Muhammad Ali: A Tribute to the Greatest

by Thomas Hauser

  Ali loved being king. But Elvis couldn’t ride the wave and seemed burdened by the crown.

  There are people the spotlight never turns away from. Wherever they go, they can never be anonymous. These people either give in to their fame and embrace it (in the manner of Ali); manage their fame by setting strict boundaries; or it devours them.

  Ali embraced his fame, gave himself completely to the public, and mingled joyously with them. People who met Ali one-on-one loved him more afterward. If Ali was feeling low, he could walk down the street and cause a traffic jam by hugging people and signing autographs to lift his spirits.

  For Elvis, that was the stuff of nightmares. Fame was a trap that he couldn’t escape. He was oppressed by it. He cut himself off from the public and lived largely in seclusion.

  “I felt sorry for Elvis,” Ali said a decade after Presley’s death. “He didn’t enjoy life the way he should. He stayed indoors all the time. I told him he should go out and see people. He said he couldn’t because, everywhere he went, they mobbed him. He didn’t understand. No one wanted to hurt him. All they wanted was to be friendly and tell him how much they loved him.”

  In many ways, fame is a stronger test of character than adversity. People act obsequiously and pay homage to the famous. Ali had the fact that he was black and people were throwing punches at him to remind him of life’s harsh realities. Also, Ali had something much larger than himself—his religion—to flow into.

  Elvis had music, which was his means of expression. But it wasn’t enough. His fantasies had come to fruition when he was twenty-one years old. After that, what was left? In his orbit, everything was about him. He was surrounded by a tight coterie of enablers who indulged his every whim, never held him to the standards of accountability that apply to most men and women, and lived off him. But he had a fragile psyche and never found a calm center. He grew older but not wiser. He lost his way.

  Ali was more comfortable with who he was than Elvis was. He was at peace with himself. And he was stronger at his core.

  Where Elvis’s “real-life” interaction with women is concerned, one can speculate that the happiest relationship he enjoyed was with Ann-Margret (his co-star in the 1963 film Viva Las Vegas).

  He married once.

  Elvis and Priscilla Beaulieu met in 1959. Her father was a United States Air Force officer serving in Germany. Elvis was twenty-four years old; she was fourteen. They were married eight years later. On February 1, 1968, nine months to the day after their wedding, their only child (Lisa Marie) was born.

  Elvis pushed Priscilla away sexually after the birth of their daughter. That and his profligate womanizing led to an affair on her part. Soon after Christmas 1971, she told him that she wanted a divorce. Their marriage was formally dissolved on October 9, 1973.

  One can speculate based on anecdotal evidence that Elvis was an unsophisticated lover. He was more comfortable cuddling and kissing than he was making love. After Priscilla left him, the women who stayed in his life for any length of time moved quickly from sexual object to caretaker.

  As the 1970s progressed, things got worse. Elvis had looked like he was having so much fun when he was young, particularly onstage. Then the fun came to an end and it seemed as though life was an ordeal.

  After the Aloha Hawaii special, his weight burgeoned out of control. Worse, he became increasingly dependent on prescription drugs.

  Elvis had begun self-medicating heavily long before his marriage ended. The drug use increased after he and Priscilla separated. He took pills and overate because he was depressed. He took pills and overate because he was bored. He took pills and overate because he was nervous, He took pills to help him sleep at night, to start his day (which often began in mid-afternoon), to raise his energy level to perform, and to calm down afterward.

  In October 1973, Elvis was hospitalized in a semi-comatose condition after receiving excessive injections of Demerol. He was nursed back to health, then relapsed. In 1974, he added cocaine to his drug habits.

  It had always been hard to imagine Elvis Presley doing anything normally. During the last few years of his life, his mood swings became more and more pronounced and he was increasingly out of control.

  He was reclusive but, at the same time, afraid to be left completely alone.

  He acted petulantly toward those around him; then sought to regain their affection by lavishing gifts upon them. On a single day (July 27, 1975), he bought and gave away thirteen Cadillacs.

  The drugs interfered with his sex life.

  He shot at television sets and fired his gun into ceilings and walls.

  There were times when he fell asleep with his mouth full of food.

  He was still surrounded by enablers, who gave him whatever was necessary to maintain their favored position. But like Humpty Dumpty, Elvis had suffered a great fall. There was no way that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could put him back together again.

  He had lost his dignity and self-respect. He was dangerously depressed. Each day when he woke up and looked in the mirror, he was reminded of what he’d become. His famous hair had begun to thin. He underwent cosmetic surgery around his eyes in an effort to conceal the ravages of drug abuse. There was an emptiness inside that he couldn’t fill. He needed an emotional center to stabilize his life, and it wasn’t there.

  Yet through it all, Elvis kept performing. He needed the adulation that he received from his adoring fans. He wanted to give of himself and make them happy. And he still loved music. It was the only anchor that he had in his life. Without music, he was nothing.

  For the most part, the reviewers were kind. But a few of them incorporated hard truths in their critiques.

  After Elvis returned to the International Hilton in August 1973, the Hollywood Reporter declared, “It’s Elvis at his most indifferent, uninterested, and unappealing. He’s not just a little out of shape, not just a little chubbier than usual. The Living Legend is fat and ludicrously aping his former self. His voice was thin, uncertain, and strained. His personality was lost in one of the most ill-prepared, unsteady, most disheartening performances of his Las Vegas career. It is a tragedy and absolutely depressing to see Elvis in such diminishing stature.”

  That was followed by a two-week engagement in Lake Tahoe. A review in Variety noted that Elvis was “thirty pounds overweight” (a kind estimate) and observed, “He’s puffy, white-faced, and blinking against the light. The voice sounds weak; delivery is flabby. Attempts to perpetuate his mystique of sex and power end in weak self-parody.”

  The last four days of the Lake Tahoe engagement were cancelled.

  Elvis onstage in the 1950s had been uninhibited. Elvis onstage in the 1970s was increasingly out of control. There were times when he seemed like an Elvis impersonator; lumbering around, engaging in rambling monologues that were all but impossible to understand. Sometimes he forgot the words to songs he’d sung a thousand times. There were moments when he seemed perilously close to having a psychiatric breakdown in front of his audience. Or maybe he was having one.

  Yet he remained a viable ticket-seller, performing before overflow crowds in huge arenas until the end. He was obese and drugged out. He was a heart attack waiting to happen. But he was still Elvis Presley, and still capable of isolated moments of extraordinary performance art.

  Elvis had a beautiful voice and had learned to use it well. In some respects, his celebrity status overshadowed his talent. Throughout his career, he captured the emotional import of his songs. He understood intuitively what worked musically and what didn’t. He was passionate about his music and sang from the heart.

  When he was young, his music was characterized by sexual energy and excitement. As he aged, it was more about showing off the range of his voice and how long he could hold a note. But his singing also became more powerful. He could sell a ballad. He began to tell stories—often about sadness and regret—and give deeper meaning to the lyrics. He could sing anything.

  But by June 197
7, when his final tour began, Elvis could barely perform. There was nothing left in him anymore. He died at Graceland on August 16, 1977. Fourteen drugs were found in his system; ten of them in significant quantities. The assumption is that “polypharmacy” was the primary cause of death.

  He was an old forty-two when he died.

  As Elvis was sliding toward the precipice, Ali was also in decline. Like Elvis, he was in a profession where it’s hard to age gracefully. But if Ali had a bad night, he paid for it with a beating.

  The damage to Elvis’s health had been self-administered. The damage to Ali was inflicted by others. The punishment he took began to mount. Against Joe Frazier in Manila in 1975; at Madison Square Garden against Earnie Shavers seven weeks after Elvis died; in Las Vegas in 1980 at the hands of Larry Holmes.

  Elvis had paid an emotional price for his greatness. For Ali, the cost was physical. The ravages of Parkinsonism turned his face into a mask and restricted his movements as surely as Elvis had been diminished.

  Time goes by. Thirty-four years have passed since Elvis died. He’s still a cultural force. His music remains popular. Thousands of entertainers around the globe dress up as Elvis impersonators and groom themselves in a certain way in an effort to imitate his performances. No other star, past or present, has that sort of following.

  The entertainment conglomerate CKX now controls Elvis’s name, likeness, and image for commercial purposes. It also manages Graceland. Six hundred thousand fans make the pilgrimage to the mansion on Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis each year.

  CKX has also acquired a controlling interest in Ali’s name, likeness, and image for commercial purposes. But to date, Elvis has been a more profitable marketing venture.

  Elvis and Ali were passionate men who inspired passion in others. They grew up in humble surroundings and dreamed of being more than it was thought they could possibly be.

  Each man impacted most significantly on society when he was young. Elvis, before he went in the Army; Ali, before his exile from boxing.

  Elvis in the Las Vegas years gave pleasure to the people who saw him sing, but he was no longer an important social force. The acceptance of Ali as a beloved monarch marked an important turn for American society. But he was no longer setting the world ablaze.

  Neither man set out to be the leader of a movement. They were just doing their thing. But each was an agent of change.

  Elvis was a precursor of the sexual revolution and a transitional figure who brought black music into the mainstream of American culture. He was the standard-bearer for, and one of the founding fathers of, rock and roll. Like Frank Sinatra, he defined his genre.

  Elvis’s legacy is as an entertainer. He was about the music. He shied away from political issues. When asked to comment on anti-war protests at the height of the war in Vietnam, he responded, “I’d just as soon keep my own personal views about that to myself. I’m just an entertainer.”

  “Do you think other entertainers should keep their views to themselves too?” the questioner pressed.

  “No; I can’t say that,” Elvis answered.

  By contrast, Ali has two legacies; as an athlete and as a moral force. Elvis was a superstar. Ali was a superstar and a hero, who fit into the two great moral crusades of the 1960s (the civil rights and anti-war movements). For most of his adult life, he sought to use his fame to make the world a better place. He wanted to advance the cause of racial justice and world peace. His work had social, political, and religious implications.

  The day after beating Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay told the media (and by extension, the American power structure), “I don’t have to be what you want me to be. I’m free to be what I want.”

  Elvis exploded on the national scene in the same manner. But while Ali stayed true to that creed, Elvis didn’t. Ali’s greatness in and out of the ring sprang from personal courage. That quality was less evident in Elvis’s life. In the end, he seemed intent on trying to be what his fans wanted him to be.

  That said, singing is no less real than fighting. Ali earned universal recognition as a great fighter. Elvis was an amazing talent who brought joy to a lot of people and, like Ali, changed the way his art was practiced. They didn’t just mirror the culture they lived in. They helped shape it.

  And they were so good when they were young.

  PERSONAL MEMORIES

  THE DAY I MET

  MUHAMMAD ALI

  2004

  In September 1964, when I was a sophomore at Columbia University, I began hosting a radio show called Personalities In Sports for the student-run radio station. For an 18-year-old sports fan, it was heady stuff. Each week, I’d take a bulky reel-to-reel tape recorder into the field and interview the biggest names I could get. I reached Nirvanah one afternoon when I found myself in the New York Yankees dugout as the Bronx Bombers readied to nail down their fourteenth pennant in sixteen years. The first interview I conducted was with Tom Tresh. Whitey Ford was next. Then Mickey Mantle entered the dugout and, gathering my courage, I approached him.

  “Mr. Mantle. My name is Tom Hauser, and I wonder if I could interview you for WKCR.”

  “Fuck.”

  That was all Mantle said. Not even “fuck you.” Just “fuck,” which I assumed meant “no,” since he then turned and walked away.

  Recovering from the rebuff, I moved on to Elston Howard, Jim Bouton, and Johnny Keane. My final interview was with Ralph Terry. I asked who he was planning to vote for in the upcoming presidential election between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Terry told me that his political views were none of my business, and the interview ended on that note.

  The following week, I had similar success with New York Mets pitcher Tracy Stallard. Three years earlier, while on the mound for the Boston Red Sox, Stallard had earned a place in baseball history by throwing home run number sixty-one to Roger Maris. I suggested to Stallard that he tell WKCR’s listeners all about it, and he responded, “I think you know all about it, and your listeners know all about it, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Regardless, over the next thirty months, I taped dozens of interviews. New York Knicks center Walter Bellamy gave me the first great quote I ever got from an athlete when I asked about reports that he’d had a bad attitude while playing for the Baltimore Bullets. “I’ve never known an attitude to go up and dunk a basketball,” Bellamy told me.

  Joe Namath, who’d just signed a three-year contract with the New York Jets for the unheard-of sum of $427,000, talked at length about the transition from college to pro football. Pete Rozelle and Joe Foss (commissioners of the warring National and American football leagues) gave of their time. Willis Reed, Barry Kramer, Eddie Donovan, Tom Gola, Matt Snell, Weeb Eubank. The list went on . . .

  With one particularly memorable moment.

  In March 1967, Muhammad Ali was preparing to fight Zora Folley at “the old” Madison Square Garden; that is, the arena on Eighth Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets. The bout was scheduled for March 22nd; forty-four days after Ali’s brutalization of Ernie Terrell. At that point in his career, Ali was virtually unbeatable. This would be his seventh championship defense in less than a year. Folley was a decent human being and a respected journeyman, who’d been a professional fighter for fifteen years.

  John Condon, the director of publicity for Madison Square Garden, arranged the interview for me. Ali-Folley would be the last heavyweight championship fight at the old Garden and also Ali’s final bout before a three-and-a-half-year exile from boxing. The war in Vietnam was at its peak. The National Selective Service Presidential Appeal Board had voted unanimously to maintain Muhammad’s 1-A classification, and he’d been ordered to report for induction in April. The assumption was that he would refuse induction. Ali himself had hinted as much when he said, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam, while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs?”

  At the Garden
, I watched Ali go through a series of exercises. Then I stood at the edge of the ring as he sparred with Jimmy Ellis. When that was done, he went into his dressing room and I followed. John Condon introduced us. Ali was wearing a white terrycloth robe. I wasn’t from the New York Times or any other news organization of note, but that didn’t seem to matter. Ali told me to turn on my tape recorder. We talked mostly about Nation of Islam doctrine, with some questions about the military draft, Zora Folley, and boxing in general thrown in. It’s a sign of the times that both of us used the word “Negro.” Ten minutes after we began, Ali announced, “That’s all I’m gonna do,” and the interview was over.

  But I had one more request. An autograph. Not for me, but for my younger brother, who loved sports every bit as much as I did. Earlier in the year, he’d given me a copy of a book entitled Black Is Best: The Riddle of Cassius Clay. Now, I wanted to give the book back to him. As I looked on, Ali inscribed the title page:

  To Jim Hauser

  From Muhammad Ali

  World Heavyweight Champion

  Good luck

  1967

  I still remember the look on Jim’s face when I gave it to him.

  While Ali took a shower, I taped an interview with Angelo Dundee. Then I returned to the ring, where Zora Folley was finishing his sparring session. Folley told me how he planned to exploit the fact that Ali held his hands too low and backed away from punches instead of slipping them. The interviews aired on the night of the fight. For the first time ever, the New York Times listings for radio programs of interest cited Personalities In Sports and yours truly by name.

  Years later, I would come in contact with John Condon again. In 1984, I was researching a book entitled The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing. Condon had become president of Madison Square Garden Boxing. With characteristic generosity, he opened doors on my behalf. Our final meeting came in 1989. As fate would have it, Ali and I had also moved full circle. I’d been chosen to be his official biographer and was in the process of writing Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times. Condon was one of two hundred people I wanted to interview for the project. He was dying of cancer and knew it. At the close of our interview, John gave me a copy of Black Is Best: The Riddle of Cassius Clay which had been on a shelf in his office for more than twenty years. “Keep it,” he told me. “I won’t be needing it any longer.” That night, I listened to the tape of my WKCR radio interview with Ali for the first time in more than two decades.