FIGHT OF HIS LIFE : A Boxing Immortal, Henry Armstrong, at 75, Is Enduring Tough Times Again

This is where the champ fights now. Down the green carpeted hallway past the nurses’ station in the room on the left.

The television set is on, but the champ doesn’t see it. A vase of daisies, carnations and gladiolus is on the table next to the bed that brighten the hospital room with the sun splashing through the window. But he doesn’t notice.

This is one fight the champ can’t win. There weren’t many foes that Henry Armstrong couldn’t lick in the ring, but his body is betraying him now. This is not the ring and it’s not 50 years ago, when Hammering Henry Armstrong slugged his way toward boxing immortality, fame and fortune.

The fortune is gone now, the more than $500,000 in winnings that Armstrong earned in his 14-year career. One of the greatest boxers who ever lived is 75, bedridden, nearly blind, broke and dying.

Armstrong’s third wife, Gussie, said their only income is the monthly Social Security check, for $800.

“You can be rich and have a ball, but it can get away from you,” she said.

“I don’t have any money and he don’t have any money. He had a lot taken from him. You think people are honest, but they aren’t. This whole thing, what’s happened to him, my heart bleeds. I have to smile to keep from crying.”

On the infrequent occasions Armstrong isn’t in the hospital, Gussie Armstrong cares for him at their small, two-bedroom stucco house on East 55th Street in South Central L.A. None of Armstrong’s boxing trophies, championship rings or belts are there. They were all stolen, Gussie said.

The two sofas in the living room are covered with thick plastic. The bedroom in the back has a hospital bed in it. Cardboard boxes are stacked against the wall, and some plaster is missing. The curtains are drawn and the light in the room is dim.

This is where Henry Armstrong will fight his final bout, as soon as he comes home from the hospital. Gussie Armstrong won’t allow her husband to be taken to a nursing home because she is fearful she will lose the Social Security money.

“What can I do?” she asked. “I need something to live on.”

Boxing’s Hall of Fame opened in 1954. Three fighters of the “modern era” were the first to be inducted--Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Henry Armstrong.

If an artist uses a canvas, so does a fighter. Certainly, it was Armstrong’s medium, although he was too violent for any genteel artistry. He wouldn’t have used a brush and pastels. That wasn’t his style. No, Henry Armstrong would have used a palette knife and bold, vibrant colors.

But he certainly used the canvas. Time after time, Armstrong sent his opponents to the stretched canvas that covered the ring until one day, he was champion of the world. Not in one division, not in two, but in three.

The only man ever to hold championships in three weight divisions all at the same time is Henry Armstrong. In a numbingly efficient display of boxing mayhem that lasted for 11 months in parts of 1937 and 1938, Armstrong won the featherweight, welterweight and lightweight championships.

It was 50 years ago, Aug. 17, 1938, that Armstrong won the third of his three titles. Before 19,216 at Madison Square Garden, Armstrong scored a 15-round decision over Lou Ambers and, with it, secured his place among boxing legends.

Ambers, 75, who lives in Phoenix with Margaret, his wife of 48 years, said he remembers the fight as if it were yesterday and not half a century ago.

“I cut his lip up pretty good, but he wouldn’t quit,” Ambers said. “I came out of it in pretty good shape. I was tough. I’m still tough. I’m so tough I chew nails and spit rust.”

But the man who beat Ambers isn’t that tough anymore. Since January, Armstrong has been admitted six times to Century City Hospital and treated for infections, malnutrition, anemia, pneumonia, dehydration, and poor vision. Many of his problems are irreversible, doctors say, principally dementia, the loss of intellectual ability. Beset by such physical problems, doctors have not given Armstrong much time.

Armstrong is fed through a tube in his stomach, which was put there in April after he refused to eat and dropped to 95 pounds.

It was a vastly different Henry Armstrong 50 years ago, who 10 days after defeating Ambers, arrived at the Santa Fe Station in Los Angeles and stepped down from the Union Chief. He was wearing a neat blue suit and a pearl gray hat. He was young, strong, wealthy and at the height of his career. Dr. Abe Green, an internal medicine and kidney specialist who began looking after Armstrong last year, didn’t know who his patient was.

“When I look at Henry now, I think what I see is a sign of the human condition and aging and what a terrible process it really is,” Green said. “Some people age gracefully and die gracefully as well. Other people seem to be afflicted with one thing after the other. Sometimes they are helped by the medical system, sometimes prolonged by the medical system.

“It’s difficult dealing with someone who was such a remarkable physical specimen who has ended up as one of the most debilitated persons I have ever had to deal with.” At first, it wasn’t that emotionally trying because I had seen other people like that in county hospitals and veterans’ hospitals. Then, suddenly having a picture thrown in my face and someone say, ‘This is Henry 40 years ago,’ it really sends shivers down my spine.”

Green was called in to examine Armstrong in November, after Dr. Harold Katzman, an ophthalmologist, had recommended eye surgery for cataracts and glaucoma. Katzman found Armstrong blind in one eye. The lens was no longer anchored to the center of the right eye by its small tether lines. According to Katzman, the injury was caused by trauma.

“By trauma, it could very well be boxing, but trauma was definitely related to the injury,” said Katzman, who told Armstrong he wanted to examine him again after the surgery.

“He never came back.”

Henry Armstrong, some say, was born lucky. His birth date is 12/12/12--Dec. 12, 1912. But early in his life, his good fortune was not apparent.

The 11th of 15 children of an Irish-Negro father and a Negro-Cherokee Indian mother, Armstrong was born in Jackson, Miss. He grew up in St. Louis, where he earned a little extra money for the family by shining shoes, then graduated from Vachon High School just as the Depression began.

His first job after high school was laying railroad track in Missouri, which, according to the story he told years later, made him $1.50 a day. Although working on the railroad was not highly profitable, that same railroad proved valuable to Armstrong in other ways.

One day when Armstrong was driving spikes, a wind-blown newspaper page stuck to his legs. Armstrong peeled it off and read a sports story about a boxer named Kid Chocolate who had made $75,000 for a fight at the Polo Grounds in New York. (Coincidentally, Kid Chocolate--Eligio Sardinias--died Aug. 8 in Havana, Cuba, at 78.)

Armstrong--although his name wasn’t Armstrong at the time--decided then and there to become a fighter, or at least that’s what he always told reporters whenever they asked.

“I thought to myself, ‘$75,000 for half an hour’s work, it’s gotta beat this.’ So I put my tools in the box and quit,” Armstrong once said in an interview. “I told the boys I was gonna be champ. They laughed, sure, but in seven years, I was.”

If the railroad, just by being there, was at least partly responsible for Armstrong’s boxing career, it played a much stronger role in bringing him to Los Angeles, where that career began.

Whites and blacks were not permitted to fight each other in St. Louis, so in 1931, Armstrong hopped a freight car and hoboed his way to California. When he got to Los Angeles, he had no money and stood in line at soup kitchens, such as the Midnight Mission on Los Angeles Street. Armstrong often sneaked back into the line for second helpings of hot cakes.

Henry’s last name was Jackson when he left St. Louis, but he was accompanied on his westward journey by a friend named Harry Armstrong. Harry not only gave Armstrong his friendship, he apparently gave him his last name as well. In any event, Henry Jackson became Henry Armstrong when he got to California. This was fitting, Armstrong reasoned, because they had been through so much together, they were like brothers.

Henry began introducing Harry as his brother and later used him as his trainer. During the day, Armstrong shined shoes at the corner of 7th and San Julian, but at night, he was in the ring. Actually, Armstrong was in a lot of rings. There were many amateur boxing clubs in the city and many of them had fight cards on the same nights. Armstrong would fight at one, two, three, even four of the clubs every night. He had more than 60 fights as an amateur.

One day, he walked eight miles from the Midnight Mission to the home of Tom Cox, a fight manager, and persuaded Cox to sign him. Cox gave Armstrong a $5 bill and told him to find a place to stay. The Henry Armstrong who walked eight miles back to the Midnight Mission was no longer an amateur fighter. That 16-mile walk marked the professional beginning of one of the finest boxers in history.

On the way to his three championships, he became the kind of fighter legends are made of, and enjoyed the kind of career every boxer dreams about.

Former trainer Ray Arcel, 88, who has either seen or worked with just about every important fighter since the 1920s, said that Armstrong was one of a kind.

“He was a unique individual, one of the greatest fighters I ever saw,” Arcel said. “He fought three minutes every round. I saw him in most of his championship fights. He could be classed with the greatest fighters of all time.

“If you ever wanted to see a fighter, then you would look at him because this was the kind of guy you would say was a real fighter,” Arcel said. “The word great is misused a lot when it is used to describe many boxers, but Henry Armstrong was great.”

Wildly popular because of his straight-ahead, charging style, Armstrong’s first major fight was Aug. 4, 1936, four years after he had turned pro. More than 16,000 showed up at old Wrigley Field at 42nd and Avalon to see Armstrong fight Baby Arizmendi in a featherweight bout. Armstrong battered Arizmendi, winning a 10-round decision, and was paid $2,000.

Among those who witnessed Armstrong’s assault on Arizmendi was Petey Sarron, the featherweight champion from Birmingham, Ala. A newspaper account of the fight described the scene:

“Petey Sarron, featherweight champion of the world, his face an ashen white, an empty ache in the pit of his stomach, squirmed in his seat and choked as he watched Henry Armstrong, the chocolate lancer, hammer Baby Arizmendi into the most brutal, ruthless defeat of his brilliant 11-year stretch of ring warfare last night at Wrigley Field.

“Paling perceptibly as he blinked with frightened eyes that saw Armstrong, the infernal machine, smoke the idol of Mexico out of the ring with burning, searing leather to take every one of the 10 rounds and with it recognition in California as the world’s featherweight champion, Sarron aptly expressed the sentiments of 16,000 hysterical, stunned spectators when he said:

“ ‘I’m glad I’m not the one in there with Armstrong tonight.’ ”

Sarron’s happiness was relatively short-lived. Armstrong, who had changed managers from Cox to Wirt Ross, changed again when entertainers Al Jolson and George Raft bought Armstrong’s contract for $10,000. Jolson named his friend, Eddie Mead, Armstrong’s manager and Mead moved quickly to set up a title fight between Armstrong and Sarron.

The featherweight title, the first of Armstrong’s triple crowns, became his Oct. 29, 1937, in New York’s Madison Square Garden when he knocked out Sarron in the sixth round. Weighing in at 124 pounds, Armstrong was behind on points until he caught Sarron with a barrage of blows to the head and then dropped him to the canvas with a short right to the chin.

Sarron, who took the 10-count while he was on his hands and knees, had this explanation: “I just forgot to duck.”

But Armstrong ducked no one. He fought 27 times in 1937, the busiest year in his career, and had 26 knockouts. The only boxer who was still on his feet at the end of a fight with Armstrong in 1937 was a lightweight named Aldo Spoldi, who lost a 10-round decision.

Spoldi, now 76 and living in La Jolla, said he thinks he knows how he was able to go the distance with Armstrong.

“Being Italian, I have a hard head,” Spoldi said. “ Mama mia , I’ll tell you, I was very lucky. It was my best fight. I took everything he was giving to me. I was one of the few, when Henry Armstrong was at his best, that was still standing up until the last gong.”

In January of 1938, Armstrong had a new nickname, the Black Blizzard, and a nice bank account. Armstrong confirmed a newspaper report that he had earned $90,000 in 1937. Ring magazine named him fighter of the year, over Joe Louis. The magazine also named him the No. 1 flyweight and in an unprecedented move, selected him No. 1 among the lightweight boxers, even though Lou Ambers was the champion.

But Jolson had already set his sights on changing that. In a move that Armstrong later claimed was an attempt to boost Jolson’s career, Jolson told Armstrong he wanted him to shoot for two more titles--Barney Ross’ welterweight and Ambers’ lightweight. If that could be done, Armstrong’s success would also bring public focus to Jolson, Armstrong said in later years.

Ross and his welterweight crown were next for Armstrong, even though he would be skipping one weight division, the lightweight, to get it.

Before 30,000 on May 31, 1938, in the outdoor Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City, N.Y., Armstrong gave Ross a fierce beating and won his second championship with a 15-round decision. It was a verdict that not only validated Armstrong’s greatnesss in the ring, but also showed the damage he could inflict on a champion. Ross, who outweighed Armstrong 142 pounds to 133 1/2, was so badly beaten, he retired after the fight.

Grantland Rice, who covered the fight, gave an account to his newspaper readers:

“Ross, game to the last drop of blood, fighting the last 10 rounds on instinct and condition, went the limit of 15 rounds. He finished with his right eye completely closed--with blood running from his nose and mouth in a steady stream--with his face badly battered and his kidneys as raw and red as if Armstrong had used a battle-ax.

“So Henry Armstrong jumped from the featherweight to the lightweight throne, spotting his rival nine pounds as his flailing fists beat a merciless tattoo on head and body.”

Arcel, who trained Ross in 1938, was in his corner for the bout and saw, close up, the beating Ross received. Armstrong’s victory convinced Arcel of the fighter’s greatness, which he is still sure of more than 50 years later.

“He could be classified with the greatest fighters of all time,” Arcel said. “The fighters today, most of them he would chase right out of the ring.”

Armstrong took 20% of the gate for the Ross fight, which was $32,200. Ambers and his lightweight crown were next. Tickets went on sale for $16.50 tops, $2.50 reserved and $1 general admission. Armstrong went into the fight as the odds-on choice, but the champion wound up inflicting more damage than the challenger, who won on a split decision.

Ambers’ face was almost unmarked, but Armstrong needed 10 stitches to close a cut in his mouth, which he suffered in the second round, and his left eye was almost closed.

The New York crowd was so loud that when the bell sounded at the end of the 15th round, neither the fighters nor the referee heard it. Armstrong needed to be steered to his own corner by Ambers’ handlers.

When the decision was announced, there was a new champion. Armstrong had won because of his two knockdowns of Ambers, one in the closing seconds of the fifth round and the other in the middle of the sixth.

Armstrong, who had weighed in at 134 pounds, finished the fight at 129. But he was the new champion. Not only was he the world featherweight champion and the world welterweight champion, but the lightweight king as well.

In September, however, Armstrong gave up the featherweight title, and the two others were gone in two years. Ambers won his lightweight championship back when by scored a 15-round decision over Armstrong in 1939, and in 1940, an unheralded Fritzie Zivic beat Armstrong in another 15-round decision for the welterweight crown.

Armstrong retired twice and made two comebacks, losing to 21-year-old Cpl. Ray Robinson in 1943 at Madison Square Garden, before giving it up for good in 1945. Armstrong was 31.

The civilian Henry Armstrong got involved in politics and drinking, then religion and the fight against drinking. He endorsed Los Angeles Supervisor Leonard Roach and the Presidential ticket of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Before then, though, he offered a lot of toasts.

In October 1954, Armstrong spoke to the Temple Baptist Church about his drinking. Four years earlier, he had been ordained by his father-in-law, W. L. Strauther, at the Morning Star Baptist Church.

“I’d get drunk and drive my big car, roaring up and down the streets, and didn’t care about anything,” he said. “(Once) I blacked out. When I came to, I was in the car heading north out of Malibu at 75 m.p.h. I didn’t realize I was driving. There seemed to be a presence beside me. I lost my taste for whiskey right then--and it’s never come back to me.”

In 1959, after 25 years of marriage, Armstrong was divorced by Willa Mae Armstrong, who said she no longer felt loved.

“He left me at home and went out alone,” she said. “He never showed me any affection.”

The couple had one daughter, Lanetta, who is 53 and living in Los Angeles. She is reluctant to talk about her father.

Lanetta said she felt estranged from her father. “He wasn’t too close to me,” she said. “He was always on the go. I mostly didn’t see him too much.”

Even so, it was she who sent the flowers to Armstrong’s hospital room.

Whether it was bad investments, the divorce, the drinking or whatever, Armstrong had run out of money by the mid-1960s.

He left Los Angeles in 1967 and took a job as assistant director of the Herbert Hoover Boys Club in St. Louis. He also became a minister at the Mt. Olive Baptist Church. He married again and had two more children, Henrietta and Edna, with his second wife, Velma. Friends of Armstrong thought he was doing well until Velma Armstrong died. Henrietta and Edna are grown now and living in St. Louis.

The former Gussie Henry, who said she married Armstrong 10 years ago, took him out of St. Louis and brought him back to Los Angeles. But Armstrong’s friends said he would have been much better off if he had stayed in St. Louis.

“We tried not to let him leave here,” said James Reddick, who has known Armstrong for close to 50 years. “I know he was getting up in age, getting senile and forgetful, but he should have stayed. He had the kind of job where he basically didn’t do anything and got paid for it. People were impressed just because of who he was. That was the way it was, but it was kind of sad.

“When you’re on top, people cater to you, but once you start slipping, you find out who your friends are. He didn’t have any money when he got here. It was gone. He didn’t have nothing. But who can you blame for that? Nobody but him. I hate it for him.”

Armstrong’s financial plight is widely known in boxing circles. Arcel said such problems are not limited to Armstrong.

“Most of the fellows who fought in that period wound up either in bad health or dead broke,” Arcel said. “It’s a sad story for boxing.”

Green and Century City Hospital are establishing a fund to benefit Armstrong to help with his home care. “At this point, he’s as medically intact as we can get him,” Green said. “I think the major concern should be keeping him comfortable.”

If he could, Armstrong would probably smile at the sweet irony of this. In his profession after all, he never ever worried about making anyone comfortable. He fought 181 fights and won 152 of them, 100 by knockout.

But now, the champ lies on his hospital bed with the tube in his stomach. It got infected recently when he was at home and he had to come back. His left leg is rigid, drawn up and bent at the knee. That happened when he wasn’t moved in his bed at home. Doctors can’t straighten it.

The champ doesn’t look at all comfortable, but Green said he has his good days and bad days. And Gussie Armstrong said her husband still has a powerful ally in his corner. “He’s strong,” she said. “He’s always been strong. I remember he used to say, ‘Don’t give up!’ He’d say ‘Keep your guard up.’ ”

There was something else that Henry Armstrong used to say. It was a story he was fond of telling. When Armstrong was born, an older brother looked at him and told his mother, “Why, Henry is so small, he looks just like a little rat.”

As Henry would tell the story, his mother would agree. “He may look like a little rat, but he’s gonna be the big cheese someday. He’s gonna do something that no other man has done--something that has Godliness about it.”

Armstrong finished the story about his mother.

“She died in 1918,” he said. “I don’t know if she’d think boxing has any Godliness about it. But maybe . . . maybe she would.”