Primo Carnera

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Primo Carnera
Heavyweight boxing world champion
boxer
Primo Carnera
Data
Birth Name Primo Carnera
Weight class Heavyweight
nationality Italian
birthday October 26, 1906
place of birth Sequals
Date of death June 29, 1967
Place of death Sequals
style Left delivery
size 1.97 m
Range 2.16 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles 102
Victories 88
Knockout victories 71
Defeats 14th
draw 0
Profile in the BoxRec database
Primo Carnera in his Italian homeland (silent film)

Primo Carnera (born October 26, 1906 in Sequals , † June 29, 1967 ibid) was an Italian boxer and actor . He was the undisputed heavyweight boxing world champion from June 29, 1933 to June 14, 1934 .

Life

Boxer promotion

Carnera immigrated to France from Italy at the age of 17. There a ringmaster hired him as a wrestler. The boxing manager Léon Sée finally turned the show fighter into a boxer. The development of Carnera into a boxer is said to have served as a model for the novel by Budd Schulberg, the novel "The Harder They Fall" and the film Dirty Laurel .

Carnera fought his first professional fight, who was 1.97 m tall and trained around 120 kg fighting weight was unusually large and massive for the conditions at the time, on September 12, 1928 in Paris against Leon Sebilo and won by knockout in the second Round.

After beating Sebilo, he won the following five fights. He was only defeated by Franz Diener due to a disqualification . This was followed by more victories, u. a. against the highly valued Young Stribling .

Boxing world champion

Carnera won the world title on June 29, 1933 in New York, in the fight against Jack Sharkey by knockout in round 6. The new world champion was then able to successfully defend his title twice, still in 1933 against Paulino Uzcudun and Tommy Loughran . The fight against Uzcudun took place in Rome in front of 65,000 spectators. As a successful professional boxer in the USA, he was also presented by the fascist regime of Italy under Benito Mussolini.

He lost the title on June 14, 1934 in Long Island ( NY ) against Max Baer by knockout in the 11th round.

Boxer decline

The following year he also lost to future boxing champion Joe Louis.

In 1938, a kidney removal forced him to temporarily retire from boxing.

In 1945 Carnera started an initially successful comeback as a professional boxer. In 1946 he finally retired from boxing after several defeats against Luigi Mussina.

He played his last fight as a catcher in May 1961 in New York.

Further career

At the time of his greatest success, he also received offers from Hollywood , which he accepted: In the film The Boxer and the Lady , he played Max Baer's opponent , with which the later world championship fight was first "carried out" on the screen. Films produced in his native Italy, such as B. Prinz Eisenherz (1954), Carnera was seen regularly between 1939 and 1958. Due to his size and appearance, he was booked for supporting roles in several adventure films that could exploit his physique.

Carnera also made a career in comics: From July 1953 to May 1954, Walter Lehning Verlag , Hanover, published the piccolo series 'CARNERA' (originally from Italy) with a total of 46 issues at 20 pfennigs per issue, of which two reprints have been made to date have been published (Melzer Verlag, Hethke Verlag). In 1954 Lehning published a large volume Piccolo special issue (No. 3) at 60 Pfennig with the title 'CARNERA BOXT SICH DURCH', which has since been reprinted by Hethke. At Walt Disney there was a boxing tom named Creamo Catnera (roughly German: Kloppo Schwarzkatz).

Private

In 1953, Carnera married Giuseppina Kovacic, with whom he obtained American citizenship. The family settled in Los Angeles . The couple had two children.

Filmography (selection)

Literature (selection)

  • Joseph S. Page: Primo Carnera - The Life and Career of the Heavyweight Boxing Champion , Jefferson NC 2011.
  • Aldo Santini: Primo Carnera. L'uomo più forte del mondo , 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1] Information from the TV documentary "Amiable Heavyweight"
  2. ↑ Enrico Lancia, article Primo Carnera , in: Roberto Chiti, Enrico Lancia, Andrea Orbicciani, Roberto Poppi: Dizionario del cinema italiano. Gli attori. Rome, Gremese 1998. p. 101

See also

personal data
SURNAME Carnera, Primo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES The Ambling Alp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian boxing champion and actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Sequals
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 1967
Place of death Sequals