‘Only In America’ Leaves Even Don King Speechless
In 1991, Jack Newfield, a political columnist for the New York Post, won an Emmy for a 1-hour PBS documentary on promoter Don King that portrayed him as ruthlessly exploiting prizefighters. The show included an explosive confrontation between Newfield and King during a taping session. King launched a profane tirade when Newfield brought up accusations that King had accepted $1 million under the table from the apartheid government of South Africa during Nelson Mandela’s boycott. Much of that dialogue was deleted for the PBS audience.
Nothing, however, has been deleted from Newfield’s new book, which was shipped to bookstores Tuesday for sale next week. “Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King” (William Morrow, $23) is the result of five years of meticulous research and artful writing by the 57-year-old Newfield.
In the book, Newfield contends that King ripped off some of boxing’s greatest talents - George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Tim Witherspoon, Marvin Hagler, Mike Tyson, even Muhammad Ali. He says that King ruined boxers’ lives, careers and spirits, rigged boxing championships, betrayed friends, instigated racial conflicts, threatened to have Holmes’ legs broken, hired Philadelphia mobster Frank (Blinky) Palermo to threaten Witherspoon, shot one man, stomped another man to death and swindled Ferdinand Marcos.
Newfield says that King, who in October will face trial on a nine-count indictment on charges of defrauding Lloyd’s of London, laughed at him tauntingly while he was researching the book.
“I’ve decided no interview for your book,” King told Newfield. “Why?” Newfield asked.
“Because,” King said, laughing, “the day your book comes out, I want to be able to call a press conference and tell the whole world that damn white boy didn’t even have the decency to speak to this poor nigger.”
Neither King, who has pleaded not guilty to the indictment, nor his representatives could be reached for comment Tuesday.
Among the cruelest things King did, Newfield says, was to entice a sick, over-the-hill Ali to leave retirement in 1980 to fight a powerful, inhis-prime Larry Holmes in what turned out to be the worst beating in Ali’s career. After the fight, Ali was too sore and weak to shower.
King coaxed Ali back in the ring, although his reflexes were gone and his speech was deteriorating, by promising him an $8 million payday. Then, Newfield reports, he stiffed the former champ for $1.1 million of it. That episode, which Newfield calls “the public torture of an international hero,” is being excerpted this month in Penthouse magazine.
“Don is a great character, like a character out of a novel,” Newfield said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
“I think he is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met. He’s a confidence man, a robber baron - more intelligent than Ivan Boesky or Michael Milken. But I can’t fault him for being smart and inexhaustible.”
Newfield grew up in Brooklyn admiring boxers and gives them a rare voice in “Only in America.” He paints King as a tragic character, shaped by his early days as a numbers runner in Cleveland.
He says King, who once served four years in prison for manslaughter, could have become a Horatio Alger or a Colin Powell.
“He could have been anything he wanted to be, he is so smart,” Newfield said, “but … he’s got a gambler’s, jailhouse, hustler’s mentality. He’d rather earn a crooked quarter than an honest dollar. That’s his tragic flaw.”