Sweet Thunder Read online

  The Robinson-LaMotta battles finally came to an end on the night of February 14, 1951, in cold Chicago. Fans kept an extraordinary interest in the long-running and brutal fistic opera.

  INTERLUDE The Boxer, Madame Baker, and “W.W.”

  Just minutes after Sugar Ray Robinson had defeated Jake La-Motta for the last time in that Chicago ring, he made his way over to Ted Husing, the announcer. Leaning against the ropes, he answered a few perfunctory questions. Then—with the national audience watching and millions of others still listening to the radio in homes, restaurants, pool halls, nightclubs—Robinson leaned into the microphone and delivered a message to a friend down in Miami: “W.W., I did the best I could,” he said, perspiration still dripping from his brow. Every radio listener, and many in the TV audience as well, knew who “W.W.” was: He was Walter Winchell, the powerful and feared Broadway columnist. (Winchell spent several months a year in Miami Beach, doing his ABC radio broadcast, writing his syndicated column, clowning with the locals, and bedding young women who adored his fame and didn’t mind his mop of gray hair.) Robinson, from the ring, went on to say to Winchell that he had raised tens of thousands of dollars for the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund while in Chicago—just as he had done during his recent European tour. The fund was a personal crusade for Winchell, and Robinson was committed to it too. Robinson had become involved with the Runyon fund as a way to pay tribute to Spider Valentine, his onetime Salem Crescent boxing mate who had died of cancer. But the face of the fund was the eccentric—there were less kind words used to describe him too—Walter Winchell. The columnist, now back in Manhattan, was about to be drawn into an imbroglio that would involve celebrated expatriate and chanteuse Josephine Baker, Sherman Billingsley, the proprietor of Manhattan’s chic Stork Club, and the middleweight champion of the world, Sugar Ray Robinson. The national brouhaha would, for the first time, test Robinson’s political savvy.

  Robinson had begun courting Winchell back in 1946, during the exciting early days of his nightclub, Sugar Ray’s. Like a little boy, Walter Winchell was enamored of sports figures, especially the ones who had nosed their way into the culture of entertainment. He would yak about Robinson’s nightspot on the radio, sending celebrities and nighttime revelers through its doors. An endorsement from Winchell carried significant weight. There were huge posters on the sides of Hearst newspaper trucks zipping through Manhattan: “Read WALTER WINCHELL—AMERICAS NO. 1 REPORTER—New York Daily

  Mirror.” Winchell and Robinson would be seen together bopping in and out of other Manhattan nightspots—Club Samoa, the Clique Club down on Broadway, the Three Deuces—eyes following them as they moved from table to table. They’d shake hands with patrons, Robinson telling acquaintances to call his office for free fight tickets, Winchell grinning like a vaudeville theatre owner days into a sold-out run. Their joint appearances emitted powerful wattage. (From the age of ten to twenty-three, Winchell had actually been a vaudeville performer. He abandoned the greasepaint to write vaudeville news. Of many sobriquets used to describe him, Walter “Merciless Truths” Winchell seemed to stand out.)

  Winchell, like any other New York City newspaperman, had been reading Runyon in the New York Journal-American for years. Runyon had become a huge celebrity for his boxing and baseball columns with a literary touch. Hollywood had already discovered his quirky short stories: One such tale, about gambling and bookies and a chirpy-looking little girl with blond curls, became the 1934 film, Little Miss Marker, featuring child star Shirley Temple. That same year, another one, The Lemon Drop Kid, starred William Frawley and was all about racetrack shenanigans. Winchell and Runyon formed a deep friendship in 1944 following Runyon’s surgery for throat cancer. The removal of Runyon’s larynx left him unable to speak. He began communicating by scribbling on a notepad. Winchell felt sympathy and insisted that Runyon accompany him on his nightly escapades around Manhattan. Winchell listened to a police radio in his car, and, upon hearing something that excited him, raced off to the scene. Runyon became his sidekick. “He had always scoffed good-naturedly at my habit of prowling New York late at night in my car, listening to police calls on my special radio and chasing excitement where it was happening,” Winchell would write of Runyon and those times. “Now, sensing his loneliness, I persuaded him to come along with me. We would meet every night at the Stork Club, where we would sit in the Cub Room with old friends.” Teenagers would sometimes spot the two aging men crawling through the night and mistake them for police detectives: Winchell’s license plate on his big blue Cadillac said “NYP1”—it stood for New York press—and enabled Winchell to park anywhere he pleased. Little did the gazing teenagers realize that the two men—aging scribes from another era—were much like them, out hunting for action, for fun.

  “When I die, if I had one man remember me so faithful despite the many passing years,” Runyon had written on his pad to Winchell, “then I’d be happy.” Winchell vowed to Runyon—who died December 10, 1946—that he would not be forgotten.

  Shortly after the famed columnist’s death, Winchell announced a drive to raise money in Runyon’s name for cancer research. The cash started coming in immediately. They were readers of Runyon’s column, boxing and baseball and football fans, and also readers of Walter Winchell. When Winchell was out screeching through the night, bopping into nightclubs, he was surprised when anonymous souls came up to him, shoving money into his hands and pockets for the Runyon fund. He smiled and his eyes took on a tender glow. Early in the evening he’d sometimes regale everyone with Damon Runyon stories. He enlisted celebrities from Hollywood and Broadway—and Sugar Ray Robinson, who was another type of celebrity. “Winchell really wanted Sugar Ray for the fund,” remembers Jess Rand, a young publicist at the time, who knew both Winchell and Runyon.

  For many, the two might well have seemed mismatched: Winchell so loud and ego-driven, Robinson quiet and smooth. But they got along, and Sugar Ray’s name and nightclub appeared regularly in Winchell’s column.

  Walter Winchell—whose facial features were sharp as a shark’s, who brushed his hair straight back, in the style of film-noir movie stars—considered himself a liberal. Often, he would champion the underdog in his columns. He was sensitive about slights and put-downs. One afternoon while in Miami Beach, along with Robinson, he pleaded with the prizefighter to hit the clubs with him. Robinson, like every other Negro, knew that Miami Beach barred Negroes from its streets after dark.

  “You’re with me, you know,” Winchell said to Robinson.

  “Yeah, but you’re Jewish,” Sugar Ray said.

  “I’m Winchell,” Winchell reminded him.

  Robinson had no intention of letting Winchell down in the fund-raising efforts. The fighter would arrive in a city days before his bout, spend time raising money for the fund, whip his opponent more often than not, and then, before leaving town, present a local hospital with a check for cancer research. Four months after Runyon’s death, Winchell himself gave the American Cancer Society a $250,000 check. In time, a board was formed on behalf of the fund; Winchell became its treasurer.

  Walter Winchell’s Manhattan lair was the Stork Club, specifically an inner sanctum of the Stork Club known as the Cub Room. One had to be a swimmer in that sea of blondes, rich men, tycoons, brunettes, showgirls, and entertainers to gain admittance to the Stork Club; and, once inside, one had to know the proprietor Sherman Billingsley himself to gain entrée to the Cub Room. (The Cub Room was quieter than the main room, where a rumba dance band vibrated.) Billingsley was a onetime bootlegger who had fashioned his nightspot into an elitist’s playpen. Kings and queens dined at the Stork Club; Clark Gable and Ed Sullivan and Lucille Ball partook of its wine selection; Jackie Gleason and Bob Hope ate the delicacies sent out from the kitchen, dabbing their fingers on the lovely white cloth napkins. Men wore evening suits; women gowns with silk gloves reaching the elbow. But Negroes did not drink or dine on anything at the Stork Club. Not that the club ever overtly said Negroes were not welcome; it was just an
unwritten understanding.

  In early October of 1951, Josephine Baker was in Manhattan playing the Roxy. The ads trumpeted: “Extraordinary Limited Engagement! Ned Schuyler Presents The Exotic Rage of Paris … in her only New York theatre appearance this season.” Baker was the perfect embodiment of a scandalous heroine. In Paris she had danced nude, attended debauched parties. Hemingway swooned over her. Born in St. Louis, Baker had been abused as a child. She got herself to New York City and joined a vaudeville troupe. She found the city rude; store owners wouldn’t allow her to try on clothing because she was black. She happily sailed for Paris to appear in a show called La Revue Nègre. On stage in the City of Light, she danced and became a sensation. A French theatre director would recall one of her earliest performances: “It was like the revelation of a new world. Eroticism finding a style. Josephine was laughing, she was crying, and the audience stood and gave her such an ovation that she trembled and could not leave the stage. We had to bring the curtain down.” Reporters scrambled to sit with her for interviews. She was once asked, in those early days, what had been her biggest joy thus far. “Well,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears, “last night after the show was over, the theater was turned into a big restaurant … And for the first time in my life, I was invited to sit at a table and eat with white people.” During the war she worked with the French Underground; in Paris she was awarded the Medal of Resistance. She counted both male and female among her many lovers. (Physically, there were women far more beautiful than she; her métier was seduction.)

  In Manhattan in 1951, during her Roxy engagement, the international star was fussed over; there were dinner invitations aplenty. In previous years Walter Winchell had praised her in his columns. Like Sugar Ray Robinson, Baker had also helped raise money for the Runyon fund. On the evening of October 16, Baker accepted one of those many dinner invitations. Roger Rico—whom the chanteuse had known from Paris and who was appearing in a Broadway show—convinced Baker to accompany him, his wife, Solange, and former Cotton Club dancer Bessie Buchanan, to the Stork. Baker chose a blue satin Dior gown and glided with her party—which also included husband Jo Bouillon—into the cool night. It was a little after eleven p.m. when they arrived at the Stork. They were led to a table in the exclusive Cub Room. Perfume scented the air. Glasses were clinking; silverware shone. Baker ordered a bottle of wine: French. Then a crab salad and a steak. Winchell was seated not far away, absorbed in conversation. Shortly after their arrival, Billingsley, the owner, walked by the Cub Room. He looked around and spotted Baker. “Who the fuck let her in?” he snapped in a low voice to a waiter. Everyone at the Baker table received their meal—except Baker. The diners were aggrieved and complaints were made. A waiter finally told her they were out of crab salad—and steaks. This did not sit well with the party. Baker rose, her sweeping Dior drawing stares, and strode off to use the telephone. She phoned Walter White, the NAACP leader. She told him what had happened.

  Within days, the non-dinner event at the Stork took on epic proportions: Baker’s party accused the club of being racist; the NAACP complained to Manhattan politicos about the club and demanded an investigation; Baker said Winchell could have intervened the night of the incident but did nothing; civil rights spokesmen demanded Winchell assail Billingsley, the club owner. Winchell refused and quickly became incensed that anyone dared question his progressive credentials. Appeals were being made to Sugar Ray Robinson, who was now a member of the Runyon Cancer Fund board along with the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Milton Berle, and Marlene Dietrich, to give up his seat. (Robinson happened to be out of town.) Henry Lee Moon, who handled publicity for the NAACP, summoned reporters to Baker’s dressing room at the Roxy. He said there was to be a major announcement. This contretemps was a big bone and Moon meant to gnaw on it. Heads swiveled and necks craned as the gathering came to order. Madame Baker—a heroine in yet one more scandal—looked regal, surrounded by telegrams, pictures, and flowers, the accumulation of her celebrity. Moon dramatically announced that Sugar Ray Robinson was quitting the board of the Runyon fund. The reporters raced away. Moon, however, had bizarrely not confirmed this with Robinson.

  In Manhattan, where scandal, race, politics, and nightclubs all intersected, it proved more electric than the switching on of a hundred klieg lights at a movie premiere. Soon there were pickets outside the Stork. (FAMOUS NITE SPOT JUST A WHITE SPOT, one sign held aloft said.) NAACP leaders told Winchell they expected him to come down hard on Billingsley. Winchell scoffed. The more Winchell was attacked, the more he struck back. He went on a rampage, accusing Baker of anti-Semitism, racism (against lower-class blacks), and even linking her to fascism. Friends told Winchell to calm down, but he could not; he felt he was spreading merciless truths—his stock in trade. Furthermore, he believed the whole affair had been set up, to shame the Stork. And Walter Winchell loved the Stork Club: He drank for free; he got tidbits for his column there; it was his office and dining hangout. As he had told Sugar Ray: I’m Winchell.

  W.W. also knew quite well the political temperature of the Stork. That very year, Sugar Ray had breezily suggested to Winchell they meet at the Stork for dinner and talk. Winchell felt squeezed. “I wish you wouldn’t, champ,” the savvy newspaperman demurred. “Sherman Billingsley doesn’t like Negroes and he doesn’t want them in the place and if he came down there and he insulted you, I’d have to break with him although I’ve known him for 23 years.” That night Sugar Ray avoided the Stork—but now he couldn’t.

  When the incident erupted, Robinson was in Boston, where he happened to be raising money for the Runyon fund. Once back in Manhattan, though, he couldn’t escape the affair. Reporters were dialing his nightclub, his business office. He said nothing until the evening of the Pal Razor Sports Award ceremony. Stepping through the doors, he looked suave. He had a practiced tendency to move slowly in public situations away from the ring. But there was concern in his eyes that evening. He allowed as to how he felt disappointment that Winchell had not tried to intervene and come to Baker’s aid. “I can’t tell you how it makes you feel that you’re fighting cancer … and you have a cancer right there in your own committee.” He said he couldn’t hold his feelings back any longer and would continue to make them apparent, even in the event that he had to “resign from the Cancer Fund.”

  Anyone in the middle of the imbroglio was made to feel like a referee trying to get two middleweights to retreat to their respective corners. Baker announced she was going to sue Winchell and the Hearst newspapers, which she did. Robinson—in the middle—began to wonder if Baker had become the victim of her own ego. He slid behind the wheel of his pink Caddy and drove to the Roxy to see her. He was escorted to her dressing room.

  “Why are you here?” Madame Baker wanted to know.

  “Because I love you,” Sugar Ray told her, “and I don’t want you to make trouble. Walter is too powerful, he can kill your career.”

  Robinson had long fought in integrated surroundings as a boxer—the fight game being one arena where white America joyfully came together to watch white battling against black. The fight game had removed the edge he might have held as a social crusader. Other professional sporting affairs, such as baseball, were confined to the Negro Leagues. Baker didn’t believe his warning about Winchell. But just in case Robinson was right, she began summoning friends, far and wide, to come to Manhattan to defend her honor and reputation. (She had tried to reach President Truman to express her outrage; White House operators told her the busy man was unavailable.) New York City Hall was more amenable: “I will not go to the Stork Club or any other club that practices discrimination,” Mayor Vincent Impellitteri huffed.

  Barry Gray was a popular and fearless New York City radio host. He excitedly announced he was going to have guests on his show to go over the entire Baker-Billingsley affair—“a radio trial, if you will,” as he put it. Baker arrived at the studio flanked by Walter White, of the NAACP, and Jacques Abtey, one of those individuals who had come from far away to
be by her side: Abtey had been her commandant during those dangerous and thrilling days when she worked for the French Underground. (He had also been one of her many lovers.) Abtey said he had crossed the seas “to defend the honor of a war heroine.” Baker herself attacked Winchell in breathless tones in two appearances; White read telegrams rebuking Winchell’s claim that the Department of Justice and other governmental organizations were in the process of deporting Baker. Gray loved every minute of it. The ratings were high and he kept the discourse up. The attention didn’t come, however, without consequences: On two occasions, Gray was attacked. He was forced to get a bodyguard. His attackers got away. Earl Wilson, the Broadway columnist, quipped: “The suspect list has narrowed to 1,000.” Gray brought Ed Sullivan on, a onetime popular radio host who was now a popular TV host. Sullivan’s face seemed carved from granite. “But of all things that are un-American,” said Sullivan—who loathed Winchell from their catty arguments on the vaudeville circuit in their youth—“to me the gravest affront is character assassination. So I despise Walter Winchell for what he has done to Josephine Baker.” For good measure, Sullivan added of Winchell: “I say that he’s a megalomaniac and a dangerous one.”