Fighters: The Lives and Sad Deaths of Freddie Mills and Randolph Turpin

by James Morton

In July 1965 Freddie Mills, popular former light heavyweight champion of the world, was found shot in an alleyway off London's Charing Cross Road. Was he murdered and if so by whom? Did he kill himself—and if so, why should this happily married man whose popularity was immense take his own life? A year later Britain's second world champion of the era, the middleweight Randolph Turpin, was found shot dead in a room above his cafe in Leamington Spa. How did this man who earned thousands during his career come to end his life in a backstreet cafe? Or was he also murdered? Morton looks at the role of their managers and promoters, and the relationship with the Boxing Board of Control. Should many of Mills' fights and some of Turpin's have been sanctioned? Is this in part what led to their deaths? Is there any possible truth in the persistent rumours that Mills was the so-called Jack the Stripper, killer of prostitutes in Hammersmith?

436 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Sean Peters (A Good Thriller) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes disturbing, sad and well reserached story, shocking.

In July 1965 Freddie Mills, popular former light heavyweight champion of the world, was found shot in an alleyway off London's Charing Cross Road. Was he murdered and if so by whom? Did he kill himself and if so why should this happily married man whose popularity was immense take his own life? A year later Britain's second world champion of the era, the middleweight Randolph Turpin who defeated the fabulous Sugar Ray Robinson, was found shot dead in a room above his cafe in Leamington Spa. How did this man who earned thousands during his career come to end his life in a backstreet cafe? Or was he also murdered to prevent him getting the money due to him from his career? Morton looks at the role of their managers and promoters and the relationship with the Boxing Board of Control. Should many of Mills' fights and some of Turpin's have been sanctioned? Is this in part what led to their deaths? Where did their money go? Gambling, women, protection? Is there any possible truth in the persistent rumours that Mills was the so-called Jack the Stripper murderer, the killer of prostitutes in Hammersmith?

Powerfuil read , the dark side Four stars

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

One needn't have much familiarity with boxing to know it is, as Larry Merchant once quipped, "The Red Light District of the sports world." The people who populate it, from the promoters to many of the bloodthirsty fans, are not what the English would call "quality." The irony of course is that the men who beat each other are usually the least savage inhabitants of this ugly world. And the journey for most fighters is rocky from the start, and usually ends with a walk off a high cliff of some sort looming over jagged rocks (figuratively, of course, at least usually).

Rather than flogging a dead horse, let a single anecdote from the book suffice. Here is a summation of the post-boxing life of Tiberio Mitri, the Italian continental middleweight champion (in an era in which such regional straps were more than mere baubles meant to siphon sanctioning fee lucre): "After a bitter divorce, [Mitri] turned to heroin and his life spiraled downwards. In 1981, his thirty-year-old-son died of an overdose, while his daughter by a second marriage died of an AIDS-related illness six years later. In his final years, suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, he frequented bars in Rome and was cared for by only a small local charity. It is thought that he forgot to take his medicine and, out of touch with reality, thinking he might take a train to his home town of Trieste, he wandered on to railway tracks where he was killed by a train going at a mere 20 m.p.h. He simply ignored or failed to hear the warning signal, which was sounded three times." (Morton 373-374)

You get the idea. Recommended, although with the caveat that you understand in advance that things don't end well for the book's two main subjects, the lumbering but tough-as-nails Freddy Mills (believed to be a closeted bisexual and mobbed up with the Krays and other East End factions in Swinging London), or Randolph Turpin, the biracial offspring of an Englishwoman and a Guyanese father wounded in the Great War, who trained for fights in a remote castle with a mysterious count and committed suicide at the end of his career, but not before shooting his daughter in the throat with the same gun he used to off himself. Enjoy.