Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When did Abe "The Newsboy" Hollandersky die?
He died in San Diego in early November 1966, and was buried in Greenwood Memorial Park, as was his wife Freda in 1988. He had had no children. At his request, his tombstone was headed with his ring name, Abe the Newsboy, the name used almost exclusively by the newspapers that covered his boxing and wrestling career.
In 1938, Glick played an extra in MGM's "The Crowd Roars". In this successful boxing movie with Robert Taylor as the lead, Glick briefly appeared in a background gymnasium scene with boxers Larry Williams, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jimmy McLarnin, Abie Bain, Frankie Grandetta, Jack Roper, Tommy Herman, Larry Williams, and Abe "The Newsboy" Hollandersky.
On October 9, 1937 Callahan was scheduled to box in a benefit exhibition at Legion Stadium in Los Angeles for Wad Wadheim, a fight promoter who had suffered a stroke. Among the fifty or so boxers that participated were triple World Champion Henry Armstrong, Callahan's opponents Jackie Fields, Ace Hudkins, and Jack Silver as well as Young Jack Thompson, Abe 'The Newsboy" Hollandersky, Fidel La Barba, ex-Middleweight champion Al McCoy, Jim Jeffries, and Maxie Rosenbloom.
He became a professional wrestler under the name of Bull Montana. He gravitated to films in 1917, appearing first in several of the vehicles of his close pal Douglas Fairbanks. In 1919 he appeared as a gruesome villain in Maurice Tourneur's masterpiece "Victory" alongside Lon Chaney. Numbered among his many friends was Abe "The Newsboy" Hollandersky, boxer, wrestler, and movie extra, who claimed Montagna offered to help him finance his 1930 autobiography.
Perhaps the single fight that most influenced the "Newsboy" to retire was his brutal loss to welterweight Dave "KO" Palitz on September 6, 1915, in Lawrence Hall in New London. An accomplished welterweight, Palitz would unsuccessfully challenge Lou Holtz for the Connecticut State Welterweight Championship in 1920. During a boxing and wrestling tour in the Southwest and Mexico in the first half of 1915, Hollandersky had suffered from an illness of several weeks which may have contributed to his lack of conditioning for the bout.[87] The Springfield Courier said of the twenty round battle that "K. O. Palitz of this city handed Abe the worst trimming a man ever received in a local ring, though the newsboy was on his feet at the end of the bout". New London's The Day, noticing Abe's puffy face, swollen ears, and blackened eye after the fight, wrote "he looked as if his demise were near at hand."[88][89] The following February Palitz defeated Abe again in a less brutal ten-round match which Hollandersky had staged and promoted. The day of boxing featured boxers Joe Azevedo, an exceptional lightweight, Young Terry, and Charley Curley. A glance at Abe's personal tally of fights at the back of his autobiography indicates he may have sparred with both Curley and Young Terry.[90] Though Hollandersky continued to find matches, and even returned to Panama for several lucrative bouts in 1916, he may have sensed his days as a competitive prize fighter fighting top talent were numbered.
Hollandersky was reputed to have fought an unprecedented 1,039 boxing matches between 1905–18, as well as 387 wrestling matches.[3][4] The record of 1039 bouts from Hollandersky's autobiography was featured for decades in the Guinness Book of World Records, Ripley's Believe it or Not, The Ring Record Book, and hundreds of short newspaper articles made available as Associated Press fillers, appearing most frequently between 1930 and 1970. The most common fight total cited by Hollandersky was 1039, but as Abe fought additional exhibitions he increased the count, thus a few sources that interviewed him after the publication of his book quote higher totals.[5][6]
Blady, Ken, The Jewish Boxers' Hall of Fame, (1988). Shapolsky Publishers, Inc, New York, ISBN0-933503-87-3, pp.71–76. Hollandersky, Abe, The Life Story of Abe the Newsboy, Hero of a Thousand Fights with U. S. Navy, (1958). Published by Abraham Hollandersky, Los Angeles. Hoffman, Abe (Fall, 2007). "Going a Few Rounds with Abe the Newsboy", Western States Jewish History, Volume 36, pgs 3–33.
During his cruises, Abe often boxed and wrestled matches for both the training and entertainment of the troops and often fought professional bouts as well. His primary function was acting as a newsboy to the crew.
After he tried to sell a newspaper to Teddy Roosevelt aboard the presidential yacht USS Mayflower in September 1906, Roosevelt had Admiral Robley D. Evans, Commander of the North Atlantic Fleet, create the official unpaid title "Newsboy of the Navy," for Hollandersky, giving him the right to sell papers to any Navy ship and travel to any destination on U. S. Naval vessels. According to Hollandersky's autobiography, their meeting took place during Roosevelt's Presidential review of the Naval fleet in New York's Oyster Bay, off Long Island, September 2–4, 1906, and was a pivotal point in Abe's career. Hollandersky had a busy boxing schedule in New York that year, and Roosevelt had likely come from his home off Oyster Bay. Hollandersky and the President engaged in a brief and friendly exchange of light blows after Roosevelt waved off his Secret Service bodyguards. Their brief exchange took place on the Starboard deck of the Presidential yacht after Roosevelt saw Abe's cauliflower ear, and asked if he was a boxer. The President had boxed competitively at Harvard, and took a sincere interest in the eighteen year old newsboy who was keen on selling his papers to the fleet.[27]
Memories of Hollandersky would linger in the mind of some of boxing's greatest. In March 1911, in an interview with the Hartford Courant, Abe claimed to have once sold a paper to Jack Johnson, America's first Black world heavyweight champion. No less a boxer than Mohammad Ali compared himself to Johnson, as they both felt unjustly stripped of their heavyweight titles. Bob Johnston, of Johnston's Sport's Palace in San Diego, where both Hollandersky and Jack Johnson would live and visit, claimed to have once hired a down and out Johnson in 1929 to shadowbox at his adjacent Liberty Theatre. According to Johnson, the amiable champion often told patrons as he entertained them with shadow boxing that his opponent was Abe the Newsboy.[164][165]
Abe "The Newsboy" Hollandersky (December 3, 1888 – November 1, 1966) became the second American boxer to win the Panamanian Heavyweight Title when he defeated Californian Jack Ortega in nine rounds in Panama City on May 30, 1913. American congressmen, Naval personnel, and canal workers were among the crowd of nearly two thousand who watched Hollandersky gain victory over an opponent who outweighed him by over thirty-five pounds. The New York Times announced Hollandersky's best known win the following morning.[1][2]
Former New York columnist, and inconoclastic author C. L. Edson gave serious assistance to writing Abe's autobiography. Both Abe and Edson were acquaintances of Jewish journalist Walter Winchell. Abe's book had had previous ghostwriters attempt to assist with the publication with less success.[141] While in New York in 1929, Hollandersky dictated the great majority of the book to Edson, and large portions of the text appear to be copied verbatim from Hollandersky's dictation.[142][143] Hollandersky used newspaper articles from his vast collection of clippings as research, and may have written small portions of the text, including his boxing record himself. According to historian Abraham Hoffman, up to 20,000 copies of his autobiography may have been printed. These included nearly annual new editions which continued until 1960. The second edition in 1936, added the last three chapters of the book 23–25, the only notable changes to the original text of the 1930 edition. All editions subsequent to 1936 included only new photographs, largely of Navy ships and Naval acquaintances. The book's content is reliable in most respects, but occasionally Hollandersky's sequencing of events is off.[27]
Four of Abe's siblings, two boys and two girls, died of malnutrition in Berzniki prior to Abe's departure. Departing Russia as a young child, Hollandersky headed to Berlin, Germany and than Manchester, England with his mother Celia and older brother Sol. In Manchester, Celia worked in the textile industry to raise money for passage to America. Manchester was a natural choice as her relative Solomon Hollandersky, son of Falk, had already emigrated there before coming to America.[20] Hollandersky's father Charles, a tailor, had preceded him to America around 1886 to find work, at some point plying his trade with his brother Falk in New England. Charles sent money from New England to Abe's mother so his family could eventually afford passage to America, but became blind before they were able to leave Berzniki. Uncle Falk and his wife Sarah Feyga provided parental support to Abe at times in his youth.[19]
Five months after taking the championship from Ortega, Hollandersky lost his Panamanian heavyweight title, but lasted for twenty-five grueling rounds against the young and gifted, 1921 American "Colored" World Light Heavyweight Champion, William Ward, known as Kid Norfolk. Few in the crowd believed that Hollandersky would last ten rounds with the future Boxing Hall of Fame champion, who had a four-inch height advantage and outweighed him by over twenty-five pounds. Abe's ability to go the limit with Norfolk, a future Hall of Famer, seemed more impressive when considering, "from eleven until two o'clock on the day of the battle, Hollandersky was at Colon Harbor selling newspapers to the Marines on the USS Minnesota, only two hours before stepping into the ring with Kid Norfolk at four that afternoon".[76]
The match took place at a Skating Rink in Ancon, Panama, on Sunday afternoon, January 18, 1914, before a sold out crowd. New London's The Day wrote that Hollandersky had the edge in only three of the rounds, before the end when Norfolk "began battering Abe around the ring and trying hard for a knockout". The Panamanian crowd voiced their approval of the Newsboy's tenacity, and as soon as the final bell sounded to end the long contest, they "stormed the ring and carried the little fellow (Abe) off on their shoulders." Hollandersky claimed he was paid ten dollars a round for the Norfolk bout, and an additional seventeen hundred dollars that he shared from the winnings of his sailor friends, many of whom had bet on him to last ten rounds. This brought the total earnings for his evening's work to $1,950, roughly two years salary for many Americans in that era.[77][78][79][76]
Hollandersky fought fellow New Londoner Austin Rice and Connecticut welterweight Dave Palitz on more than five occasions each. Rice had shown enormous boxing promise at age thirty as a contender for the Featherweight Championship of the World against Young Corbett II on January 14, 1903. Hollandersky fought Rice, who was twelve years older and sidelined as a carpenter, in both paid and exhibition bouts until the end of Rice's boxing career. Fellow New Londoner Mosey King, an early New England Lightweight Champion and Yale boxing coach for forty years, is included in Hollandersky's list of fights in the back of his autobiography as a "Win". King, who like Abe was of Jewish ancestry and raised in a close family, was Connecticut's first boxing commissioner from 1921–23, and reputed to have given tips to any boxer looking to improve his game. He was a likely opponent of Hollandersky at least in a sparring or exhibition match, as he grew up in New London with Abe. According to at least one source, Rice, King, and Hollandersky shared Jimmy Nelson as an early coach and sparring partner as youths in New London. The legend goes that Nelson had worked as a corner man for undefeated World Lightweight Champion Jack McAuliffe before coming to New London.[47][48]
On October 9, 1937 Silver was scheduled to box in a benefit exhibition at Legion Stadium in Los Angeles for Wad Wadheim, a fight promoter who had suffered a stroke. Among the fifty or so boxing greats that participated were triple World Champion Henry Armstrong, Silver's opponents' Jackie Fields, Mushy Callahan, and Young Jack Thompson, Abe 'The Newsboy" Hollandersky, Fidel La Barba, ex-Middleweight champion Al McCoy, Jim Jeffries, and Maxie Rosenbloom.
The 5' 4" welterweight Hollandersky lost to Panama Joe, the younger and stronger Panamanian Light and Middleweight champion, and the accomplished middleweight Connors of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who had a five-inch height advantage. But he gave a closer fight to the Seattle welterweight Ryan before an impressive crowd of 1500 at the Savannah Club in Ancon, Panama on February 23, 1914. The Panamanian fans voiced their disapproval of the referee's Draw ruling as Hollandersky appeared to have landed more blows.[82] The Norwich Bulletin felt Hollandersky had the edge in the Ryan bout which they referred to as a "Welterweight Championship of the Isthmus." Perhaps as a result, Abe's fight records at the end of his autobiography and Nat Fleischer's 1944 Ring Record Book referred to Hollandersky as a Welterweight Champion of Panama, though his actual title was heavyweight champion.[83]
On March 28, 1897, Connolly met fringe world welterweight contender Paddy Fenton at the Suffolk Athletic Club in Boston, Massachusetts, losing in a fifteenth round disqualification. Connolly was disqualified for a punch to the groin of Fenton two minutes and thirty seconds into the fifteenth round. The victory for Fenton over a future Welterweight Champion, even if it was the result of a foul, may have been one of his most notable. Around September 1911, around the age of thirty-eight, Fenton would perform an exhibition bout with the young welterweight Abe "The Newsboy" Hollandersky, a future Panamanian Heavyweight Champion, at the New London County Fair.
In 1938, he appeared in a background gymnasium scene for the successful 1938, MGM boxing movie, "The Crowd Roars" with boxers Abe "The Newsboy" Hollandersky, Joe Glick, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Roper, and Tommy Herman.
Hollandersky had a busy boxing schedule throughout 1910 and 1911. He used his naval privileges in combination with commercial vessels between 1912 and 1914, to sail south from his hometown of New London, selling newspapers to the fleet while stopping to fight boxing matches in Cuba, Jamaica, Panama, Chile, and later Mexico. In January and February 1912, taking a commercial vessel South, he fought several bouts and wrestled at or near the base in Guantanamo, Cuba, while the fleet was on maneuvers. He served briefly as newsboy for the USS<i>Delaware while she was in Cuba in January.[58] The New York Tribune of March, 1912, reported "Abe has been with the fleet at Guantanamo all winter and has won several bouts with ease against the best the island affords." The Reverend W. H. "Ironsides" Reaney was a boxing mentor to Abe while he was in Cuba, and helped arrange his Cuban bouts during morning breakfasts aboard the ill-fated battleship USS Utah. Reaney helped referee a few shipboard fights, and had boxed in his earlier days. The USS Utah had been constructed the previous August, 1911, and was on a shakedown cruise ending in Guantanamo. Though obsolete by 1941, she would become one of the first ships lost at Pearl Harbor.
According to one newspaper, after Ortega pushed him onto the ropes in the final round, "Abe was partly in the ring and partly out of it, spectators in the crowd trying to prevent his falling from the platform and Ortega, without really realizing what he was doing but fighting madly, swung low and landed on Abe's groin". The article continues, "Abe, who did not fall when the blow was delivered, walked to his corner across the ring and then laid down on the floor to recover from the effects of the punch. The injury he received was apparent to all who were close to see him when he was undressed by his seconds. It was some fifteen minutes before he was able to leave the ring." Hollandersky inferred in his autobiography the foul was probably intentional, particularly the one that ended his rematch with Ortega later in August. The foul ended the bout, and made Hollandersky Heavyweight Champion of Panama.
Facing another well known opponent in an exhibition match on November 16, 1918, Hollandersky met the former light and welterweight world champion Joe Walcott in New London for a four-round match to benefit the United War Workers of America. The bout showcased intense boxing strategy, though Walcott was well past his prime. Appearing as the headliner for the benefit was Larry Williams, a light heavyweight of considerable skill, who would act as a sparring partner for Jack Dempsey in 1921 and later for Dempsey's successor as world heavyweight champion Gene Tunney.[99] Williams would appear with Abe in MGM's The Crowd Roars (1938). A photograph of Hollandersky with Williams and Gene Tunney, likely taken at a boxing benefit or training match, appear in most editions of Abe's book.[100][101]
On September 6, 1915, Palitz fought Abe Hollandersky in Aborn Hall in New London, in a dominating twenty round victory. New London's "The Day" gave only one round to Hollandersky in their newspaper decision. Palitz fought New London welterweight Hollandersky four times in paid bouts, and several more times in exhibitions.
Japan was already threatening as a naval power and President Roosevelt, architect of the cruise, intended to demonstrate the strength of the American fleet to both allied countries and potential enemies. Hollandersky sailed aboard the USS Kearsarge and served as her newsboy as she circumnavigated the globe and docked at the Navy's most exotic ports. The pinnacle of naval technology at the time, the Kearsarge served as the flagship of the North Atlantic fleet through 1905. Both heavily armed and armored, she carried a crew of 550, and could cruise at a top speed of twenty miles per hour. She docked in Australia in August 1908, along with close to a thousand sailors from the fifteen other Naval vessels who flooded the streets and received a warm reception in Melbourne and Sydney. Abe would have had time to take primarily the Australian leg of the cruise. He likely stopped at Aukland, New Zealand, and possibly the Philippines as he was absent from New London through much of 1906, six months in 1907 and nine months in 1908 which included the period when the Kearsarge arrived in Melbourne in August. His rigorous boxing and wrestling schedule precluded him from traveling continuously for the full fourteen months of the cruise.[52]