Cinderella Man

[Guest]

The recent movie, "Cinderella Man", about boxing chamipion James J. Braddock, besides being a wonderful movie, brings to mind, that in John Scarne's autobiographies, he makes much of his friendship with Braddock, almost as if he engineered his comeback and involvement with his comeback success.
Could this be a case of Scarne's self-promotion/importance, or Scarne not being ignored/not-known-about, by the script writers, or somewhere in-between?

[Kevin Connolly]

I really don't know. I know they lived about 3 miles away from each other, so they could have had contact with each other. As a matter of fact, Braddock Park is probably a mile or so from Scarne's home and a block away speakeasy/bar/resturaunt where Scarne hung out.

[John Smetana]

Originally posted by Kevin Connolly:
I really don't know. I know they lived about 3 miles away from each other, so they could have had contact with each other. As a matter of fact, Braddock Park is probably a mile or so from Scarne's home and a block away speakeasy/bar/resturaunt where Scarne hung out.

Hi Kevin,
Exactly where is/was Scarne's home and is the bar still there? If so, what is it named now? Thanks in advance,

All the best,
John Smetana

[Steve V]

There was some compaints from Max Barr (sp?) Jr., he who played Jethro, about the accuracy of the movie and the characters and the response from the writer was it was fictionalized. So I wouldn't be looking at it for any historically accurate info.
Steve V

[Guest]

The correct spelling is Baer, and -- lest anyone miss the reference -- Max Baer, Jr (who played Jethro on "The Beverly Hillbillies") was the son of boxing champion Max Baer. Here's HTML to one of the articles about the portayal of Baer in "Cinderella Man".

http://slate.msn.com/id/2120151/

It's interesting to learn that, according to his son, Max Baer's "clowning" in the ring was something he did only AFTER killing another fighter in the ring. It might also have something to do with the fact that (like so many, including Elvis Presley) what he REALLY wanted to be was a movie star!