Golden Boy Oscar de la Hoya will be among the mourners Wednesday in the Central California town of Cambria as final tributes are paid to veteran boxing promoter Lorraine Chargin.
Lorraine, age 79, died Tuesday after a short but devastating bout with cancer, leaving her husband of a mere 49 years, legendary former Olympic Auditorium matchmaker Don “War A Week” Chargin and hundreds of grateful boxers, managers, trainers and boxing writers behind.
(See bittersweet Ron Borges’ column on Lady Lorraine here.)
GBP matchmaker Eric Gomez, who learned the ropes of boxing at the highest level by leaning on the many decades of wisdom and experience of BOTH Chargins, confirmed that Oscar will turn out for the memorial service.
“It was Richard Schaefer’s idea to hire Don and, when you hired Don, Lorraine was always part of the package. I never really saw one without the other,” Gomez told me Wednesday by phone from his Los Angeles office. “But Oscar immediately and enthusiastically approved it.
Oscar de la Hoya took sagacious boxing advice from both Chargins, Lady Lorraine and Dandy Don (Hogan Photos/Golden Boy)
“It’s a very sad loss for all of us, particularly for Don. Oscar and I grew up in LA always hearing about the Chargins and the great fighters and fights at the Olympic.”
Gomez, who was a quick learner as a Chargin understudy, saw the less fierce side of Lorraine that some never had the chance to observe.
Making matches: Don Chargin works the phones while his beloved wife, Lady Lorraine, stands by his side (John Chavez Photo)
I often kidded with Don and Lorraine about her being a “Dragon Lady.”
It was always meant in good humor, though.
“Don’t forget all their years in boxing,” Gomez said. “They knew all the ins, all the outs of what can be at times a very mean, very touch business. Lorraine was so incredibly savvy. They were my mentors in boxing and they became a part of my life, including my wife and kids. I took my family to visit them in Cambria.
“With Lorraine, when you got down to it, she had a shield, this armor she used around the boxing business. Outside of boxing, though, she was a real sweetheart.”
The worst thing Don could do, as the surviving spouse of an amazingly close five decade marriage, would be to sit idle.
Gomez said Golden Boy won’t let that happen.
“Oscar and Richard said it, Don and Lorraine were part of our Golden Boy family,” Gomez said.
“We’ve got lots of shows, Telefutura and other shows coming up. We will keep Don occupied with boxing.”
As a female, Lorraine was a trailblazer. At the Olympic with it’s weekly grind of 50 shows per year, she and Don worked under original “Dragon Lady” Aileen Eaton.
Two prominent female promoters took note of the support they got in their careers from Lorraine.
The speakers are big fight publicist Kelly Swanson and Kathy Duva, who runs Main Events out of New Jersey.
Kelly Swanson: Lorraine was a great role model for me as one of the first woman to make a indelible mark in boxing. I would see her and Don in the press room for all the big fights over the last 10 years and she was always nice and encouraging to me to keep making a mark in the sport. I will remember and appreciate her kindness forever.”
Kathy Duva: “I don?t remember exactly when I first met Lorraine, but it was most certainly a very long time ago. Because my introduction to the sweet science was as the boss? wife, I saw Lorraine as the only real role model I had in this male dominated world. She was among the first to accept me as a boxing executive and I will always love her for that. She was as loving with the people who mattered to her as she was tough and smart when it came to dealing with her associates in business. These are qualities that I came to admire and have tried to emulate. Incidentally, when I think of Lorraine I always think of Christmas because no matter what was going on in her life, the Christmas card from Lorraine and Don was always the first of the season to arrive at my door. I offer sincere condolences to Don, Spanky and the rest of their family from me and the rest of the staff at Main Events.”
Before he became a big shot fight promoter, drawing 20,000 fans to shows at The Spectrum, J. Russell Peltz was a wretched boxing scribe (Philadelphia Bulletin). His reportorial ability shows through in these memories of Don and Lorraine:
I met Don for the first time in person in the summer of 1972 when I was driving cross-country from Philadelphia, PA. We already had spoken by phone but had not yet done any business together. I stopped by his office at the Olympic to say hello, then saw him again in April of 1977 on another cross-country trip scouting fighters. He had a fight that night (Roman Contreras fought Modesto Conception after Bobby Chacon had canceled out with an injury or something) and he gave me a ticket and a sat with him and Lorraine, the first time I met her.
We began doing business after that and he sent several guys to Philly to box for me (Contreras, Victor Abraham). Over the years we stayed in touch and once I sent Charlie “Choo Choo” Brown out there to box Loreto Garza in 1988.
When I was working at ESPN, we did several shows with Don and Lorraine at the Radisson Hotel in Sacramento. They always set up their office in their suite and we’d spend days and nights together. Sometimes I would stay a few days longer and we’d drive down the coast route to their home, the first once in Bell Canyon outside Los Angeles and later in Cambria. I was at the ARCO arena the afternoon she dressed down Don King in front of everyone for trying to grab two press seats without authorization. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She was right in his face in front of 7,000 people.
Every time I was in LA, we got together, whether I was out there for the World Boxing Hall of Fame dinners or once I went out there for a boxing memorabilia auction. In 2004, they asked me to do a Telefutura show with them and we sold out the Blue Horizon and we spent the week together with my wife Linda and them going out to dinner. During the day they’d come to my office and we’d sit around talking about boxing and everything else under the sun.
We did many Telefutura shows together, one in New Haven, CT, where Lorraine was born. Even when we were partners, Lorraine insisted on buying tickets for her family when she easily could have taken comps. That’s the way she was–nobody got a free ride with her. You had to earn your stripes.
I was with them in Arizona in November, 2008, for the Tomas Villa-Rogers Mtagwa classic on Telefutura when she first got sick with shingles. She could never get rid of it and little more than a year later Don told me she had cancer. I was fortunate to have visited them the middle of last December when I stayed with them for two nights. The first night we went out to eat and Don later told me it was the last time she ever went out before the cancer got worse. The next day Lorraine made breakfast and dinner and they were, as always, wonderful company.
Whenever people frown on boxing and say: “Tell me, Russell, who can you really trust in boxing?” my first answer always has been Don and Lorraine Chargin. Wonderful people!
When they came to New York twice last year for the Boxing Promoters Association meetings, we went to dinner several times with my youngest son Daniel and his fiance Lauren and the Chargins fell in love with them. Later, they sent Lauren a gift when they got engaged–it was the Mezuzah that Aileen Eaton wore around her neck. Whether or not Daniel and Lauren apreciated that gift, I surely did.
We’d get together every June at the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, NY. Some years I was not sure about going, but they told me it was my obligation to go every year. We’d do our own thing some nights, going out to a private dinner with Lorraine’s family at a nice Italian restaurant off the beaten path.
I always asked them for advice on moving fighters, most notably my current star, Mike Jones. They always said: “Don’t let the TV stations dictate to you how to move your fighter. Don’t get stupid over money. Make the right fight first, then talk about the money. If you can do it off-TV, then do that, so long as it’s the right fight.”
When we did Telefutura shows together, they always contributed television money and gave me carte blanche as to what fights to make. It was, and remains, a wonderful friendship. Lorraine could be tough as nails and sweet as sugar and I knew she loved me (she said so) and she knew I loved her (she said that, too).
She’s the kind of person you would want watching your back or fighting beside you in the trenches. If she was your friend, you could count on her for anything. They don’t make people like Lorraine (and Don) any more and that’s too bad. I probabaly have left out a lot of stories but this is a very sad time for all of us who knew her and loved her and I will try to celebrate her life and remember all the good times we had together.
J Russell Peltz, a friend”
Recognition of Lorraine’s passing also came from Don Jose Sulaiman, longtime chieftain of the World Boxing Council:
“With deep sadness and sorrow the World Boxing Council informs of the passing away of a woman who had been the great lady of boxing since half a century ago, Lorraine Chargin, wife of promoter and our good friend Don Chargin.
The WBC declares world mourning in the scope of our sport due to the passing away of this distinguished woman, who left her name deeply placed in the history of world boxing, especially in boxing in California. We are sending our deepest condolences and we truly hope our friend Don Chargin resigns himself to such a terrible loss very soon.”
Former Don King aide and Madison Square Garden boxing chief Bobby Goodman also chimed in on Lorraine’s death.
“Lorraine Chargin was always in control of the details of a promotion with her lifelong husband and partner — the fabulous Don Chargin. She was a loyal friend and associate to all of us who had the good fortune of working with her. and she will be missed greatly,” Goodman said by email.
When Don was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, he said then and later that his entry was “incomplete” without his boxing and life partner.
Hopefully, Ed Brophy and crew in Canastota can correct a mere “clerical error” and add Lorraine’s name to her husband’s IBHOF plaque.
Lorraine Chargin, she belongs.
