page_title: Muhammad Ali
section_title: In the media and popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Muhammad Ali / Legacy / In the media and popular culture
caption_attribution_description: Painting of Ali by pop artist John Stango
context_page_description: Muhammad Ali was an American professional boxer, activist, and philanthropist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers of all time.
  Ali was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and began training as an amateur boxer at age 12. At 18, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics, and turned professional later that year. He converted to Islam and became a Muslim after 1961, and eventually took the name Muhammad Ali. He won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a major upset at age 22 in 1964. In 1966, Ali refused to be drafted into the military, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. He was arrested, found guilty of draft evasion, and stripped of his boxing titles. He appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in 1971, but he had not fought for nearly four years and lost a period of peak performance as an athlete.
context_section_description: As a world champion boxer, social activist, and pop culture icon, Ali was the subject of numerous creative works including books, films, music, video games, TV shows, and other. Muhammad Ali was often dubbed the world's "most famous" person in the media. Several of his fights were watched by an estimated 1–2 billion viewers between 1974 and 1980, and his lighting of the torch at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics was watched by an estimated 3.5 billion viewers.
  Ali appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on 38 different occasions, second only to Michael Jordan's 46. He also appeared on the cover of Time Magazine 5 times, the most of any athlete. In 2015, Harris Poll found that Ali was one of the three most recognizable athletes in the United States, along with Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth.
  On the set of Freedom Road Ali met Canadian singer-songwriter Michel (also known as Robert Williams, a co-founder of The Kindness Offensive), and subsequently helped create Michel's album entitled The First Flight of the Gizzelda Dragon and an unaired television special featuring them both.
  Ali was the subject of the British television program This Is Your Life in 1978 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. Ali was featured in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, a 1978 DC Comics comic book pitting the champ against the superhero. In 1979, Ali guest-starred as himself in an episode of the NBC sitcom Diff'rent Strokes. The show's title itself was inspired by the quote "Different strokes for different folks" popularized in 1966 by Ali, who also inspired the title of the 1967 Syl Johnson song "Different Strokes", one of the most sampled songs in pop music history.
  He also wrote several bestselling books about his career, including The Greatest: My Own Story and The Soul of a Butterfly. The Muhammad Ali effect, named after Ali, is a term that came into use in psychology in the 1980s, as he stated in The Greatest: My Own Story: "I only said I was the greatest, not the smartest." According to this effect, when people are asked to rate their intelligence and moral behavior in comparison to others, people will rate themselves as more moral, but not more intelligent than others.
  When We Were Kings, a 1996 documentary about the Rumble in the Jungle, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and the 2001 biopic Ali garnered an Oscar nomination for Will Smith in the category of Best Actor for his portrayal of Ali. The latter film was directed by Michael Mann, and mixed reviews, with many critics praising Smith's portrayal of Ali. Prior to making the film, Smith rejected the role until Ali requested that he accept it. Smith said the first thing Ali told him was: "Man, you're almost pretty enough to play me."
  In 2002, Ali was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the entertainment industry. His star is the only one to be mounted on a vertical surface, out of deference to his request that the name Muhammad—a name he shares with the Islamic prophet—not be walked upon.
  The Trials of Muhammad Ali, a documentary directed by Bill Siegel that focuses on Ali's refusal of the draft during the Vietnam War, opened in Manhattan on August 23, 2013. A 2013 made-for-TV movie titled Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight dramatized the same aspect of Ali's life.
  Antoine Fuqua's documentary What's My Name: Muhammad Ali was released in 2019.
caption: Muhammad Ali pop art painting by John Stango
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