Sport: Stork Club Champ

Fifteen thousand fight fans had no complaint last week over the fact that most experienced prize fighters have gone into the service. They thoroughly enjoyed seeing two scrappy kids, Newark’s curly-haired Allie Stolz and Harlem’s kinky-haired Beau Jack, fighting it out in Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, for a fling at the world’s lightweight title. The title had, as a matter of fact, been abandoned that very day by Champion Sammy Angott—supposedly because of a badly battered hand.

Stolz, a stylish young boxer, was rated the No. 1 challenger for Angott’s crown. But the Beau, in his first appearance as a Garden headliner, punched him off his perch. After seven rounds of piston-like pounding reminiscent of Henry Armstrong’s famed windmill attack, Stolz’s left eye was bleeding so badly that the referee stopped the bout, awarded a technical knockout to the little brown upstart.

Beau Jack is no Joe Louis, but he is a busy little fighter. His real name is Sidney Walker and he is an orphan. When he was a moppet, he was found asleep in the locker room of the Augusta (Ga.) National Golf Club, Bobby Jones’s home sod. Bowman Milligan, the club steward, made him shoeshine boy. When the club put on battles royal, Little Beau always picked up the coins. Before long, the happy-go-lucky, flat-faced ragamuffin became the mascot of Jones and his friends.

When the Jones clique learned he wanted to be a prize fighter they formed a syndicate to back him: 22 of them, including Jones, Sportswriter Grantland Rice, Actor Frank Crumit, Socialite Tommy Tailer, Stockbroker Clifford Roberts, L. B. Maytag (washing machines), Bartlett Arkell (BeechNut Co.), Aired Severin Bourne (Singer sewing machines) and many another gold-spooned golfer. To manage their waif, they got Chick Wergeles, a Broadway press agent.

Beau Jack’s patrons expected nothing but fun for their money. They held board meetings, appeared in a body every time Little Beau fought, trooped to his dressing room to hobnob with the fight mob. But Beau Jack was no palooka. Sticking to his battle-royal style, he licked 40 of his 45 opponents. And with Wergeles’ incessant trumpeting about his Stork Club backers, Beau Jack became famed as the Stork Club champ. He made so much dough that Manager Wergeles recently repaid the syndicate every dollar they invested. Even the Beau has $10,000 in a trust fund.

Beau Jack is not only a flashy fighter but a flashy dresser. His favorite costume consists of a yellow-checked coat, peg-top pants, green porkpie hat, purple tie, yellow shoes. He dislikes Harlem: too noisy. But he can’t stay away from Broadway shooting galleries. He gets $3 a week for spending money, shoots most of it away. Girls he shuns because the syndicate warned him they would prevent him from becoming a champ.

Though 21 (he thinks) and physically fit Beau Jack may not get into the big fight for some time. He can neither read nor write.