Don’t Count Her Out as Ring Star : Boxing: Southland’s Gwen Adair strives to become the first woman to referee a world title bout. Many experts say that she is well on her way.

There is a professional referee in Los Angeles who is a stickler for preventing boxers from grabbing and holding one another.

Before each bout, the referee visits the fighters’ dressing rooms and lays down the law.

“I use those visits to establish a rapport with both boxers,” the referee says. “I tell them I want them to respond to verbal commands. I tell them if they clinch and I yell, ‘Break!’ I expect them to break, immediately. I make sure they understand that if I have to start yanking and pulling on them, I’ll take away points.

“Well, one night at the Forum I was working a heavyweight bout. In the first round, one of the boxers, a 6-foot-4, 220-pound guy, starts holding. I yelled, ‘Break!’ as loud as I could.

“He let go of the other guy right away, looked at me and said: ‘Yes, ma’am.’

“I nearly burst out laughing.”

First, Gwen Adair was merely a fight fan. In 1976, someone gave her a plaque designating her “Female Fight Fan of the Year” for Los Angeles. Then she managed a fighter from 1976 through ’78. Then she refereed a few amateur fights in 1978 and became a pro referee in 1979.

She has long since lost count of how many pro bouts she has worked--hundreds, not dozens--but she and others in her nearly all-male sport believe that she is America’s only female pro boxing referee.

And after 11 years, she is close to achieving her dream--to become the first female referee to work a world championship fight. She doesn’t have one on her calendar yet, but she has reason to be hopeful.

“Jerry Nathanson came up to me at a commission meeting not long ago and told me he felt I was the most-improved referee around,” she said, referring to the chairman of the California Athletic Commission.

For most of her 10 years as a California referee, Adair (formerly Gwen Farrell), had her critics. Some of the criticism could be attributed to male resentment of her intrusion into an almost exclusively male workplace. But there were some legitimate complaints about her work, including one that she seemed reluctant to work too closely to the boxers.

But in the last year, many say, her refereeing--she also judges fights--has improved markedly. “She’s a good referee, not great, but a good one,” said one longtime Southern California trainer, who asked not to be identified.

“I want to be able to still yell at her during a bout. I want her to think that I think she’s lousy. That’ll keep her on her toes, see?”

Several prominent people in boxing support the contention that Adair is the sport’s only female referee, at least in the United States. Randy Gordon, executive director of the New York State Athletic Commission, said he knows of no others. Burt Sugar, a boxing journalist and historian, agreed.

In the early 1940s, Belle Martell was a licensed California boxing referee, but soon became a wrestling promoter.

Herbert Goldman of New York, journalist-historian for Boxing Illustrated, also said he believes that Adair is the country’s only working female referee.

“A woman named Baby Bear James got a license to referee in Kansas City in 1978, but I don’t think she worked long,” Goldman said.

Female judges in pro boxing are a decided minority, but it is not uncommon to see them work bouts in California, Nevada, New York and New Jersey.

At a boxing show at the Forum not long ago, Adair was working an undercard bout when one of the boxers was suddenly hit by a hard right-hand punch. He landed flat on his back, and it was apparent to everyone in the building that the fighter would not rise.

Adair, instead of beginning a count, was at the fallen fighter’s side in an instant, tenderly cradling his head with her left hand and summoning the ringside physician with her right, indicating that the fight was over. Among those impressed with that performance and with her recent work in general was Nathanson.

“She’s better than most of our male referees,” he said. “She’s been improving gradually over the past three or four years, but her improvement just in the last year has been dramatic. I told the commission staff I felt she was ready for a title fight.”

No one will say when that will happen. There have been 13 world title fights at the Forum in the past 16 months, and the next figures to be the Paul Banke-Daniel Zaragoza World Boxing Council super-bantamweight championship bout Oct. 8.

Whenever she gets her wish, Adair will become the most visible woman in the history of a sport that can be traced to the early 1700s, when Englishmen first pounded on each other inside rings on the fields of Wiltshire.

But perhaps she will not be as visible as she has been in her second of three occupations.

As an actress, when she was Gwen Farrell, she appeared in 18 TV episodes of “M*A*S*H” as Nurse Gwen. She had a role in the film “The Poseidon Adventure” and was the barmaid at Huggy Bear’s bar in the TV series “Starsky & Hutch.” She has also appeared in commercials.

When she isn’t refereeing or acting, Adair runs the Fatburger restaurant she has owned for the last nine years at the corner of La Cienega and Santa Monica boulevards.

Adair’s mother, Lovie Yancey, started the chain in 1950 with the original Fatburger at 31st Street and Western Avenue in Los Angeles. Now, there are 30 Fatburgers in Southern California.

Adair’s boxing years began at the Olympic Auditorium in the 1970s.

“I was just a fan, for years,” she said. “My family and friends went to the fights all the time. I got to know a lot of the fighters. Then I started thinking it would be fun to manage a fighter. So one of the commission guys introduced me to a kick-boxer, Howard Jackson, who wanted to convert to boxing.

“I managed him from 1976 to ’78. He was 15-1, then went back to kick-boxing. He’s a bodyguard for Chuck Norris now. I enjoyed that, but it was really hard to find another boxer I wanted to work with. It was like looking for money lying on the street.

“About then, I decided to try refereeing. I met an LAPD detective (Frank Adair, later her husband), who ran a gym, and I started refereeing amateur bouts. When I tried to move up to the pros, a lot of people tried to discourage me.

“They told me I wouldn’t be able to take the abuse, that I’d be called names. But I really wanted to do it, and the name-calling, I’ve just sort of blocked that out while I work. Your concentration level is pretty high when you’re working a bout. I really don’t hear much of it.”

What about the blood?

“I’m not at all queasy about blood, unless it’s mine,” she said.

She has more difficulty with airplanes. Her fear of flying has impeded her refereeing career to some extent. California and Nevada judges and referees travel routinely to Asia, Latin America and Europe to serve as neutral judges and referees, but not Adair.

“I have a real problem with airplanes,” she said. “It’s not being up in the air, it’s being inside the plane, the confinement.”

After Adair worked about 100 amateur bouts, the California Athletic Commission issued her first license in 1979. Then came several years of four- and six-rounders. And at 5 feet 5 and 125 pounds, she’s not restricted to working flyweight bouts, either.

“That rapport with both fighters, that I try to establish before they go in the ring, if I get that, it doesn’t matter how big they are,” she said. “All that matters is that they know they must respond to my verbal commands.”

If they don’t, she’s not exactly hesitant about taking charge.

“One time, I had two welterweights who were punching after the bell and wouldn’t stop,” she said. “So I grabbed one of them around the waist from behind and spun him halfway across the ring.”

And in the same determined fashion, she awaits her next step up the ladder.

“I want that world title fight,” she said, “I’ve earned it.”