Atlas (21 page)

“Yeah, it's gonna be just like a dance,” I said. It was funny that I said that. Maybe unconsciously it came from Twyla, I'm not sure. But it was clear to me that was how it had to be done. Writing it out that way also made me more comfortable and confident. In a situation like that, if the people you're working with think you know what you're doing, then it's actually like you do know what you're doing.

We rehearsed the fights in the movie every day, getting ready to shoot them. We got to the point where each fight was memorized down to the last punch. There was one particular fight that took place between Willem and this Polish actor. The Polish actor was a nice guy, but he was a big actor in Poland, and on this film he had just this small part, so he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Physically, he was bigger than Willem, and he kept getting a little rough with him. It bothered me because Willem was my guy.

I took Willem aside and said, “Listen, this time when you step to the side, you hit him on the jaw.”

“You mean the shoulder, right? I thought I'm supposed to hit him in the shoulder.” That's what was in the script and was the way we had been doing it.

“No, you hit him in the jaw.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. You're not that big a puncher. You're not gonna knock him out.”

He smiled. “All right. You sure?”

“Yeah.”

They started shooting the scene. The Polish guy was moving forward with this little smirk because he'd been pushing Willem around. This time, Willem stepped to the side and
bang,
hit the guy, and the guy went down.

I was watching through the monitor with the director, Bob Young. All of a sudden I heard him asking me, “What's that in his mouth?”

I leaned in for a closer look. “That? It's nothing. Just a little blood.”

“Blood!”

“Yeah, Bob, c'mon, it's not serious. Every once in a while, you're gonna miss a little. But he's fine.”

Willem helped the Polish guy up, and it was a little bit like what had happened with Donnie LaLonde and Johnnie Walker Banks. The Polish guy kind of tapped Willem, and it was understood, he wasn't going to be rough no more. At that moment, Willem looked over at me and winked. I clenched my fist and gave him a little fist shake down low.

As the weeks went by in Poland, Arnold Kopelson and I actually wound up getting close. We'd eat lunch together on the set, him, Robert Young, Willem, and some of the other actors and me. Arnold and Bob Young loved to hear my boxing stories, especially the stuff about the smokers in the Bronx. In fact, Arnold was interested in doing a TV series about the smokers, but the negotiations fell apart, mainly because he was such a cheap bastard.

The funny part is that on the movie he came to recognize my worth. He saw that I was actually valuable and earning my keep. He even said to me one day, “You should have asked me for more money, Teddy.” That was his sense of humor.

The biggest fight scene in the movie was one between Willem and this German prisoner, Klaus Silber. We were using fighters from the Polish Olympic team in the movie, and we still hadn't picked one to play Silber. Arnold and I were discussing it one day, and he said, “What about you, Teddy? You want to be in the movie?”

“Me?”

“Who could play it better than you? Just so long as you realize I'm not paying you anything extra.”

I smiled. “Yeah, all right, I'll do it,” I said. “Free of charge.”

“The only other thing is, you're gonna have to shave your head.”

“Shave my head? Uh-uh. That I won't do.”

“Teddy, you gotta.”

“No fuckin' way, Arnold. I'm not shaving my head.”

The thing about Arnold, once he made up his mind that he wanted something, he wouldn't let go. He really wanted me to play Silber and he was very upset that I wouldn't shave my head. He called up Mickey Duff and asked him to talk to me. So Mickey called me. He said, “Teddy, I hear you're doing great on this movie.”

“Yeah, Mick, things are going pretty good.”

“Arnold tells me he asked you to be in the movie.”

“Yeah, that's true.”

“He said he asked you to shave your head, but you wouldn't do it.”

“That's right.”

“Teddy, what are they paying you to work on that movie?”

“Mick, you know what they're paying me. Four thousand a week.”

“You want to know what I think? For four thousand a week, I'd shave my balls if they asked me.”

Eventually, I relented. I agreed to get the haircut. When it came time, the girl who was going to cut my hair was very cautious. The truth is she was a little afraid of me. She used a pair of scissors instead of the clippers. She cut it short but like a real haircut. With everyone else, she had just used the clippers and buzzed off all their hair. Not with me. When she was finished, she held up a mirror and asked me, “How's that, Teddy?” I still had a pretty full head of hair. I said, “Yeah, that's good.”

Arnold came into the room at that point. His jaw dropped. He said, “What is this, a barbershop? This is Auschwitz!”

I had to hand it to him. He knew how to make me laugh, he knew how to deal with me.

“Teddy, they didn't get the option in Auschwitz to say, ‘Just a little off the top.'”

“All right, all right,” I said. I looked at the hair cutter. She was in a
tough spot, caught between me and Arnold. “Go ahead,” I said. “Take it all off. Don't worry about it.”

She buzzed it clean. When she was done, Arnold said, “Shit, no wonder you didn't want it all taken off. Wow. I thought you were scary before.” You could see all the scars on my head, where I was hit by a tire iron, and all kinds of other nicks and dings.

The night before the big fight scene, I wrote out the sequence of moves, the way I had done with the others. This was the biggest fight, the most dramatic, the most hateful—a German and a Jew. I wrote it up so that I beat the crap out of Willem for most of the fight, and then in the end Willem won. I showed it to Arnold the next morning, and he started reading it. Halfway through, he put it down and said, “Teddy, I love you, and I'd do anything for you, and I know you're underpaid, but at this point in the film, I cannot afford to throw out Willem and make you the star of the picture. Willem needs to win this fight.”

“Arnold, Arnold, just keep reading a little longer.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just keep reading.”

He kept reading, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. “You had me worried,” he said.

“So you like it?”

“Yeah, I like it.”

We began rehearsing a while later. Everything went well, but at the end of the fight, instead of going down, I had it so that my guy, Klaus, gets hung up on the ropes and keeps getting punched. He never goes down.

Robert Young, the director, said, “It's very good, Ted. I like it a lot. There's only one thing….”

“Go ahead, Bob. Say whatever you want to say.”

“No, it's good,” he said. “It's just the end….”

“What about the end?”

“I'm just wondering why you don't wind up on the canvas.”

“It's a character thing. See, this guy knows that if he loses, he's going to the chimney.”

“Right. But he's been hit with so many punches, how does he stay up on the ropes like that?”

“Unconsciously, it's so entrenched…,” and I started going through this beautiful explanation that was detailed and deep and I talked
about this guy's humanity and his stubborn will to live, and Bob went, “Uh-huh.”

Arnold was in the background, and he hadn't said anything to that point. Suddenly he cleared his throat. “Teddy, could I say something?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think it's possible that you just don't want to go down?”

“No! It's the guy. He thinks he's gonna go to the chimneys.”

“Yeah, but he takes all those shots. Have you ever seen a guy take that many shots and not go down?”

“Sure. Absolutely.”

Nobody wanted to say anything. I guess I was pretty intimidating, especially the way I looked with my head shaved. Finally, Willem said, “Don't you think it's just a little to do with you not wanting a schmuck like me standing over you forever on film?”

“No, no. I swear to God that's not it.”

Arnold said, “What if we pay you more to take the dive?”

“Fuck you, Arnold. I ain't taking a dive for no one.”

“So you admit it!”

“No, no…all right, maybe a little.” I mean, suddenly I realized that they were right. I wasn't being honest with myself. I hadn't realized it, but it was true. “All right, let's do it again,” I said. So we went through the scene again, and we got to the point where I was supposed to go down, and again, I wouldn't go down. I couldn't.

Arnold was shouting, “Just fall! Fall! Come on!”

But I couldn't. I couldn't fall down. Arnold was beside himself. Willem was grinning, shaking his head. “Teddy, I promise I won't tell anybody you took a dive.”

“I don't know what it is. It's a crazy thing.”

It took all my willpower, but the next time we tried it, I made myself fall down. The whole place erupted. I got a standing ovation. For falling down.

The funny postscript is that at one of the premieres, my young son, Teddy, said to Willem afterward, “You didn't knock out my dad. He let you win because you're the star.”

Willem smiled, and I looked over at him and shrugged, like, “What can I say? He's my son.”

N
OT LONG AFTER
I
GOT BACK FROM
P
OLAND, IN THE
beginning of 1988, I met Sammy “the Bull” Gravano. He was a rising star in the mob, the underboss to John Gotti, and he had a reputation for being a ruthless, stone-cold killer. Playing off the tough-guy image, he started going to Gleason's and training with Edwin Viruet, an ex–professional fighter who in his prime had once gone fifteen rounds with Roberto Duran, but was now broken down, overweight, and desperate to make whatever money he could make.

I think Sammy was paying Viruet a couple of hundred a week. Every morning Sammy would come in with his driver, Louie Saccenti, and work out and spar with Viruet. Sammy and Louie were an odd pair. Sammy was short and stocky and wore plain gray sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt, and Louie was tall and elegant and wore a double-breasted suit and shoes that shined like mirrors.

I was training Chris Reid at the time, and Sammy, who was a real boxing fan, knew who I was. He followed the sport closely and knew the personalities. We would nod hello at each other, but I never really talked to him. Then one time, Viruet was away or didn't show up, and Sammy came over to me. He introduced himself and said, “My name's Sammy,” though obviously I already knew who he was.

“You're the kind of person,” he said, “from what I understand about you, that you stand up for things. I follow boxing pretty closely and I like the way you handle yourself. I know the stories about you and I respect you. Would you consider training me?”

“No, I couldn't do that. Edwin trains you and it wouldn't be right.”

“How about just for today, since he's not here?”

“Yeah, okay, I guess I could fill in for him just for the day.”

“Good. What'll I pay you?”

“Nothing. It's just a favor.”

I wound up training Sammy for the day. It wasn't a serious training session; I kept it fairly casual. But he liked what we were doing. He was extremely short. Maybe five feet five, and muscular. He had weight lifter's muscles. Viruet had been teaching him to box from the outside, which was crazy. Gravano had very short arms. In a way it was the perfect con: Viruet made Sammy box like Ali, dancing and staying on the outside, because that way Viruet could stay out of range, and it was easier and less stressful for him. He didn't have to worry about accidentally getting hit by Sammy, who was pretty strong.

Still, it didn't make sense, so I spent the session showing Sammy how to slip and get inside. When we were done, he said, “This is the way I should be fighting. This is the right way for me.” He wanted to pay me. I wouldn't let him. I said, “It was just a favor for one day.”

After that, even though Viruet was still training him, Sammy and I got friendly. He would corner me and ask all sorts of questions.

“What's the most important thing for a fighter?”

“The most important thing? Discipline.”

“What about hand speed? What about power?”

“Nah. Those things don't mean nothing if you can't control yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Control yourself. Make the right decisions.”

I knew we were talking about boxing, and that was certainly how I intended it, but I also realized that he was applying what I was telling him to what he did outside the gym. I can't pretend I didn't know that. There was a parallel between boxing and what he did, as far as facing the moment. At the same time, when someone asked me something, I wasn't going to duck it or avoid it.

“What do you mean by making a choice?” he asked.

“Making a choice whether or not you're going to quit and make an excuse to get out. Fighters sometimes lie to themselves.” I had no idea how important and relevant this conversation would seem a couple of years later when he flipped. It's pretty interesting to look back at it in light of what happened.

“What do you mean, ‘lie to themselves'?”

“They sometimes make excuses to get out and not face what they should face.”

He was looking for the same thing that a fighter is looking for: how to deal with pressure and fear.

“Are you saying that the most important thing is for a guy to be tough?” he asked.

“No. Not to be tough. Tough is just a word. To understand what you're facing, to be in control of yourself, to have the confidence to face what you have to face and not break down under pressure.”

So that was it. That was the real connection between us. He needed advice and counsel, because he was under a lot of pressure, and on some level he thought maybe I could give it to him.

One day not too long after this, my friend Nick Baffi called me up and said, “Teddy, I need to talk to you.”

He came over to the gym and we went and sat at one of the tables by the coffee machine. I knew before he said anything that it was about Gravano. Nick had this friend, Philly, who was with Sammy, and I realized Philly must have said something to him about me and Sammy.

“Be careful with this guy,” Nick said to me. “He's getting very friendly with you.”

“Nah. We see each other in the gym, that's all.”

“He's been talking about you a lot. Asking questions. He's checked you out.”

“What do you mean, he's checked me out?”

“He's made inquiries. He found out about some of your history, that you got in trouble when you were a kid, and a few other things. He knows a little bit about you. He says he likes you, but be careful.”

“All right. But I really don't think there's anything to worry about.” I knew that Nick loved me, and that he was just trying to look out for me.

Sammy kept coming to the gym and working with Viruet, and we continued our conversations and got friendlier. One day, he asked me if
I worked out. It just so happened that I was looking for a gym where I could do some weight work.

“There's a place I train,” he said. “I'd be honored if you'd allow me to give you the small gift of a membership.”

“That's very generous of you, Sammy, but—”

“Why don't you try it?” he said.

I shrugged.

“It's called the Narrows Fitness Club. It's right off the Bay Ridge exit on the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn. You can see it from the highway. Meet me there tomorrow at ten o'clock and I'll hook you up with a membership. It's up to you. If you don't want to go, don't go.”

I met him there the next morning. The gym is actually a New York Sports Club now, but back then it was the Narrows Fitness Club. Sammy arranged for me to get a free Gold Membership. It didn't cost him anything. I guess that's part of why I let myself accept it. I knew he wasn't paying.

He had a personal trainer, a guy named John, who began training both of us every morning at ten o'clock. It became a routine. I would go there before going to Gleason's. This went on for more than a year. We were working with this trainer, and it got very competitive between us. One time, we were doing curls, and Sammy made it a contest of who could do more. I was hurting, but I just kept going. He looked over at me, and he kept going, too. Finally, he had to stop. He said, “Fucking son of a bitch,” and got up and threw the weight at the wall. Then he took the whole freakin' rack of weights and threw them against the wall, one after the other. There were signs up, saying, “Please replace weights carefully.” Other guys in the gym looked around when they heard the weights crash against the wall, but they saw who it was and quickly went back to what they were doing. They didn't want him to see them looking at him. Even the owner didn't dare say anything.

Sammy looked at me as I continued to do curls, and he said to whoever might hear, “This kid's got some balls, some heart, this little son of a bitch.”

Occasionally, after the workout, we'd get lunch together, and he'd want to continue our discussions.

“This thing about control and discipline, what is it they're disciplining?”

“What do you mean, what are they disciplining?”

“All right, controlling. What are they controlling?”

“Fear.”

“You're saying fighters are afraid?”

“Everyone's afraid.”

He didn't like hearing that. He said, “Not me. I ain't afraid of nothin'.”

“Everybody's afraid of something.”

Someone else would have been in trouble disagreeing with him that way, but I guess he made more allowances for me.

“Fighters are afraid because there's a reason to be afraid,” I said. “They can be hurt. They can be killed. So if they're not going to be defeated by their fear, they have to learn to control it, and use it to help them. It's like controlling fire.”

“Fire. I like that word,” he said. “Let's use that word instead of fear.”

“It doesn't matter. It's the same thing.”

“Yeah, I like ‘fire' better, though. Let's use that. We all got fire. So how do we control it?”

“The first thing is to understand it.”

“Understand it how?”

“Understand not to ignore it. Not to deny it. Not to hide from it. You need to make yourself aware of it and realize that it doesn't have to be a weakness. If you're denying it, you're doomed to be controlled by it.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“If you're running around saying, ‘I don't got fear—'”

“Fire!”

“All right, ‘fire.' If you deny having it, then it can't help you, and you have to be victim to it. But if you understand that it doesn't have to be an enemy, that it's not necessarily a weakness, that it doesn't necessarily make you yellow, then you're in a place where you can use it, you can harness it. That's the difference between champions and the guys that don't get there. The champions understand that and are truthful with themselves, even when it's uncomfortable. That enables them to make choices, instead of just having knee-jerk responses.”

Sammy had a hard time digesting a lot of what I was saying to him. It shook him up. He was almost like a kid in a way. Asking big questions, and then, when he heard the answer, going “But why?” He kept needing to hear the answer expanded upon and repeated—and still he didn't
really understand. We had a lot of conversations about the idea of fear—or fire, as he needed to call it. It was funny how the whole essence of what I was talking about was encapsulated by his inability to even utter the word.

For a year, we saw each other nearly every day at the Narrows Club. Besides the weights, Sammy also played handball and racquetball. He was a workout fanatic. I found out he was taking steroids because one day he asked me if I wanted to try them. He said, “Do you want a pop, Bo?” He called everybody Bo. He got that from Gotti, who had picked it up in prison. It was like a derivative of Bro.

“What do you mean, ‘pop'?”

“You know, do some juice.”

“No, I don't do that.”

“It's not bad,” he said. “The only bad thing is sometimes you get pimples on your back.” He was wearing a tank top and I noticed that there were pimples all over his back.

“No thanks,” I said.

“All right, Bo.”

He also tried to get me interested in racquetball. He bought me a brand-new racket. I didn't want it, but he insisted. I said, “I don't play.”

“You'll learn how to play,” he said.

I'd watch him occasionally, through the glass wall. A lot of people would watch. Every once in a while, an FBI agent would try to infiltrate the club. They were following him and keeping him under observation all the time. If Sammy or any of his guys thought that a new member of the club was a cop, they'd refer to him as being “British.” That was the code word. One of them would say to Sammy, “That guy's British.” And Sammy would go, “He's British? That motherfucker.”

I saw Sammy play racquetball with one of these guys one time. Whenever he got the chance, he'd whack the ball at the guy's back. Every once in a while, you'd hear this guy yell “Ahhh!” and you knew he'd gotten slammed in the back. In a normal racquetball game, that might happen on rare occasions, but when Sammy played this guy, it happened three or four times in a game. Sammy kept apologizing. “Oh, sorry, you gotta move a little quicker there, Bo.” But by the time the game was over, the guy was all bruised up.

I took Sammy to a few fights at the Garden. We sat in front with his
crew of guys. His driver, Louie Saccenti, was always with him. Louie had a job on the docks in the local union. He was a shop steward, then he became a delegate, but he didn't have to show up too much, I guess because of Sammy. When we were weight training, Louie would just stand there in an expensive overcoat and suit, watching.

I remember Edwin Viruet said to me one day about Sammy and Louie, “You know, this is the opposite of what it looks like.” Viruet was a guy who looked at things purely for what they were.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“It's a little guy and a big guy,” he said, because Louie was a lot bigger than Sammy. “But the reality is that the little guy is actually the big guy and the big guy is the little guy.”

“Yeah, that's true,” I agreed, laughing.

“You ever notice, when it comes time for me to be paid? The little guy tells the big guy to pay me, and the big guy pays me.”

He was right. Louie carried around the money. That was the way it worked with them.

 

S
AMMY TREATED HIS SPARRING SESSIONS AT
G
LEASON'S LIKE
they were a big deal. He even asked me to work his corner for him a few times. These weren't real fights. The guys he sparred knew they had to work easy with him, and he knew that would be the case. He sparred with Renaldo Snipes one time, a guy who had once fought for the heavyweight title, and Sammy acted like it was for real, even though it was all bullshit. While I was putting the gloves on him, tying them up, he said, “I always had more balls than brains.” Which was just the kind of thing that he was expected to say, being a tough guy, but was in fact the opposite of the truth because it wasn't a real fight and balls had nothing to do with it. I mean, what was there for him to be afraid of?