Gorgeous George

by John Capouya

  The Olympic’s a vast vertical cone with the ring the narrow tip at the bottom. Under the domed roof, the ceiling is at least a hundred feet above the ring. At balcony level a grid of lights is suspended over the ring, hanging from thick cables. Right now, though, it’s completely dark—except for the one spotlight on the Gorgeous One, glimmering when it touches his shiny pinkness and glinting off the gold-mesh hairnet he’s wearing, covering the marcel. The standing crowd gives out a collective gasp, a loud “aaah.” In some ways, this first glimpse of George is the moment of the evening. It’s not enough to call it an entrance; one writer deems it “his manifestation.” The impact that George creates by simply showing up overpowers anything most wrestlers can do in the ring. That same scribe sees the humor in the grand arrival, and senses its import. “There, statued in the pose of a Greek god, and looking very much like the berries, stands the Hubba-Hubba He-man of the 20th century,” he writes. “Yes, Gorgeous George has just crashed in upon the scene.”

  The coronation march begins to blare, and George takes his first steps down the aisle, the dainty white boots rasping a bit on the corrugated metal covering that concrete path. At first he’s greeted mostly by clapping, laughter, and cheers. This is his home turf and Los Angeles appreciates a spectacle. “George, you’re gorgeous!” shouts one smitten lady. He knew that already, so George sees no need to acknowledge her encouragement. Instead he’s giving everyone, including his partisans, the elevated proboscis as he parades slowly, exuding imperial arrogance. Some boos and hisses issue in response, and as they do disdain transfigures George’s face. He starts to sway more side to side as he walks and his parading gait broadens into the Gorgeous strut. “And, oh, my, what a strut,” another reporter remarks. “If only this man had been born in the barnyard. What a rooster he would have made.”

  More catcalls, more whistles. “Hey, Gruesome, Bobby’s gonna murder you!” jeers another fan, a middle-aged woman who shakes her fist at George as she stands next to her husband, who’s giving her a look of surprise mixed with some wariness. To this point the Sensation’s temper has not been truly tried, so he responds mildly, merely observing with a look in her direction that “I told you not to come down tonight, Mother.” Another wit shouts, “Hey, Myrtle!” reacting to the extravagant display of finery, vanity, and coiffure—to George’s feminine side. George the fabulous fop is strutting, but it can also be seen as a coy sashaying. It can’t be denied: There is some hen in this rooster.

  Jefferies bends at the waist and pulls two ropes apart so George can step through, gathering his skirts in both hands as he stoops and enters the ring. The wrestler wipes his booties on the patch of cerise carpet, then strides to the center of the mat and bows in all four directions. Wait: The Gorgeous knees are bending—is his bow really a curtsy? Some in the crowd clearly think so; the laughter and hooting both dial up a notch or two in volume. George paces around the ring, peering at the mat surface intently and sniffing. Something displeases him. “Uh-oh, Georgie isn’t happy,” Dick Lane says, chuckling on the air. It seems Jefferies has not fumigated properly; he missed some spots. George remonstrates with him, pointing vehemently at several areas. Stricken by his failure, the valet scurries over and sprays some more with the overgrown atomizer. Satisfied for now, George repairs to his corner. Managoff still stands waiting in his corner, and the ring announcer is likewise inactive. They might as well be napping, buying an ice-cold pop, or missing altogether, as no one’s paying them the slightest bit of attention.

  Now George, still standing, consents to Jefferies removing the gold-mesh hairnet, called a snood. Under it George’s locks are held in place with the gold-colored Georgie pins. Now, with a great show of deference and obsequiousness, the valet begins taking them out. “Those pins are gold-plated and very expensive,” Lane informs the TV audience. “George has them made especially at $85 the half-pound.” Jefferies returns a handful of the Georgie pins to the master, who shakes out his newly liberated locks, looking, as Coons describes him, “like a lordly Spaniel.” Now the wrestler stalks around the ring, peering out into the crowd to see who might deserve a Gorgeous souvenir. Women wave wildly, trying to catch his eye. “Throw it here, George! Give one to me!” ’ A fair number of men are standing and waving, too, including some who were booing him lustily minutes earlier. When he flips the pins into the crowd, mild scuffles break out over them.

  Jimmy Lennon moves to take the microphone suspended by its cord over the center of the ring. “In this corner,” he intones, gesturing at George’s opponent with one tuxedoed arm, “at 225 pounds, from Chicago, Illinois, the former heavyweight champion of the world, Bobby Managoff!” There’s a good smattering of applause and Managoff takes a step toward the ring’s center and gives a friendly wave to the crowd. Managoff wears nondescript black trunks and black calf-high wrestling boots over white socks. His robe is a terry bathrobe, dark and wrinkled. It looks like a garment his grandfather might have died in.

  “And in this corner,” the ring announcer continues, turning to face the opposite corner, his voice rising: “The Toast of the Coast…The Sensation of the Nation…The Human Orchid…Gorgeous George!” Boos, catcalls, and hoots rain down from all levels of the tornado-shaped house, with a good many laughs and cheers mixed in. George nods at the booming response as if he’s accepting just tribute from a rapt and loving people. The referee calls both wrestlers to the center of the ring, goes over a few rules, and then, as always, he checks each combatant for concealed weapons and any overoiling of the body, which would give him an unfair slipperiness advantage. This requires that the wrestlers open any garments they might be wearing to allow the inspection. The ref runs his hands over Managoff’s body without incident, but when the official reaches toward George, the heel isn’t having it. “Take your filthy hands off me!” he roars, so loudly that the referee actually takes a step backward. The crowd roars again in response. This refusal to be glommed by grubby mortals is another signature moment, one the fans come to expect yet never fail to respond to. Aghast at the plebeian contamination, George gestures urgently to Jefferies, who rushes over and sprays the ref’s hands with Chanel Number 10. Only now will George submit to being touched.

  To allow the examination, he raises both arms to the sides and holds the pink robe open wide, like a butterfly with its wings extended, exposing the corpus delectable for all to see. He’s wearing tight white trunks and pink socks under his white boots. George still has his muscles but his body’s thicker now and there’s not as much definition; his torso barely narrows from his shoulders to his waist. The Gorgeous flesh is pale, and by today’s standards, he’s even got a bit of a potbelly. Yet no one here doubts he’s gorgeous, least of all him. Back in his corner, George allows Jefferies to remove the shimmering robe, which he then folds and places carefully on the mink square. Without the billowing cloth surrounding him, George’s head looks even bigger in relation to his body.

  Fifteen or twenty minutes have elapsed since George first struck his entrance pose, with nary a grunt, groan, or grapple. Now, finally, the bell rings, the referee waves both wrestlers to the center of the ring, and the match commences. Managoff rushes forward to engage in the middle of the ring. Following the locker-room discussion with George, he makes the classic opening move: trying to get his hands on the Gorgeous curls. Horrified, George skitters away, circling counterclockwise then darting into corners, up on his toes, his hands up in front of him to fend off any contact, those platinum locks fanning out behind his head as he moves. The crowd knows that of all the unkind things the other boys do, this dismays George the most. “Oh, no! No!” he protests pleadingly as Managoff pursues him, then ducks behind the referee for cover. “Stop him!” he yells at the faceless ref. “Don’t let him mess up my hair!” But the official offers no quarter. “Wrestle on!” he commands. Managoff straightens up from his crouch and bellows at George to “Come and fight, darn it!” In the crowd some fans stand up, too, irate at Georgie’s shameful behavior. “Sissy!” they
yell. “Coward!”

  Thirty-five and increasingly well fed, George is still athletic and his speed can still surprise. On his back and in “danger” of being pinned, he goes to the kip-up, launching himself upright without using his hands. As he lands back on his feet and dances a few more quick steps, the crowd roars in appreciation. “Whoa, Nellie!” exclaims Dick Lane. This is this pet expression, which will become part of the American colloquial vocabulary. A few minutes later, after getting thrown across the ring, George sells the move by landing loudly on his back, then bouncing up onto his shoulders so they’re supporting his body, his torso and legs sticking straight up in the air. Now he adds a flourish, corkscrewing his upside-down body rapidly in what looks like a classic version of a 1980s break-dancing move.

  Now it’s George who’s unkind: He throws Managoff out of the ring a couple times, kicks him when he’s down, rams him into the corner posts, punches him in the kidneys—then denies it to the remonstrating ref, demonstrating in broad, slow motion how he actually hit the babyface with the heel of his open hand, which is legal. When he gets Managoff down on his back for an instant, George starts screaming at the ref to call it a pin and award him the first fall. “What kind of a referee are you, anyway?” he bellows. “There, count—he’s down!”

  He eye-gouges. He hits Managoff as they break. If Managoff starts to gain any advantage, dastardly George steps one foot outside the ropes, which brings him a reprieve, a halt in the action for an automatic ten-count. Jeers and shouts fill the air, and the classic exhortation is aimed at the babyface: “Kill him!” With an increasingly fast series of body slams, George wins the first fall.

  Normally this is the time to visit the restroom and stock up at the concession stands, but experienced George watchers know to stick around. A wooden stool is produced in his corner for Himself to rest on (all the other wrestlers stand between falls). A woman in the crowd yells, “George, you look like a scrubwoman!” In truth, his hair is a mess, completely disheveled. That calls for Jefferies, who reappears with his tray, and uses a comb to touch up the marcel. It’s the Frank and Joseph Special, the one that sweeps up so dramatically in the back when pinned. The valet can’t restore that glory, but manages to reestablish a semblance of order. He hands George a hand mirror in a gilded frame to inspect the results, then goes behind him to massage his shoulders. George looks, and seems, satisfied. More than satisfied, in fact.

  Now the valet pours him a nice cup of hot tea from a matching silver service. George, breathing hard, manages to take a few sips to put over the gimmick as the Charming Chest continues to heave. Suddenly George is on his feet, bawling furiously at Jefferies. “Uh-oh,” Dick Lane translates for the TV audience, “it looks like Georgie’s spied a speck of something in his tea!” Enraged, George hauls off and slaps Jefferies, who staggers backward. His master then aims a savage kick at his backside, but misses, and the audience erupts again at this slapstick. Finally, with much bowing and scraping, the stricken servant gets his abject apologies accepted. Eager to serve again, the valet offers George some smelling salts, but he declines.

  The second fall begins, and George quickly throws his friend Bobby to the canvas. As the babyface struggles to get back to his feet, shaking his head as if dazed, George taunts him, yelling, “Come on, get up, you rat!” For most of the second stanza, though, the babyface maintains the advantage; he needs to win the fall for the match to go the distance. He throws George out of the ring and onto the apron, and as the heel starts to climb back in, a striking, zaftig woman in a white ruffled blouse and dark skirt runs up to within three feet of him and yells, “Hey, George, your makeup’s all messed up. Want some of mine?” She taunts him by offering him her purse, raising it in front of George and dangling it by the strap. George snarls—in a flash he’s Desperate George Wagner of old, the wild man returned—and cocks his right fist back by his ear. But Beatrice, as the next day’s Times calls her, is uncowed. She puts up her own dukes and advances on the Lovely. Faced with this confrontation, Georgie runs for cover, skedaddling back into the ring and hiding behind the referee.

  Managoff slings George from one side of the ring to the other, where he rebounds, slingshot, off the ropes. In this part of the dance George shows one of the great staggers in grunt-and-groan history, reeling and stumbling as if barely able to keep his balance, mouth hanging open, eyes rolling in ersatz suffering. As George bounces off the ropes for the last time, Managoff jumps up and dropkicks him right in the chops. George falls “unconscious” to the mat and is counted out. Jefferies scuttles into their corner with the hand mirror again, but this time it’s so George can check for missing teeth. Once again the valet tries to reshape his puddled curls with the comb, but this time George waves him away in disgust. Frank and Joseph’s creation is just a ruined memory. This pains George bitterly, and lo, this bitterness turns to rage.

  The bell rings for the third fall and George leaps up, grabs his wooden stool by one leg, raises it over his head, and takes off after Managoff. Jefferies and the ref restrain him and pry the stool out of his clutch, and this heinous attempt gets the crowd riled all over again. The referee has to stop the action for a few moments to clear the wrappers, bottle caps, and half-smoked cigars off the canvas. When combat resumes George suddenly clutches his chest and collapses down to the mat while hanging on to a rope with one arm. “No, no,” he gasps at the advancing Managoff, the other arm up and out to keep the babyface away. It appears that after all this evening’s stresses and indignities, George’s delicate heart is giving out.

  “Watch out here, son,” Dick Lane warns the babyface over the air. Unheeding, Managoff stops his rush just as he reaches George’s side, drops his arms to his sides, and gazes down with concern at the felled victim. Then, in an instant, the devious heel leaps up, grabs the babyface around the neck, and jumps into the air, throwing his legs out straight in front of him. As he leaps, he jerks Managoff’s head viciously to the left with a convulsive wrench of both arms. Managoff’s torso and then the rest of his body are yanked up into the air, and his legs flail helplessly out to the side. He’s horizontal for a moment, airborne with George, who’s hanging on to him like a rodeo bull rider, and then Managoff comes crashing down to the canvas, landing on his back with a shattering smack that’s amplified by the microphones underneath the grappling floor. The innocent babyface has fallen, first for George’s trickery and then to his signature finishing move, “the flying side headlock.”

  Managoff writhes desperately under George, trying to get his shoulders off the mat and escape the pin. Facedown on top of him, the Beauteous Beast grins maniacally as he senses an ill-gotten victory. That’s the best kind. As George is fond of saying: “Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat.” To make sure of items one and three, George reaches back with his right foot, finds the lowest rope, and pushes off with his white shoe to gain additional leverage. These fans know the rules and thousands—men and women—shoot to their feet again, pointing at George and screaming at the ref that he’s cheating. “Look at his foot, that’s an illegal move!” “Foul!” George turns and gives the shouting fans a piece of his mind. “Shut up, you lousy stool pigeons!” Somehow the zebra-shirted arbiter manages not to see the infraction. He keeps counting Managoff out: “One…Two…Three. Pin.” The match is over: Gorgeous George wins again!

  This is so wrong. The booing builds to a cacophony of outrage and contempt that fills the Olympic and rings out for a good ten minutes—the lusty sound of ten thousand people exercising their constitutional right to vent spleen. Still sweating, his hair bedraggled, George struts around the ring in his shiny white trunks, raising his arms overhead in triumph, welcoming the abuse the mat addicts are spewing down on him, opening his arms wider and gesturing toward himself as if to embrace their rage. After a few minutes four off-duty cops approach, and escort George from the ring to the dressing room. Seeing the forces of order marshaled for the protection of the cheating heel rankles deeply, and in response fans bomb t
he ring with whatever debris they still have left to hurl. The injustice of it all is rank.

  And yet so right. Everyone, even the adherents of the luckless babyface, looks happy leaving the Olympic tonight. The fans talk and laugh excitedly as they file back up the steep aisles, gesturing as they reenact this or that high spot. Back in the locker room, George is happy, too, relieved and reassured. The home crowd’s reaction was just what he needed, completely washing away the hangover of doubt he’s carried since New York.

  Gratitude was not George’s forte, but he would always have a special regard for the Olympic and the Los Angeles fans. Unlike the hostiles in Madison Square Garden, they understood Gorgeousness immediately, and for the better part of a decade they loved and hated him faithfully.

  Tonight he’s come through for them as well. Seen in person, George proved just as vain, arrogant, and eye-poppingly effeminate as he is on their home screens. Confoundingly, he’s also shown them his wrestling athleticism and triumphed in this test of masculine power—he is indeed the Hubba-Hubba He-Man. This delighted and delighted-to-be-infuriated crowd got to meet the killer fruitcake in the flesh, if not close enough to touch, certainly near enough to insult or admire. When they show up at work the next morning, tonight’s spectators won’t tell their envious coworkers that they went to the wrestling at the Olympic. They’ll say, “We saw Gorgeous George.”

  Chapter 17

  KING STRUT

  Attendance at boxing matches went down after it became possible to watch at home on television instead of going to the fights in person. Turnouts at horse-racing tracks dropped 30 percent from 1946 to ’49. However, TV didn’t hurt wrestling’s live gate, as some promoters had feared—on the contrary, George’s histrionics and the previously unimaginable exposure of television gave the wrestling business a breathtaking jolt. Especially in those first few years of broadcasting, viewers poured into the arenas to experience what they’d seen on the tube, and to meet those crazy characters in person. Between 1948 and 1955, approximately, the pro game enjoyed its greatest popularity in this country, a golden age equaled only in the era of Hulk Hogan and “Wrestlemania,” the mid-to late 1980s. Promoters were so flush that they cut back on the cash-filled envelopes handed to sportswriters for their coverage; they didn’t really need them anymore.