Story Line of This Made-for-TV Epic Is a Real Knockout

I came here to cover a prizefight. Instead, they’re shooting this made-for-TV movie.

I can’t make up my mind whether it’s a musical or one of those Halloween movies. A PG-13 or soft porn. It’s got a great part in it for Glenn Close. A Disney flick, it ain’t.

It’ll either be called “Golden Boy Gets Married” or Call-Theater-for-Title-of-This-Picture.

The cast, in order of appearance:

Mike Tyson--A poor child of the slums, a young Cagney, a Dead End kid. His mother wanted him to be a violinist but he had trouble getting a handkerchief to his neck so he went to Carnegie Hall with a switch-blade instead.

He took up fighting unbeknown to his mother, who thought he just went around bumping into things until one day she saw a picture of him in trunks and found out he had $30 million.

“You’ll never be anything but a bum,” she told him bitterly. “Besides, you’ll get killed.”

Here she thought he was practicing the fiddle in his room but by this time he had destroyed the heavyweight division and was being compared to several famous fighters of the past--Attila the Hun, King Kong and the German army. Then, he met . . .

Robin Givens--One foxy lady. She had a great little sense of humor and a finishing school education. She knew a lot of big words--and a lot of small ones.

God gave her everything she would need to succeed in life, including the ability to add. No one knew what she could see in Mike Tyson, unless you count $30 million, but Mike was always doing nice things for her. She sent him out for some ice once and he came back with a bracelet and necklace. He not only opened car doors for her but they were on a Rolls-Royce Corniche.

She thought it’d be a good idea if they got married, since Marvin Mitchelson was booked up for the next several years. She wanted a nice little place in the country--so Mike bought her New Jersey. When she wanted to go to see the Caribbean, Mike said, “Why don’t I just send out for it?”

The marriage went smoothly enough, although they had a few lovers’ quarrels. With the Tysons, a lovers’ quarrel is just this side of World War III but people couldn’t figure out whether she hit Mike or he hit her.

The consensus was, if she hit Mike, he would get very angry--if he ever found out about it. And he couldn’t have hit her. Proof of that was she was alive.

Mike had a habit of throwing things out. Once, it was her. Once, it was the Corniche. Mike gave it to a couple of passers-by. He couldn’t find anyplace to park it. Besides, the ash trays were full and it needed oil.

Apart from that, it was a marriage made in Heaven. Or, Hollywood, which is the same thing. Anyway, Mike was prepared to make an offer on Heaven, if it came to that. It even had the standard mother-in-law joke. Which brings us to . . .

Ruth Roper--As mothers-in-law go, Ruth Roper was bad casting. First of all, she didn’t look like anybody’s battle-ax. She looked like her daughter’s kid sister, is what she looked like. And she acted like her accountant.

Ruth picked up a bad habit in childhood--the ability to count. Ruth wasn’t too sure she liked the idea of her daughter marrying a pug but she liked the idea of her marrying a millionaire. Ruth very quickly perceived that her son-in-law had a bad habit of giving things away--like 110% of himself.

“I do not want him standing around selling Girl Scout cookies,” she told the press. “I do not want him to end up like Muhammad Ali.”

It will come as a considerable surprise to Ali that he is selling Girl Scout anythings but Mother Roper is such a fine-looking lady she even looked good to Yankee ballplayer Dave Winfield.

Which turned out to be too bad because, she says, he gave her an ailment that turned out not to be mononucleosis and she is suing him.

You can see where, if they want to know what to call this act they can settle on “The Aristocrats.” It has everything but Harry Reems.

And into this comes the sinister figure of . . .

Bill Cayton--Every fight picture needs a heavy, usually the fight manager who interferes with the course of true love, to say nothing of the course of the fight.

In the movies, the manager is the guy Brando says to, “But I coulda been a contendah!”

Bill Cayton leaves the fighting to Mike Tyson but Mike’s in-laws say that when Bill couldn’t think of anything to get them for the wedding, he decided on something they could use--an annulment.

It’s a good part for Burgess Meredith.

And then there is . . .

Michael Spinks--Not important. He just plays the best friend, the faithful old Indian companion. He just holds the horse or stands around and says, “Sure, boss.”

It was either him or Gabby Hayes for the part. He’s just the piano in this recital. He’s just a guy who gets killed in the second act.

Well, as they say in Hollywood, Is that a picture? They don’t make them like that anymore. Just a good old-fashioned love story.

Maybe they should call it “Moonlight and Roses.”