The Marciano Interviews - Part Three
Main Event TV Series 1961
Guests: Nat King Cole, Jimmy Durante, George Raft
16mm Sound Transfer, 15 Minutes

This is the third installment of interviews that Rocky Marciano conducted among the 30 episodes of his 1961 television program, Main Event. Each program would include a brief interview with Marciano and his guest, either an artist, entertainer, sports figure or a celebrity. The program would also feature a period or classic fight, which Rocky would narrate, and then discuss with his guest. In retrospect, the interviews themselves have become classics, which is why I wanted to show them. This footage comes from my collection of 16mm prints.

Two Singers and a Gangster

Of the three guests seen here, only Nat King Cole may be familiar to younger viewers, and mostly due to Cole’s daughter, Natalie. In the early 1990s she showcased old TV footage of her father for a series of famous “duet” music videos where the producers created the illusion of Natalie singing with her father. Nat Cole, a brilliant pianist and singer who crossed between pop and jazz, was still a very popular figure in 1961, charting hits until his death of lung cancer just four years after this program was filmed. I like that all three of the guests here were not only genuine boxing fans, but each had boxed at some point when they were growing up as well. When Nate mentions “signing up” a fighter, it sounds archaic - as if he just bought himself a race horse. It goes to show how popular boxing still was at the time and how fighters were regarded as “investments”. Jimmy Durante was one of the most iconic entertainers of the 20th century. A singer, actor and pianist, his gravelly voice, giant Schnozzola, and trademark vaudeville comic style was uniquely American, and made him instantly recognizable everywhere he performed. George Raft the actor, like Durante, is likely familiar to modern audiences through someone’s impression of him, rather than of the man himself. Raft’s successful work was portraying gangsters in movies during the 1930s and 40s. His associations with real life mob figures however, and the fellow actors whom he influenced, have been his legacy. At the time of his appearance on Rocky’s program, Raft’s career was a decade past its peak, which he alludes to, and his remaining movies were mostly as guest roles.

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The Fight Film Collector is a contributing writer for Boxing.com.