“I’ve got tiger blood.
“I’ve got the DNA of Adonis.”
When I heard those NBC interview sound bits from Hollywood madman Charlie Sheen, I thought maybe he was talking about ex-fighter turned lost crackhead turned successful trainer and motivational speaker Dicky Eklund rather than himself.
Truth is, Eklund never boasted like that.
Not when he went 10 rounds in Boston (1978) against rising superstar Ray Leonard and not Tuesday, a day after actor Christian Bale won the “Best Supporting Actor” Oscar for portraying “the Pride of Lowell” and telling the insane but accurate tale of Eklund, half brother Micky Ward, their sisters and their mother.
(Melissa Leo, who played the mother of the fighting clan, was Best Supporting Actress.)
See Joe Cazaghe ducking, dodging randy Kate Price at Sir Elton John’s Oscar party. Apparently, Price was working on a Tale of the Tape.
Although Bale was more than gracious in saluting Irish Micky and Dicky in his acceptance speech, including plugging website Dickecklund.com. the words sailed over Dicky’s head.
Don’t tell me the Battling Brothers were put into the cheap seats on Hollywood’s biggest night?
“Nah,” the 53 year old Eklund told me by phone from Los Angeles, where he was waiting to jet back to the Boston area. “We were in the fourth row. One of the guys from the movie on Muhammad Ali, the black guy, sat next to us with his daughter and we spoke.”
Eklund said it wasn’t star Will Smith or the Drew “Bundini” Brown character (Jamie Foxx) but may have Mykelti Williamson, who was Don King in the Ali epic.
Eklund said he got red carpet treatment in the film capital.
“I get more respect out here than I do back home,” Eklund said. “The people are nicer.”
(Having fought in the Lowell Golden Gloves as a teenager, your reporter can attest to that. In fact, it turns that Eklund and I had the same trainer, Boston legend Johnny Dunn.)
I aked if Eklund thought Bale’s intense portrayal might be overlooked.
“Nah, I had no doubts that he would win it. It’s a good feeling, a good experience for me and for Micky too.”
Eklund and Ward have upcoming motivational talks cum movie in Fitchburg, Mass., and then at Suffolk University on Beacon Hill in Boston. They are also booked in St. Louis soon.
Given his long record of sobriety, I asked what Eklund thought of the manic Sheen’s claim that he had cured himself of substance abuse, albeit leaving an opening on NBC for wine and champagne toasts.
“What we do is show the movie and then I talk about how I overcame my drug problem. It’s a battle every day but I don’t let it beat me,” Eklund said.
“Charlie Sheen is lying to say he cured himself instantly, though. He can say AA is crap, some people do say that. It can be or it can work for some people.
“I know people who were in AA a long time and then had a relapse. There’s not only one method. Some people believe in God, others only believe in or call on God when they get hit by a car. People are different.”
So is Dicky Eklund.
And he gave a great actor named Bale a marvelous canvas on which to paint.
Eklund didn’t beat Sugar Ray but now he can truthfully say he and Irish Micky, with Boston boy Mark Wahlberg and Bale, they did beat Oscar.
