Sugar Ray Robinson | American boxer | Britannica.com Sugar Ray Robinson Alternative Title: Walker Smith, Jr. Sugar Ray Robinson Floyd Patterson Sugar Ray Robinson, byname of Walker Smith, Jr. (born May 3, 1921, Detroit , Mich., U.S.—died April 12, 1989, Culver City , Calif.), American professional boxer, six times a world champion: once as a welterweight (147 pounds), from 1946 to 1951, and five times as a middleweight (160 pounds), between 1951 and 1960. He is considered by many authorities to have been the best fighter in history. Sugar Ray Robinson (right) fighting Randy Turpin, 1951 AP He won 89 amateur fights without defeat, fighting first under his own name and then as Ray Robinson, using the amateur certificate of another boxer of that name in order to qualify for a bout. He won Golden Gloves titles as a featherweight in 1939 and as a lightweight in 1940.

Robinson won 40 consecutive professional fights before losing to Jake LaMotta in one of their six battles. On Dec. 20, 1946, he won the welterweight championship by defeating Tommy Bell on a 15-round decision. Robinson resigned this title on winning the middleweight championship by a 13-round knockout of LaMotta on Feb. 14, 1951. He lost the 160-pound title to Randy Turpin of England in 1951 and regained it from Turpin later that year. In 1952 he narrowly missed defeating Joey Maxim for the light-heavyweight (175-pound) crown and a few months later retired. Robinson returned to the ring in 1954, recaptured the middleweight title from Carl (Bobo) Olson in 1955, lost it to and regained it from Gene Fullmer in 1957, yielded it to Carmen Basilio later that year, and for the last time won the 160-pound championship by defeating Basilio in a savage fight in 1958. Paul Pender defeated Robinson to win the title on Jan.

22, 1960, and also won their return fight. Robinson continued to fight until late 1965, when he was 45 years old. In 201 professional bouts, he had 109 knockouts. He suffered only 19 defeats, most of them when he was past 40. His outstanding ability and flamboyant personality made him a hero of boxing fans throughout the world. In retirement he appeared on television and in motion pictures and formed a youth foundation in 1969. Learn More in these related articles: Sugar Ray Robinson facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Sugar Ray Robinson Sources It is a testament to Sugar Ray Robinson’s greatness as a boxer that when people discuss who was the greatest boxer of all-time, pound-for-pound, not only is no one else usually picked, but rarely is anyone else even considered. Robinson dominated first the welterweight and then the middleweight divisions at a time when boxing’s popularity was at its peak, and his skills were so widely admired that famed boxing writer Bert Sugar once wrote that being knocked out by Robinson “was more of an honor than a disgrace.” Robinson was born Walker Smith, Jr.

on May 3, 1921 in Detroit . He grew up poor in the Black Bottom section of that city. In 1932 his father, Walker Sr., and his mother Leila were divorced, and the elder Walker left the family. Leila took Ray and his sisters to New York , where she looked for work. Young Walker had tried boxing at the Brewster gym back in Detroit, and he pursued the sport in earnest once in New York. His manager, George Gainford, ran the gym Smith trained at as an amateur, and remembered the first time Smith came to his gym. “I told Smitty he was too young to fight,” he recalled in Harry Carpenter’s book, Masters of Boxing “Besides, he said his ma would kill him if he got mixed up with the fight game. So I chased him away from the gym, back to delivering groceries and dancing for dimes. But he turned up again. I took him into my home, taught him a few tricks and let him stay around when I took my team round the clubs.… I smacked him down more than once. Smitty deserved his breaks, though.

In those days he had nothing.” “As Sweet As Sugar” A turning point in the legend of Sugar Ray Robinson came one night in Kingston, New York, when Smith was 15. Gainford was short one boxer for a show, and decided to use Smith. Since New York state law forbade anyone under the age of 16 to box, however, Smith needed fake credentials. Gainford happened to have in his pocket the fight card of one Ray Robinson. Smith fought under that name that night, and he would never be known as anything else for the rest of his career. The rest of his name was coined in Watertown, New York, when a reporter observed to Gainford that Robinson was “as sweet as sugar,” the trainer concurred. The fighter was briefly known as Ray (Sugar) Robinson, until it was decided Sugar Ray sounded better. At a Glance… Born Walker Smith, Jr., May 3, 1921, in Detroit, Ml; son of Walker Smith, Sr. and Leila Smith. Married three times: second wife Edna M. Holly, from 1943-60; third wife Millie Johnson, from 1965-89.

Died April 12, J 1989. Career: Professional boxer, 1940-65. Welterweight world champion, 1946-51; middleweight world champion five times, 1951, 1951-52, 1955, 1957, 1958-60. Inducted to Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990. Robinson won the New York Golden Gloves championship at featherweight (126 pounds) in 1939 and lightweight (135 pounds) in 1940. Some historians claim he was never beaten as an amateur, although others say he lost twice. On October 4, 1940, Robinson turned professional with a bout at Madison Square Garden. The 19-year old stopped a fighter named Joe Echevarría in the second round, and his winning streak extended through the first 40 fights and 28 months of his professional career.

Twenty-nine of those early victims failed to go the distance with Robinson, including world-ranked welterweights such as Pete Lello, Fritzie Zivic, Norman Rubio, Tony Motisi and Izzy Jannazzo. Robinson’s first professional winning streak came to a close, and one of his most lasting rivalries was born, on February 5, 1943 in Detroit. He lost a 10-round decision to Jake LaMotta, a fighter he had beaten the previous fall in another 10-round decision in New York. Three weeks after losing to LaMotta, Robinson beat him in another rematch in Detroit. The second fight between the two was the only one of six LaMotta would ever win, but his status as the first fighter ever to beat Robinson was a major facet of his reputation for years to come. The LaMotta-Robinson series has gone down in history as one of the sport’s great rivalries. Robinson fought at a pace that would be unheard of today. It was not unusual for him to fight twice within the span of a week, and in 1941 alone he fought an amazing 20 times, including two fights in August just two days apart.

His schedule slowed in 1943, when he had just six fights, and ground to a halt in late summer, when he began a stint in the U.S. Army. The first bit of controversy in Robinson’s career stemmed from that army hitch. The army was letting high-profile boxers, most notably Joe Louis, avoid combat duty by fighting exhibition bouts for troops overseas. When Robinson’s boxing unit set sail, however, he did not show up. He was awarded an honorary discharge, and later claimed to have fallen down a flight of stairs and suffered amnesia, but some in the press held a grudge against Robinson long afterward. Wins First World Title Robinson resumed his busy fight schedule in the fall of 1944, and built another win streak, winning five fights before that year was out, nine in 1945 and 16 in 1946. It was in the last fight in 1946 in which Robinson won his first world title. He had run his record to 74-1 by the time the National Boxing Association (the forerunner of the present-day World Boxing Association) granted him a fight against Tommy Bell for the vacant world welterweight championship.

Robinson won the fight on a 15-round decision and his days as a champion boxer had begun. Robinson stayed fit with four non-title bouts early in 1947, then put his title on the line for the first time against Jimmy Doyle on June 24. In what sounds like legend but is actually fact, Robinson dreamed the night before the fight that he would kill Doyle with a left hook. Robinson was shaken by the dream and tried to pull out of the fight, but the promoters called in a Catholic priest to reassure him that his worries were unwarranted and that he must go through with the fight. In the eighth round, just as in the dream, Robinson hit Doyle with a devastating left hook. Doyle was carried from the ring on a stretcher and died the next day without ever regaining consciousness. At the coroner’s inquest Robinson was asked if he knew Doyle was hurt, and he replied, as quoted by Carpenter, “It’s my business to keep fighters in trouble when they’re hurt.” Leila Smith later said she believed her son was traumatized throughout his life by the incident.

Robinson did not let the tragedy slow him down, however, and he won five more fights, all by knockout, before the year was over. One was a title defense against Chuck Taylor, and he won five more fights and one more title defense in 1948. He fought 13 times in 1949, gaining 12 wins and a draw—the draw coming in a non-title bout with Henry Brimm—and won his only title defense that year against Kid Gavilán in Philadelphia. He stepped up the pace in 1950, fighting 19 bouts and winning them all, including a title defense against Charley Fusari. In 1950 Robinson made another career move, moving up to middleweight and winning the Pennsylvania middleweight title. He defended that title twice, never going to the full middleweight limit of 160 pounds, but hovering around the mid-150s and fighting larger men, something Robinson was never afraid to do. In November and December he held his first tour of Europe , something that sounds odd today when fighters rarely box more than four or five times in a year.

He won non-title fights in France , Belgium , Switzerland , and Germany , before setting his sights on the world middleweight title. To win that prize Robinson needed to reacquaint himself with an old rival. He had already beaten Jake LaMotta four times in five fights, but since they had last fought over five years earlier, LaMotta had gone on to win the NBA middleweight title. Their fight on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1951, was their sixth meeting, but the first in which a crown was at stake. Robinson gradually took control over the first half of the fight, and over the last several rounds he pounded LaMotta with one of the most savage beatings in the history of the sport until the doctor at ringside called for the fight to be halted in the 13th round.

Because the fight had been held in Chicago , the boxing writers who were there decreed the fight “another Valentine’s Day Massacre.” The fight was recreated in the 1980 Martin Scorcese film bio of LaMotta, “Raging Bull,” with Robert DeNiro as LaMotta, following Robinson around the ring after the fight’s conclusion taunting, “You never got me down, Ray. You never got me down.” The win marked the end of Robinson’s reign as the welterweight champion, what some have called his prime period, but started a longer career in the middleweight ranks. A Change of Weight Class Robinson’s career could not have come at a better time in history for him to be a big star. Before World War II and since Vietnam boxing was not widely popular, and widespread attention was usually only granted to contenders in the heavyweight division. But from the late 1940s until the mid 1960s boxing, an easy sport to televise, was a staple on prime-time television, sometimes being broadcast as many as four times a week.

With so much boxing being televised, weight classes below heavyweight necessarily had to receive more exposure, and during the heyday of televised boxing Sugar Ray Robinson was one of the sport’s top stars. Before defending his middleweight title in 1951, Robinson made another tour of Europe, and won all his bouts except for one in Germany. He almost started a riot by knocking out German hero Gerhard Hecht, allegedly with kidney punches, a punch that was legal in the United States but not in Europe. He was initially disqualified, and had to hide under the ring when angry fans began pelting him with bottles. It was later discovered that Hecht had a broken rib, though, and the decision was changed to a no-contest. His last fight on the tour was a title defense against Randy Turpin in London, and an unprepared Robinson lost his title on a 15-round decision. Carpenter remembered Robinson explaining, “I was never hit with so many jabs in my life and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I was sold out because of the travelling.

My eyes were tired and couldn’t focus properly.” Two months later a better-prepared Robinson fought a rematch against Turpin, and he regained the title before 60,000 fans at New York’s Polo Grounds when he knocked Turpin out with one of his classic left hooks. Robinson took a year off from non-title fights in 1952, fighting only three times and defending his title against two strong challengers, Bobo Olson and Rocky Graziano. Then, on June 25, he fought what many fans consider to be one of his best fights, a fight he actually lost, for Joey Maxim’s light-heavyweight title. Robinson made no attempt to bulk up to the light-heavyweight limit of 175 pounds, fighting instead at his natural weight of 157 and giving away almost 20 pounds. The fight was held on the hottest night of the year in New York City. It was 104 degrees at ringside, and about 140 degrees under the ring lights. Spectators were passing out in the crowd.

Robinson outboxed the bigger, stronger man every step of the way, and was far ahead on all the scorecards, needing only to finish the fight to become the third man in boxing history (along with Henry Armstrong and Bob Fitzsimmons) to win the title in three weight classes. The heat took its toll, though, and Maxim wore Robinson down by leaning on him with his greater weight throughout the fight. Even referee Ruby Goldstein suffered heat exhaustion and had to be replaced after the 10th round, but Robinson stayed strong—until the 13th round. Then he tired visibly and at one point in the round, when Maxim stepped back away from a Robinson hook, Robinson fell right to the canvas on his follow-through. At the end of the round Robinson was almost delirious and had to be helped back to his corner by his handlers, who tried frantically to revive him for the last two rounds. When the bell sounded for the start of the 14th, however, Robinson could not stand up, and his only fight for the light-heavyweight title went down in history as a near-miss. It was also the only fight of his career in which he failed to complete the match.

A Fighter in His Prime Winning his third title was the last real goal Robinson had left. Carpenter quoted him as saying prior to the Maxim fight, “The papers say I do everything for Ray Robinson first. That could be. I see a lot of bad in boxing. I see a lot of fighters finished and broke. I don’t want that for me. I want to come out with money. I don’t want to keep fighting like Joe Louis. “After losing to Maxim, Robinson said goodbye to boxing, and started a career as a song-and-dance man. Some say Robinson’s reputation would be even greater than it is today if he had stayed retired, but between bad business investments, tax problems and extravagant spending habits, he was faced with no other choice by 1955 than to return to boxing. After his return to boxing, Robinson was never again the unbeatable force he had been during his prime, but he still had some of his most memorable fights during this period. After winning five of six fights during the early part of 1955, Robinson was given a shot against the middleweight champ, whom he had beaten for the title in 1952.

This time he knocked Bobo Olson out in the second round, and again in a rematch early in 1956. Robinson now held the middleweight title for the third time. Robinson was often resented by his contemporaries for defending his interests at the bargaining table as determinedly as he defended his titles in the ring. Since early in his career he had earned a reputation as a ruthless businessman, and many fighters whose careers would have been well-served by a fight with Robinson were frustrated that he refused to sign to fight anyone who would not agree to terms that were heavily lopsided in Robinson’s favor. It was not only fighters who found Robinson a formidable opponent in money disputes. Even the rule that allows federal income taxes to be computed based on average earnings over a number of years sprang from a confrontation between Robinson and the Internal Revenue Service. But as champion Robinson was especially aggressive in pursuing his own financial interests. A typical Robinson fight contract dictated that Robinson got the much larger portion of the gate and most or all of the money from television. It also dictated that if the challenger won, he had to give Robinson a rematch with his next fight and Robinson would get most of the money from that fight, too.

It was that contractually mandated rematch which would serve him the best in the late 1950s. On the second day of 1957 Robinson lost his title on a decision to Gene Fullmer, a Mormon from Utah . On the first day of May that year, however, the two met again, and Robinson regained his title with a fifth-round knockout on which many boxing historians consider his best-ever punch. A left hook that came from nowhere landed flush on Fullmer’s jaw and sent him staggering backwards toward the canvas, then left him futilely trying to drag himself back to his feet. Fullmer said in an interview years later that he did not even know he’d been knocked out until his cornermen told him as he sat on his stool some minutes later. Robinson now held the title for the fourth time. In September of that year, Robinson lost his title on a decision to the great fighter Carmen Basilio. Basilio harbored a great deal of dislike for Robinson, and the two had a true rivalry by the time they met in their rematch on March 25, 1958.

Many observers of the fight game thought this was the night when Robinson would truly look his age, and Basilio would finish off the old champ’s career as a viable contender once and for all. But Basilio was troubled from about the sixth round on with a badly swollen eye, and Robinson won a brutal fight with a 15-round decision. He had to be carried from the ring to the dressing room, from the dressing room to his Cadillac, and from the car to his hotel room, but he had won the middleweight championship for a fifth time. Retirement Stopped by Money Problems Robinson was nearing 40 now, but he still could not afford to retire from boxing. Part of it was because of his back taxes. But Robinson had also become accustomed to a fairly extravagant lifestyle, which had also become a defining aspect of his image. He had bought for himself over the years a bar, three Harlem apartment buildings, a cleaning and dyeing shop, and a lingerie shop (the latter for his wife—the former Edna Mae Holly, to whom he was married from 1943-60; he had been married briefly to another woman as a teenager, but details are sketchy).

The traveling entourage for Robinson consisted of his wife; Gainford, his manager; a male secretary; three trainers; a golf pro; a personal barber; an odd-job man; a chauffeur; and a midget court jester. They carried 100 pieces of luggage among them, and it cost about $3,000 a week to support the lot of them. Robinson had tried to protect his public image early in his career, donating portions of, and sometimes whole purses, to charity, including Jimmy Doyle’s widow, but as his career progressed he became increasingly unconcerned about his reputation where money was involved. The New York Times Book of Sports Legends recalled Robinson saying, “I went through $4 million, but I have no regrets. If I had the chance to do it over again, I’d do it the same way. I didn’t gamble away my money. I used it to help people live. I took my family and my friends on trips with me. I loaned it to strangers to pay their bills, and sometimes I didn’t get it back.” Robinson went into a period of inactivity in 1959, fighting only one tune-up fight in December.

The NBA stripped Robinson of his title for not defending it, but other jurisdictions continued to recognize him as the champion until he lost that distinction to Paul Pender in Boston in January 1960. He had, of course, written a rematch clause into his contract for the fight, but in June he lost that fight as well. In December he fought for the NBA title, but Fullmer retained that title on a draw. There was one last attempt at Fullmer’s championship the following year, but the champ kept his title on a decision, and Robinson, despite fighting 46 more times over the next five years, never again fought for the world championship. He finally retired in 1965 with a career record of 175 wins, 19 defeats, six draws and two no-contests. That same year Robinson married his third wife, the former Millie Wiggins Bruce, who was several years older than he was. They lived in Los Angeles , where Ray established the Sugar Ray Robinson Youth Foundation, an organization that funded and organized recreational activities for young people. Ray continued to work out until the mid 1970s, when his age began to take its toll.

In the late 1970s a young fighter named Ray Leonard began using the old “Sugar Ray” nickname; some close to Robinson speculated that he must have resented the young fighter usurping his moniker, but for the record, at least, Robinson gave Leonard his blessing. In the 1980s, as Alzheimer’s Disease, a common malady among boxers with long careers, took hold of Robinson, Millie’s side of the family took control of the youth foundation. Family members, such as Ray’s mother and son (Ray Jr., whom he had with Edna Mae), expressed distrust of Millie and resentment at her refusal to let anyone, even them, see Ray. For her part, she insisted that the two of them were proud people and that as his wife it was her responsibility to protect him and keep anyone from seeing him in his compromised and vulnerable condition. Ray died on April 12, 1989. In 1997, as part of its 75th anniversary, Ring magazine picked the best fighter pound-for-pound of the last 75 years. The three finalists were Robinson, Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali.

Robinson was picked as the winner, which came as no surprise to anyone. Louis had said decades earlier that he thought Robinson was the greatest fighter in the world, and Ali had said in 1975, as quoted in African-American Sports Greats, “I believe I am the greatest heavyweight of all time, but Ray Robinson was the greatest fighter of all time.” Nearly sixty years after he first put on the gloves, Sugar Ray Robinson was still the sweetest. Sources Books African-American Sports Greats: A Biographical Dictionary, edited by David L. Porter, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995, p. 286. The Boxing Register: International Boxing Hall of Fame Official Record Book, by James B. Roberts and Alexander G. Skutt, Ithaca, NY: McBooks Press, 1997, p. 358. The Encyclopedia of Boxing, compiled by Maurice Goldsworthy, p. 171. Masters of Boxing, by Harry Carpenter, p. 51. The New York Times Book of Sports Legends, edited by Joseph J. Vecchione, New York: Random House, 1991, p. 264.

Periodicals Sports Illustrated, July 13, 1987, p. 70; April 24, 1989, p. 96. —Mike Eggert Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. MLA The Stories Behind 15 Celebrity Stage Names | Mental Floss The Stories Behind 15 Celebrity Stage Names Christopher Polk/Getty Images for DirecTV Like us on Facebook It's hard to overestimate the importance of having a solid, memorable name if you want to have a successful show business or literary career. So if you're born with a dud moniker, it might not hurt to change it. Have you ever wondered how some famous writers and performers came up with their pseudonyms? Here's a look at how some notables got their stage names. 1. Snoop Dogg Snoop Dogg was born Calvin Broadus, but his parents nicknamed him "Snoopy" because he looked like the famous cartoon beagle. 2. Albert Brooks Albert Brooks is a brilliantly funny man, but even he might not have made it too far in show business with his birth name: Albert Einstein.

Brooks originally tried to go by his first and middle names, Albert Lawrence, but decided that "sounded like a Vegas singer." The name Brooks was already in his family, so he ran with that. His brother, Bob Einstein, actually kept the family surname when he entered show biz, but even he's better known by an alias: Super Dave Osborne. 3. Whoopi Goldberg Whoopi Goldberg took her stage name from the whoopee cushion. The actress, who was born Caryn Johnson, said that a tendency to break wind led a number of friends and colleagues to accuse her of being "like a whoopee cushion." According to Goldberg, she considered going by the name "Whoopi Cushion" when she advanced her comedy career, but her mother warned her that nobody would take her seriously with such a silly name. Her mom thought it would be smarter to pair "Whoopi" with a more serious name and proposed that her daughter use "Goldberg." 4.

Jackie Chan Jackie Chan was working at a construction site in Australia when he got his famous nickname: one of his co-workers couldn't pronounce Chan's first name, Kong-sang, so he called him "Little Jack" instead. The name soon morphed into "Jackie," and stayed that way. 5. Harry Houdini Harry Houdini was born Ehrich Weiss, but he took on the stage name Harry Houdini as a tribute to famed French magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin. "Harry" was the Americanized version of his childhood nickname, "Ehrie." 6. MC Hammer MC Hammer got his nickname from his childhood job with the Oakland Athletics. Eccentric longtime A's owner Chuck Finley loved Stanley Kirk Burrell, the talented kid who danced in the team's parking lot and eventually became a batboy for the club. The benevolent owner called him "Little Hammer" because he thought Burrell looked like "Hammerin'" Hank Aaron. When Little Hammer picked up the mic, he became MC Hammer. 7.

Alice Cooper Alice Cooper, who was born Vincent Furnier, was supposedly playing with a Ouija board in the late 1960s when a 16th-century witch doctor named Alice Cooper contacted him. Furnier and his buddies then started a band called Alice Cooper with the magnetic Furnier in the lead role of "Alice." Since the name originally referred to the whole band and not just Furnier, he continues to pay an annual royalty to his old bandmates for the commercial use of the Alice Cooper name. 8. Sugar Ray Robinson Sugar Ray Robinson was born Walker Smith, Jr., but once he began to make some noise as a boxer, commentators described his fighting style as "sweet as sugar." So beginning in 1939, his manager began promoting him as "Sugar Ray Robinson," and every future boxer named Ray suddenly had a nickname. 9. Michael Keaton Michael Keaton was born Michael Douglas. He changed it because we already had a famous actor by that name . You may have heard of him. 10. LL Cool J LL Cool J stands for "Ladies Love Cool James," as you may already know.

What you might not know, though, is that the name wasn't necessarily true when it made its debut. When James Todd Smith and a buddy were 16 years old, they began calling themselves LL Cool J and Playboy Mikey D in the hopes that it would help their stock with the girls they tried to woo. In a 2008 interview with CBS' Early Show, LL admitted that the ladies didn't actually love cool James quite yet, saying, "It was just wishful thinking, just hoping for the best." 11. Pee-wee Herman Paul Reubens' Pee-wee Herman character got his name from two different sources: Reubens owned a brand of harmonica called a Pee-wee, and he remembered a particularly high-strung grammar school classmate named Herman. Reubens later told Vanity Fair that he ran with the combination because, "I like that it didn't sound like a made-up name, that it was just kind of cruddy." 12.

Sid Vicious Sid Vicious—who was born John Simon Ritchie, and later went by John Beverley—got his famous stage name from Sex Pistols frontman John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon's old pet hamster, Sid. The bassist was playing with Lydon's hamster one day when the rodent bit him and forced him to exclaim , "Your Sid is vicious!" Lydon thought the remark was so amusing that he started calling his friend "Sid Vicious." 13. O. Henry O. Henry wanted to send out some of his stories when he was a young writer working in New Orleans, but he wanted to use a pseudonym in case the tales weren't very good. One of his chums suggested that they scour the society page of a local newspaper for a good name, so they read an account of a fashionable ball and settled on the last name Henry . The writer then said he didn't want a long first name, so his buddy suggested going by an initial. They decided "O" was the easiest letter to write, so that's the initial that went on the stories. 14.

John le Carré John le Carré was working as a diplomat when he began writing novels, but the British Foreign Office didn't allow its employees to publish under their real names. The writer, who was born David John Moore Cornwell, claims that he took his pseudonym from a store he saw in London called "Le Carre." 15. Iron Eyes Cody Iron Eyes Cody was one of Hollywood's most beloved Native American actors throughout the 20th century; you might remember him as the "Crying Indian" in the famous "Keep America Beautiful" ads. One thing most audiences didn't know, however, was that Cody was actually the son of Sicilian immigrants , not Native American. For most of his life, though, he maintained that he was actually part Cree and part Cherokee and even married a Native American woman. This arrangement surely made it easier to land Native American roles than his real name, Espera Oscar de Corti, would have. An earlier version of this post originally appeared in 2010. Famous People who Have and Had Dementia Famous People who Have and Had Dementia A listing of famous people around the world who suffer and had suffered from Dementia. What is Dementia?

Dementia is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Although dementia is far more common in the geriatric population, it may occur in any stage of adulthood. In dementia, affected areas in cognition may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving. The prevalence of dementia is rising as the global life expectancy is rising. Particularly in Western countries, there is an increasing concern about the economic impact that dementia will have in future, older populaces There is no cure to this illness, although scientists are progressing in making a type of medication that will slow down the process. Cholinesterase inhibitors are often used early in the disease course Tacrine (Cognex), donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Reminyl), and rivastigmine (Exelon) are approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of dementia induced by Alzheimer disease . They may be useful for other similar diseases causing dementia such as Parkinsons or vascular dementia.

List of Famous People who Have and Had Dementia Charles Bronson - Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky, November 3, 1921 - August 30, 2003) was an American actor of "tough guy", or "macho" roles. In most of his roles, he played a police detective, western gunfighter, vigilante, boxer or Mafia hitman. Bronson's father died when he was only 10, and he went to work in the coal mines like his older brothers until he was drafted for World War II. His family was so poor that, at one time, he reportedly had to wear his sister's dress to school because he had nothing else to wear. Charlton Heston - (October 4, 1924 - April 5, 2008) was an American film actor. In a long career he was mostly known for playing heroic roles such as Moses in The Ten Commandments, Colonel George Taylor in Planet of the Apes, and Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur.

Heston's most frequently played roles on stage include the title role in Macbeth, Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, and Mark Antony in both Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. Charlton Heston was lost in a world of Alzheimer's Disease, according to close family friends. Rita Hayworth - (October 17, 1918 - May 14, 1987), Margarita Carmen Cansino, better known as Rita Hayworth, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Spanish flamenco dancer Eduardo Cansino (Sr.) and English/Irish-American Ziegfeld girl Volga Hayworth. After about 1960, Hayworth suffered from extremely early onset of Alzheimer's disease, which was not diagnosed until 1980. She continued to act in films until the early 1970s and made a well-publicized 1971 appearance on The Carol Burnett Show. Both of her brothers died within a week of each other in March 1974, saddening her greatly, and causing her to drink even more heavily than before.

Rita Hayworth public diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in 1980 was a big step in destigmatizing the degenerative disease. Ronald Reagan - Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 - June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981-1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967-1975). Born in Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles in the 1930s. In July 1989, the Reagans took a trip to Mexico, where Reagan was thrown off a horse and taken to a hospital for tests. The Reagans returned to the U.S. and visited the Mayo Clinic where they were told President Reagan had a head concussion and a subdural hematoma, and was subsequently operated on. Doctors believe that is what hastened the onset of Alzheimer's disease, an incurable neurological disorder which ultimately causes brain cells to die, and something Reagan was diagnosed with in 1994.

Alfred Van Vogt - Born on a farm in Edenburg, a Russian Mennonite community east of Gretna, Manitoba, Canada, van Vogt was one of the most popular and highly esteemed science fiction writers of the 1940s. Van Vogt's first published SF story, "Black Destroyer" (Astounding Science Fiction, July 1939), was inspired by The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. In the 1950s, van Vogt briefly became involved in L. Ron Hubbard's projects. Van Vogt operated a storefront for Dianetics, the secular precursor to Hubbard's Church of Scientology, in the Los Angeles area for a time. Sugar Ray Robinson - (born Walker Smith Jr., May 3, 1921 - April 12, 1989) was a professional boxer. Frequently cited as the greatest boxer of all time. Robinson was a fluid boxer who possessed a quick jab and knockout power. He possessed tremendous versatility-according to boxing analyst Bert Sugar, "Robinson could deliver a knockout blow going backward." In Robinson's last years, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

He died in Los Angeles at the age of 67. Stan Mikita - (born Stanislav Guoth; May 20, 1940), is a Slovak-born Canadian retired professional ice hockey player for the Chicago Black Hawks of the National Hockey League, generally regarded as the best centre of the 1960s. Mr. Mikita's family has announced he has been diagnosed with dementia, and the doctors suspect it to be Lewy body dementia (LBD), one of the most debilitating forms of dementia. LBD affects 1.4 million Americans. Burgess Meredith - (November 16, 1907 - September 9, 1997) Burgess Meredith was a versatile two-time Academy Award-nominated American actor. He was known for portraying Rocky Balboa's trainer Mickey Goldmill in the Rocky films and The Penguin in the television series Batman. Burgess Meredith was adept playing both dramatic and comedic roles, and with his rugged looks and gravelly voice, he could convincingly play either an everyman hero or a sinister villain.

Iris Murdoch - (15 July 1919 - 8 February 1999) Iris Murdoch was a Dublin-born writer and philosopher. Her first published novel, Under the Net, was selected in 2001 by the editorial board of the American Modern Library as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 1987, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Murdoch's novels are by turns intense and bizarre, filled with dark humor and unpredictable plot twists, undercutting the civilized surface of the usually intellectual upper middle-class milieu in which her characters are observed. Jack Lord - (December 30, 1920 - January 21, 1998) Jack O'Brien was an American television, film, and Broadway actor.Born in Brooklyn, New York, Jack Lord was the son of Irish-American parents. His father, William Lawrence Ryan was a steamship company executive. His first work on Broadway was in Traveling Lady with Kim Stanley. He was then cast as a replacement for Ben Gazarra in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Jack Lord died of congestive heart failure at his home on January 21, 1998 in Honolulu, Hawaii, at the age of 77. He left an estate of $40 million, and being a philanthropist in his lifetime, the entire estate went to various Hawaiian charities upon his wife Marie's death in 2005. Portions of their estate were auctioned on eBay in March 2007. Abe Burrows - (December 18, 1910 - May 17, 1985) Abe Burrows was a noted American humorist, author, and director for both the radio and the stage, particularly Broadway. He began working as a runner on Wall Street while at NYC, and he also worked in an accounting firm. After he met Frank Galen in 1938, the two wrote and sold jokes to an impressionist who appeared on the Rudy Vallee radio program. Abe burrows later suffered of dementia at an older age. Kay Swift - (1897-1993) Kay Swift was an American composer of popular and classical music, the first woman to score a complete musical.

Swift was educated as a classical musician and composer at the Institute of Musical Art (now known as the Juilliard School). Her teacher of composition was Charles Loeffler, while harmony and composition was taught to her by Percy Goetschius. Her marriage to a cowboy and subsequent move to Oregon prompted an autobiographical novel, Who Could Ask For Anything More? Which was made into the film Never a Dull Moment in 1950, which had a Kay Swift musical score. Barry Goldwater - (January 2, 1909 - May 29, 1998) was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona (1953-1965, 1969-87) and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. He was a Major General in the U.S. Air Force Reserves. He was also referred to as "Mr. Conservative". Goldwater is the politician most often credited for sparking the resurgence of the American conservative political movement in the 1960s.

By the 1980s, the increasing influence of the Christian Right on the Republican Party so conflicted with Goldwater's libertarian views that he became a vocal opponent of the religious right on issues such as abortion and gay rights. Goldwater concentrated on his Senate duties, especially passage of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986. Dana Andrews - (January 1, 1909 - December 17, 1992) was an American film actor. Andrews signed a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and nine years after arriving in Los Angeles was offered his first movie role in William Wyler's The Westerner (1940), starring Gary Cooper. In the 1943 movie adaptation of The Ox-Bow Incident with Henry Fonda, often cited as one of his best films, he played a lynching victim. He gave a finely calibrated performance in Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950), followed by the Andrews' two signature roles, as an obsessed detective in Laura (1944) opposite Gene Tierney, and as a soldier returning home from the war in the Oscar-winning 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives.

Harry Ritz - The Ritz Brothers were a comedy team who appeared in 1930s films, and as live performers from 1925 to the late 1960s. Although there were four brothers, only three of them performed together. The fourth brother, George, acted as their manager. The influence of the Ritz Brothers was greater than their film career, in part because of their long career as nightclub entertainers. They influenced actors including Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, and Sid Caesar. In his 1976 film Silent Movie, Mel Brooks paid tribute to the Ritz Brothers by casting Harry in a cameo (he's the nutty fellow leaving a tailor's shop). It was the actor's last role. Mervyn Leroy - (October 15, 1900 - September 13, 1987) was an Academy Award-winning American film director, producer and sometime actor. LeRoy worked in costumes, processing labs and as a camera assistant until he became a gag writer and actor in silent films. His first directing job was in 1927's No Place to Go.

When his movies made lots of money without costing too much, he became well-received in the movie business. LeRoy retired in 1965 and wrote his autobiography, Take One, in 1974. He died in Beverly Hills, California and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street. Rockwell - (February 3, 1894 - November 8, 1978) Norman Rockwell was a 20th century American painter and illustrator. In 1943, during the Second World War, Rockwell painted the Four Freedoms series, which was completed in seven months and resulted in his losing 15 pounds. The series was inspired by a speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which he described four principles for universal rights: Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship, and Freedom from Fear. Perry Como - (May 18, 1912 - May 12, 2001) was an Italian-American singer and television personality.

During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with it in 1943. "Mr. C", as he was nicknamed, sold millions of records for RCA and also pioneered a weekly musical variety television show, which set the standards for the genre and proved to be one of the most successful in television history. His combined success on television and popular recordings was not matched by any other artist of the time. Peter Michael Falk - (September 16, 1927 - June 23, 2011) was a retired American actor, best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the television series Columbo. He appeared in numerous films and television guest roles, and has been nominated for an Academy Award twice (for 1960's Murder, Inc. and 1961's Pocketful of Miracles), and won the Emmy Award on five occasions (four for Columbo) and the Golden Globe award once. Peter Falk starred on TV as Lieutenant Columbo, the shabby detective whose apparent absentmindedness hid a razor-sharp brain.

It is said Falk no longer remembered his role in Columbo, for which he won four Emmys, due to advanced Alzheimer's disease (Dementia) that has left him unable to care for himself. At a two day conservatorship trial in Los Angeles in June 2009, one of Falk's personal physicians, Dr. Stephen Read, reported Falk rapidly slipped into dementia after a series of dental operations in 2007.

Question: Late US professional boxer Walker Smith Jr was better known by what name?
Answer: Sugar Ray Robinson