THE TIMES today (15th May )illustrate’s a story with a sad colour photograph of a boarded up London .pub. It is one with an interesting history, which I will touch on.
But first I’ve a more personal story. I was about a week in London and in digs in Ealing, a western suburb and decided to visit Camden Town. Radio Eireann often featured traditional music recorded in its pubs. So, respectably dressed in suit, white shirt, shower-proof and shiny shoes I set off. As an Irishman I couldn’t let the side down, and scruffiness was not the fashion, back in 1964. Anyway I saw this pub – The Elephant’s Head, and over the door it said that the licensee was Michael Sugrue.
I went up to the bar and before I could order a drink, a fellow who looked like he’d slept in ditches for months in the same old clothes, put a finger to the side of his nose, discharging its contents, with the accuracy of a rifleman competing at Bisley, right between my highly polished shoes. I never ordered my drink, and, without offering an apology, left the pub, and Camden Town.
Michael Sugrue, from Killorglin, was short of stature, nicknamed “Butty” and distinguished himself as a Circus Strongman, and a promoter of stunts, for instance, having someone lie buried in a coffin for a couple of months, only to arise again, fresh as a daisy. He also promoted sporting spectaculars, particularly of wrestling and boxing.
For a long time he was the protector and friend of Jack Doyle whose career might have inspired some Damon Runyon stories, but far outclassed anythingin Guys ‘n’ Dolls.
Jack Doyle stood 6’5″ had the profile of a Greek God, and caused traffic jams, when walking down Piccadilly after dining at the Ritz, or when fighting at the White City, or the Albert Hall, as titled ladies, or heiresses of Detroit car manufacturers, fought with each other to throw themselves at the feet of “THE GORGEOUS GAEL.”
Jack Doyle a good, though untrained, tenor voice and earned money in cabarets, and he had no mean opinion of himself. Visiting America, he boasted he could sing like John McCormack and box like Jack Dempsey. But the former World champion retorted that Doyle had got it the wrong way round.
In Hollywood the Gorgeous Gael stole one beautiful actress from under (the nose?) of a famous star, before marrying another,the Mexican Movita, who starred with Charles Laughton in Mutiny on The Bounty.
But Jack Doyle neglected his training,lost one fight whilst suffering from his worship of Venus, drank too much and beat his lovers. Movita divorced him, then starred in a remake of Mutiny on the Bounty and married her co-Star Marlon Brando. (Did I mention Guys ‘n’ Dolls?) .
. Anyhow, while Jack Doyle was past his hey-day and no longer wore Savile Row suits, or hand-stitched shoes, made to measure by the best craftsmen in the Imperial capital.
But he could still earn a crust singing in pubs or in wrestling bouts promoted by “Buttie” Sugrue.
Buttie pulled off a major coup, organising a fight between Alvin Lewis and Mohammed Ali in Dublin’s Croke Park in 1972, when Ali was not wanted in America. And he took care of Jack Doyle until his own death in 1977.
With no one to look after him Jack Doyle only survived his friend by a year. He slept rough in parks, penniless and his shoes broken. He had faults, but meaness was not one of them. He had once befriended a young down-and-out, fed him and got him decent clothes and arranged a job for him. The young man had prospered.
When he heard of Jack’s death, he arranged for a Requiem Mass for him in London, the transport of his remains to his native Cobh via Dublin, and burial after Masses in both places. Ar Dheis De go raibh an Anam, agus Anamnacha a Chairde.
There’s enough You Tube coverage, from the 1930s on of Jack Doyle, Michael Sugrue, Movita, Marlon Brando and Muhammed Ali to enjoy until the end of Lock Down.
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