Schulberg once asked Donoghue, ?Could you have been a champion?? Well, Donoghue answered, ?I could have been a contender??
?We?d go in a bar and two minutes later the bartender is his best friend.??Budd Schulberg
Born in Yonkers, New York, on November 20, 1930, Roger Donoghue fought as a welter from 1948 to 1952, winding up with an impressive record of 27 wins, 17 by knockout, four losses, two by knockout, and one draw.
Although most of his fights took place at Brooklyn?s Ridgewood Grove, Donoghue finally got his shot at the Mecca, Madison Square Garden, on August 29, 1951. He wasn?t happy with his opponent, however, Brooklyn?s George Flores, as he?d already stopped him by eighth-round TKO earlier that month. He did it even more definitively this time around, stopping him by eighth-round KO. As a result of the injuries sustained in the two Donoghue fights, and perhaps in others (he?d also been stopped by Chico Vejar and Johnny Cerky), Flores died that September 3. He was 19.
It was this tragedy that led New York State to decree that a fighter stay out of the ring for at least a month following a knockout.
Donoghue donated his purse to the Flores family, but that didn?t stop the haunting. There was the time a boy came up to him on the street, ?You killed a man,? he said. ?I?m going to tell everybody.? No need, Donoghue told him, ?They already know.?
Gutted, Donoghue had three more fights before quitting the ring for good.
He got work promoting Rheingold at sporting events until a fairy godfather by the name of Elia Kazan offered him $75 a day (around $650 in today?s money) to teach Marlon Brando how to box for his role as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront.
There were other boxers on the set. Screenwriter Budd Schulberg had the idea of hiring former heavyweights to portray mob muscle, as opposed to the usual Hollywood heavies. ?I?ve seen the real mob goons down on the docks,? Schulberg told Kazan, ?and I know what they look like, and I think we should bring in real fighters.? To Schulberg?s pleasure and surprise, Kazan gave him the green light. ?Great,? he said, ?bring them in.? As a result, Abe Simon, Tami Mauriello, and Tony Galento got the roles of, respectively, Barney, Tullio, and Truck, while Lee Oma was cast as the black-shirted bartender. As Martin Scorsese remembers, ?The shirt the bartender wears, everything, is literally as if it was shot in, like, on Elizabeth Street or Mott Street or Mulberry Street.?
Schulberg once asked Donoghue how far he might have gone if he?d stayed in the ring. ?Could you have been a champion?? Well, Donoghue answered, ?I could have been a contender.? A seemingly throwaway line, but ?it really stuck in my mind,? said Schulberg, who wasn?t the only writer Donoghue influenced. The title of Norman Mailer?s novel, Tough Guys Don?t Dance, comes from an anecdote the one-time boxer told him. Mobster Frank Costello comes into the Stork Club with gorgeous gal in tow. ?Dance with her,? commands ?The Prime Minister? upon spying three boxing champs. Knowing the difference between gangster-tough and boxer-tough, the three men do as they?re bid. But one of them, Willie Pep, wonders aloud why Costello doesn?t dance with her himself. After all, she?s his hottie. Snarls Costello, ?Tough guys don?t dance.?
Speaking of hotties, Donoghue encouraged fellow welterweight Joe Miceli to go all out against Art Aragon by taking him to the set of Hot Blood, starring full-figured Jane Russell (38D-25-36). Beat Aragon, Donoghue told him, and any woman on the set is yours. No, ?Not that one. That?s Jane Russell.? Miceli beat Aragon by unanimous decision at Los Angeles? Olympic Auditorium on August 4, 1955.
Hot Blood was directed by Nicholas Ray, who wanted to do a movie based on Donoghue?s life, starring James Dean, but the project was shelved following Dean?s death.
Years later, Donoghue had the pleasure of meeting James Cagney, telling him that he?d taught Brando how to fight for Waterfront, but that he hadn?t taught him anything about acting. ?You could have taught him something there, too,? said the Hollywood legend. But Donoghue liked Brando, and the feeling was mutual. In the scene in The Godfather, where Sonny Corleone (James Caan) beats up brother-in-law Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo), there?s a Rheingold truck prominently in the background, courtesy of Brando. You can bet your bottom dollar that if Donoghue had knocked Brando out on the set, as Tony Zale did to Paul Newman on Somebody Up There Likes Me, there?d have been no Rheingold truck as a backdrop to Sonny chewing on Carlo?s fingers.
Greeting everyone he knew, or didn?t know, with a ?Hey, Champ? and a chuck under the chin (including Salvador Dali, which I would have paid money to see), Donoghue was friends with boxers, writers, gangsters, all sorts of interesting people, and there was much sadness when he died from complications from Alzheimer?s in Greenport, New York, on August 20, 2006, age 75.
Said wife of 43 years, Fay Moore, a renowned painter of thoroughbred horses, ?I liked him because he was good looking. Wasn?t that good enough? And he had beautiful legs.?
