale and Graziano are inseparable in boxing literature, to Zale’s detriment. Both men had ethnic, blue-collar backgrounds, and both grew up poor. Zale was born Anthony Florian Zaleski. Graziano (1919-90) was born Thomas Rocco Barbella.

Zale had 87 fights in 14 years; his record was 67-18-2. He retired in 1949 at age 36 and died at 84. Graziano’s record (67-10-6) is similar to Zale’s. Graziano (born in 1919) retired in 1952, at age 33; he died in 1990 at 71. Both men entered the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991, the year after Graziano’s death. Their records are good, but, for some perspective, note that they pale in comparison to the record of today’s leading supermiddleweight, Canelo Alverez: mid-career, it is an impressive 60-2-2.

Zale had a more distinguished career than Graziano, who held the middleweight title for just one year and who never held another title. In boxing literature, however, Zale is little more than an appendage to Graziano’s story.

For example, Graziano is included in Peter Heller’s In This Corner . . .”: 42 World Champions Tell Their Stories; Zale is not. Bert Blewett’s The A-Z of Boxing has an entry for Graziano but no entry for Zale. Graziano is mentioned twice in Kasia Boddy’s Boxing: A Cultural History, both times in connection with movies. Zale is not mentioned. Google “Rocky Graziano” and you get 2,700,000 hits; Google “Tony Zale” and you get half that number, 1,340,000. Although they are ridiculously unreliable as research measures, those numbers nonetheless illustrate the difference in these boxers’ reputations.

Some of this difference can be explained by age. Graziano was six years younger. After his 1948 loss to Zale he fought in 23 matches, winning 20, with one draw and two losses in 1952. After his victory over Graziano in 1948, Zale had only one fight, losing the middleweight title to the Moroccan Marcel Cerdan the same year.

As I noted in a previous post, my experiment with ChatGPT helped me identify two key points for comparing these boxers: media exposure and flamboyance. Zale had limited media exposure and no flamboyance. As a titleholder, he had exposure through national news coverage of his fights with Graziano. But Zale did not have media exposure focused on who he was as a man. As a boxer and as a man, Graziano enjoyed both levels of media attention.

Zale was the kind of figure, as CGPT observed, that is easily “overshadowed by more flamboyant personalities.” Graziano was one of the most flamboyant personalities in twentieth-century boxing. He was no Muhammad Ali, to be sure, but he was a considerable media presence nonetheless. Most of the difference in the levels of fame achieved by Zale and Graziano can be traced to their personalities.

Graziano was interesting and colorful. Even as a child, he lived a violent, transgressive life in the lower East Side of Manhattan. He had along history of juvenile crime. In the Army he was imprisoned for going AWOL. True to his reprobate form, at the height of his career he was suspended in 1946 for failing to report a bribe attempt but managed to qualify for his fight with Zale that year. His behavior seems to have endeared him to his fans.

It was only after retirement that Graziano established a commanding media presence. He published a zinging autobiography called Somebody Up There Likes Me, written with Rowland Barber, in 1955. It turned out that somebody down here liked him too. The book was quickly turned into a script that was filmed in 1956, with a young Paul Newman as the star. Even a cleaned-up Hollywood version of the book-as-movie confirmed that Graziano, who was very handsome, had the bad-boy face that boxing fans were looking for.

Zale did not. As husband, father, and devout Catholic, he had all the attributes of a model citizen. But his personal life was anything but a template for long-term happiness. He worked in steel mills in Gary, married young, had two children, and served four years in the Navy. He was domestic, pious, and dutiful. He had no sign of a rebellious streak. It’s easy to see that Zale was not the kind of man that would impress a tough boxing audience.

Zale launched his pro career under his brother Joe’s guidance in the early 1930s. By 1935 he had 17 wins, 9 losses, and one draw, a mediocre record at best. Zale went back to work in the steel mills. Then, two years later, when he was in better physical condition, he went back to boxing. We are told that he began this new phase by going to church and making the following “covenant”: “Father, If I am permitted to become a champion of the world, I will do everything within my power during and after my time in the ring to further belief in you” (pp. 45-46). It is difficult to separate the perspective of Zale and Moyle, authors of The Man of Steel, from the views of the boxer. I find it difficult to believe that Zale, speaking to his nephew in 1987 or later, would have remembered words he had spoken 50 years earlier. 

The “covenant” serves the narrative and expresses the boxer’s plan in prayer. He promised to lead a simple life, to obey the Ten Commandment, and to trust in family and friends. He signed a contract in 1938 and his career as “Man of Steel” was launched. Two years later his record was 39-14-2 and in 1940 he won the middleweight championship (pp. 60-64). He had become “a champion of the world,” a goal he had prayed to reach. That said, however, his win average moved only from 63% to 72%, an improvement but not a transformation and not a stellar record.

Parallel to his fighting career was his married life with Adeline Richawlski (a piano teacher, age 19). Zale ignored troubling signs in his wife’s behavior. Two weeks after they married in 1942, he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to Puerto Rico, where he taught and coached boxing. He was in San Juan for two years. His first daughter was born during this period. When he returned home after his discharge in 1945, he was made aware of his wife’s affairs by his daughters, who referred to “uncles” who slept over at the house. Zale’s friends also warned him about his wife’s affairs.

After his wartime service, Zale was required to defend his middleweight title, and this led to more time away from home. His opponent was Graziano (below, right), a fast-rising star. Their fights rank among the most violent in mid-twentieth century boxing. Zale was so beat up after his first win over Graziano that he looked like he had lost the match. The next year, after his win over Zale, Graziano was so bloodied he could have been mistaken for the loser. With his second win over Graziano in 1948, Zale near the end of his boxing career. He retired the next year.

Zale’s boxing affected his married life, and his marriage affected his boxing. After his second victory over Graziano (in 1948, their third match), promoters arranged a defense match for Zale with Marcel Cerdan. It took place just three months after his match with Graziano. At this point Zale was getting his divorce. He knew he was not ready for the fight and admitted as much. Predictably, he lost (pp. 224-25). He had no more professional matches.

Like many boxers, he did not think he was finished. He had to be talked out of a rematch with Cerdan in 1949. Four years later Zale was considering a match with Sugar Ray Robinson, who had recently defeated Graziano. Zale was now 40. His idea that he could get into shape for Robinson after four years away from boxing was a sign of unusually bad judgment.

In or around this time, Zale invested in the futuristic automobile planned and manufactured by Preston Tucker. Tucker sold accessories for cars that were not yet built and sold dealerships. He flogged his stock and came to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was tried and eventually acquitted of fraud, but his company collapsed. Zale reportedly lost all his boxing winnings in this incautious investment (pp. 243-45).

Zale had few assets. In the 1950s he held four part-time jobs. He coached boxing in Chicago for the Chicago Youth Organization. He helped set up boxing clubs and coach there for years (p. 14). This group was the forerunner to the Golden Gloves tournaments, which quickly became an important path from amateur to pro boxer.

At this time, Zale was all but homeless, living in shack with no heat and no running water, walking a mile to shower and dress for the day (p. 260). In 1956, after seven years working for the CYO, he was able to afford an efficiency apartment in Chicago. He had some income as a reservist and he did occasional USO shows in 1955 and 1956. Backers helped him open a restaurant in Chicago, but it seems to have become a call-girl service, or worse; Zale closed it (pp. 265-66).

Zale could be his own worst enemy. When Graziano’s book was being filmed, Zale was offered $10,000 to play himself in the movie. That required getting into the ring with Paul Newman. Despite many cautions, Newman went after Zale harder than he was told to, and Zale responded in kind. Newman protested, and Zale was given $3000 for his work and replaced (Newman standing over Court Shepard, who played Zale).

When his nomination to the boxing Hall of Fame was announced in 1958, things improved. He was paid for celebrity dancing (about 1959 and after), worked in insurance for a while, and wrote a column for Boxing Illustrated. None of this amounted to much, however, and in the late 1960s Zale was again impoverished. His fortunes look an upward turn in 1968, when he asked Graziano, who was living in New York, to help him find work. Graziano arranged for Zale to be hired at a restaurant near Madison Square Garden (p. 283). That began good period for Zale, who was seen as a celebrity in the city.

Having saved some money, he returned to Chicago and was asked to work for the Park district’s youth program, coaching boxing, as he had done for the CYO (pp. 292-93). He soon formed a relationship with Philomena Gianfrancisco, an established athlete and the first woman to hit a home run out of Comiskey Park. She is remembered in The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, in a “Women in Baseball” display (p. 299). Zale and Graziano did some stunt boxing together, and Zale had some speaking engagements. His lone advocate, it seems, was Philomena. She alienated family members by criticizing them (justly, it would seem) for failing to see to it that Zale was being taken care of.

The human-interest side of Zale’s life, we can see, was not one that would draw readers. It is mainly an account of failure as husband and father that led to failure after great success as a title-holding boxer. Wise people tell us that obstacles should either be overcome or put to use. Zale seems to have taken neither path. It seems that obstacles simply stopped him.

Zale received media attention beyond his celebrated fights. But his level of human-interest coverage was almost entirely local. Newspapers tracked the many awards and honors given to Zale. With a few exceptions, this was recognition from organizations and clubs in Gary and Chicago that were associated with his volunteer work as boxing coach and public speaker. Notre Dame University gave him an award in 1949; he refereed a fundraising match there (p. 233).  

To Zale, boxing seems to have been a job, not an instrument for redemption or rebellion, or a tool for self-expression. This is his chief difference from Graziano, who was a writer, after a fashion, and a man determined to make a statement. Graziano sought fame; he wrote a book about his life. Zale waited for fame to come to him.

Unlike Graziano and some other boxers one can think of, Zale was not driven to create a public persona. He let his boxing record speak for him. He demonstrated little self-interest, even when self-interest would have helped him escape the impoverished and unhealthy living conditions he fell into because of his persistent poverty.

Looking at the difference between these men, I see that one was a fighter and the other a boxer. Graziano was such a defiant and violent boy that he refused to fight, when he had the chance, wearing boxing gloves. He wanted bruises, blood, and broken bones. Zale was a boxer. Once he no longer boxed, he was a good citizen but not a successful man. For fame, that is not enough.

Zale was a boxer, but he was not a fighter for his own cause. Was that because he was, in the end, a man who boxed rather than a man who fought? Was it because he looked at boxing as a job? For him, boxing was not a form of rebellion or self-expression. He did not seem to find rebellion necessary, and it seems that he expressed himself best in the ring. That worked well for him in the 1940’s, but Zale had a half-century to live. Outside the ring, he seems to have been shy and retiring. Even today, he remains difficult to engage as a man, even though, as ChatGPT says, “he left his mark in the boxing world.”