WESTSIDE / Cover Story : TOUGH GLOVE : Former Pro Boxer Phil Paolina’s Hip, Upscale Gym Is Where Celebrities and Others Come for a <i> Real</i> Workout

KO’d in his quest to be a boxing champion, Phil Paolina has become a trainer, Westside style.

While many boxing establishments suffer from a seamy image, the La Brea Avenue club operated by Paolina, a 37-year-old Brooklyn native, is upscale, brightly colored and hip by design, as good for hanging out as for working out.

The 7,000-square-foot Paolina Boxing Club, a former yarn store in a strip mall just south of Wilshire Boulevard, is dominated by a red, white and blue 22-by-22-foot ring. The walls and counters are decorated with boxing posters, favorite album covers by the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, and photographs of some of the celebrities who train or have trained with Paolina: Bob Dylan, Thelma Houston, Jason Priestley and others.

Paolina, who fought nine professional and 27 amateur fights before hanging up his gloves about three years ago, says he hopes to use his club to develop legitimate title contenders. To that end, he said, he has helped train serious fighters, including Frank Liles, World Boxing Assn. super middleweight champion, and Tom Martin, Junior Olympic heavyweight champion.

But crucial to that enterprise is the following his tough approach has won among upscale clients who--while they pose little threat to Mike Tyson--learn to box for a movie part, an ultimate workout or a militant form of self-help. Members pay $1,200 a year or more. Of course it helps that boxing has lately become a fitness fad.

TV actor Holt McCallany, who co-stars in the cable movie “Tyson,” trained with Paolina for the role. And one recent afternoon, TV star David Alan Grier collapsed in a puddle of his own perspiration after a punishing session with Paolina, whom students often describe as “a good motivator.”

“A lot of people have compared Phil to Rasputin,” said friend and student Edward Gil, referring to the charismatic Russian monk who is said to have mesmerized the family of Czar Nicholas II.

Born in Brooklyn, Paolina (pronounced pow -ah- lee -nuh) grew up in Queens, the son of an Italian American longshoreman and a housewife. As a boy, he hung around what he calls “Italian social clubs,” the ethnic neighborhood taverns where his father and other working-class men would gather.

“I worked inside the social clubs, with my father and all these wise guys,” he said. “They’d play pool and gamble and I would cook and help out. I was just a little kid.”

A natural athlete, young Phil excelled at virtually every sport he tried, including football, baseball, basketball--and boxing. By his early 20s, he was already the veteran of more than a dozen amateur fights and was running his own candy and stationery store while preparing for a pro career.

He was also taking some brutal beatings in the ring, “seriously” breaking his nose twice and suffering numerous minor nose fractures. His slightly sunken left cheek bears lasting witness to an especially brutal bout, a 1982 Golden Gloves semifinal in which his opponent’s head smashed into his face, shattering his left cheekbone.

Paolina has memorialized the event by keeping a black-and-white photograph from the match under glass in his club. In the photo, the injured fighter, still wearing his gloves and headgear, is the picture of stunned agony, his left eye swollen shut and his mouth screwed up into a kidney-shaped contortion. He conceded the match.

Two years later, Paolina won, by unanimous decision, his first professional fight as a light heavyweight. From that promising start came eight years of doubt and hard work as the obscure contender moved to Southern California and struggled to make a name for himself in a sport where careers can end early and suddenly.

Some of that frustrating period was chronicled in “Animal Instinct,” a 1992 short documentary about Paolina that was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Director Gary Fleder followed Paolina off and on for several years as the boxer watched his professional dreams slowly evaporate.

The climax of the film centers on what proved to be Paolina’s last professional fight, against Martin Amarillo in Los Angeles. After holding off his quick, well-trained opponent for one round, Paolina visibly crumpled under a withering barrage of hooks and jabs. The film shows the referee stopping the match and hugging Paolina, who is splayed against the ropes, his head bowed and resting on the official’s shoulder like a deflated speed bag. Amarillo had won.

In the locker room just moments after the fight, an exhausted and punch-drunk Paolina is glimpsed murmuring to his handlers: “What’s the guy’s name? What’d he hit me with?”

Today he remains bitter about the loss.

“Where was my trainer?” he asked, fuming. “Five days before the fight, I was 21 pounds overweight. I was 196 and I had to weigh in at 175. . . . I had all that natural [athletic] ability, but I was with people who were not qualified as mentors.

“I never had anyone say, ‘Phil, you . . . gotta run, you gotta lose weight.’ I was never told that. When I was young, I always used to win the little games, but then when the big games that really counted came, I’d always come up short.”

Yet some wonder whether Paolina, despite his considerable athletic skills, had the fighting instinct that makes a good boxer a great one.

“I had the impression that Phil had to determine for himself if he wanted a boxing career,” said Fleder, who has remained a friend since filming the documentary and is now wrapping up a feature film for Disney’s Miramax division. “He had to see for himself if he had the spirit to do it. Boxing is a sweet science. It’s not just the skill or athleticism--it’s something intangible, too. The desire to do it, to get out there and fight.”

Said Paolina: “When I was in New York, people used to say, ‘Phil, you’re too nice a guy to be a fighter.’ Too sensitive, too naive or whatever.”

So, with some prodding from his wife, Susan, Paolina several years ago turned his sights toward a career as a boxing trainer.

His first gym was a 700-square-foot affair near Fairfax Avenue and 5th Street. The space was so small that visitors had to cross the ring to reach the back of the club.

But he was already developing a celebrity clientele, thanks partly to connections he had made during his fighting days, when actor and boxing enthusiast Mickey Rourke befriended him. The pair later had a falling out, though Paolina said they still talk occasionally. Rourke could not be reached for comment.

The gym on La Brea Avenue is in many ways a reflection of Paolina’s world, past and present. With eight heavy bags and two pro-sized rings, the club has enough equipment to recall the gritty underground gyms of boxing lore. But it also has a homier, more inviting feel. An afternoon visitor might find Susan in the corner, breast-feeding the couple’s 5-month-old daughter, Taylor, while Phil trains a client.

Paolina’s favorite music--Counting Crows, Neil Young, anything by blues artists--plays over stereo loudspeakers.

“In most of the boxing gyms I trained in, music wasn’t allowed,” Paolina said. “But music motivates you. Boxing is so much like a dance. I teach it that way. It’s a dance, but a deadly dance, a dance of self-defense.”

Some pro hopefuls find the unlikely atmosphere intriguing.

“It’s really interesting here. You never know who’s going to come in,” said Carlos Monroe, a 30-year-old heavyweight who turned pro earlier this year and has since logged four victories. “There’s a nasty environment in boxing I don’t like. But with the atmosphere here I can really concentrate, even when the stars come in.”

Paolina said he treats his celebrity and athlete customers to basically the same routine. He wraps their hands, helps them put on gloves and then coaches them on technique, emphasizing the importance of balance and relaxation. Sometimes he arranges sparring matches, including some recent rounds between Bob Dylan and other members. Then come stomach exercises, a few minutes on the speed bags and finally jumping rope.

Drawing on years of experience in and near the ring, Paolina uses a mix of sensitivity and competitiveness to goad and inspire novice boxers. An avowed animal rights activist, he will shake his head disapprovingly over magazine photos of euthanized puppies and kittens. But a short time later he will taunt a new student thrown off balance.

To maximize water-weight loss, some trainees wear perspiration-inducing “sauna suits” and cover their bodies with Albolene, a skin cream that opens pores.

Many clients--men and women alike--seem to grow attached to the rigor of it all.

Michael Kahn, a music industry attorney, spent a recent evening jumping rope and thumping the speed bag. Then he walked outside, lifted up the elastic sleeve of his sweat jacket and drained a cup or so of perspiration.

“I was 226 pounds when I came in and I was down to 180 pounds in three months,” Kahn said, smiling. “If I wasn’t 38, I’d go pro. [Boxing] came easy.”

Pam Comerford, 25, wasn’t at all intimidated by the sport’s macho image. “I was a step aerobics teacher and I got bored with it. I was looking for a killer workout,” she said.

Yet not all are as enchanted with boxing or with Paolina’s tough, go-for-broke approach. David Safian, a 29-year-old photographer, grew frustrated as the trainer scolded him for being too tense and off balance.

“There’s no way for me to get this!” Safian finally blurted out.

Paolina scowled. “OK, OK. C’mon. We’ll get this. Just relax.”

Paolina says he handpicks his students, even if that means turning away a bright prospect or a paying customer. He detests what he calls the “loser mentality” held by those who believe they can enjoy boxing’s advantages without training hard or taking the sport seriously.

“It was tough in the beginning,” he said. “We threw out more fighters than we accepted. A lot of people would come in here with the wrong attitude.”

Nevertheless, the question remains: Does a high-priced gym devoted largely to training celebrities and weekend warriors also have the gritty goods to produce the next Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard or Ray (Boom-Boom) Mancini?

The jury is still out. So far Paolina has trained only a handful of serious contenders and is still looking for his big break, the fighter-trainer relationship that will establish him in the world-class ranks.

But after almost 20 years in the boxing business, Paolina isn’t about to concede the fight now.

“It’s still early but we’ll get noticed soon,” he said, rubbing his hand through his salt-and-pepper beard. “I’m still a young kid in this thousand-year-old business.”