The Olympic Today . . . By Rick Farris

The (former) Olympic Auditorium

By Rick Farris

"Are we close to the Olympic?", Remy asked. "Not far," I answered, "We'll be there in about 15 minutes."
Our friend, Remy Damlien, is in town for this week's CBHOF lunch, and I want to show him around town a bit before he returns home next week.

We started the day at 6:30am, where we met at his hotel which is right next door to the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood. While here, Remy has hooked up with a trainer at Wild Card, and joined me for some early morning road work & pad work in the Hollywood Hills.

We had our workout, and then we drove a few blocks to eat breakfast at Art's Deli in Studio City.
I ordered an omlette, while Remy ordered a pastrami sandwich. "We don't get much pastrami in Norway, and the sandwiches only have a few slices of meat. Monica made sure that Remy's sandwich would not leave him hungry, and after we finished, it was off to show him what used to be The Olympic Auditorium.

We drove downtown and pulled into the Olympic's parking lot, and we would both see the Olympic, now as a Korean Church, for the first time. We snapped a few exterior photos and then just let ourselves in the building to walk around. A few walls have been added, and a lot of seats removed, a redesign of the floor area, but it was still the same old gal, just wearing a different wardrobe.

For a moment I saw the building as an old lady, one who was smiling when she saw me enter today, as if to say, "Now don't laugh!" I didn't laugh, and I didn't cry, I was just happy to see her still standing. I felt as if I knew the old broad's secrets. At least a few, anyway.

I tried to take a photo, but the building was pitch black. As our eyes adjusted we could see her, all dressed up for the first time in her life. I tried to show Remy where things were, and we talked about the long gone mural of Dempsey that once decorated the north & east walls.

I pointed out where the dressing rooms were, and the aisle that took us to the ring on Thursdays nights.
I refused to get sentimental, just wanted to say hello. This was the house where Aragon was booed, and where Mando Ramos was cheered.

Remy took in the history, and we left. Maybe one day . . .


-Rick Farris

Classic Photo

Photo Courtesy of Frank Baltazar Sr.

John Liechty and Eddie 'Animal' Lopez Circa..1980
The Olympic Auditorium parking lot.

Back in 1965 . . .

By Rick Farris

Thursday was fight night at L.A.'s Olympic Auditorium back in the mid-60's.
In early 1965, KTLA Ch-5 began to televise weekly boxing from the 18th & Grand arena.
Almost immediatly, "Boxing from the Olympic", became the highest rated sports broadcast in Southern Cal.

My first visit to the Olympic had taken place the previous year, when flyweight champ, Hiroyuki Ebihara defended his title against Mexico's "Alacran" Torres. That one ended in a riot, and it was nearly a year before my dad would take me back to see a fight live. When he did, I would see the Olympic on a thursday night for the first time. This time, two TV cameras were perched on a platform hanging right below the balcony. Above the cameras on the edge of the balcony, were ten 2,000 watt spotlights, providing front fill light for the cameras. The ring was bathed in a blanket of white light beaming down from a cluster incandescent light fixtures directly above the ring.

The aura of the Olympic ring came to life when accented by the TV lights. The powder blue canvas would glow in the light, something very surreal. I was hooked the moment I stepped into the Olympic that night. At ringside, calling the action for the TV audience were matchmaker Mickey Davies and a young sportscaster named Dick Enberg. I felt at home there, I felt I belonged, I felt the presence of the spirits of greatness that had once boxed and wrestled there. I wanted to spend a lot of time there, and I would, as both a fan and a fighter.

My dad took a buddy and I to the fights that night. We had tickets about a dozen rows back from the ring, good seats, great view.
The main event that night was a barn burner. State featherweight champ, Danny Valdez, fought a ten round war with Pete Gonzalez of Portland. Valdez had beaten Gonzalez in a twelve round state title defense the previous year. This time he would lose a ten rounder in a very close fight.

After the fights, my dad took us across the street to what was then a drive-in restaurant, "The Olympic Cafe".
We were seated at a booth, waiting to order when we see the two main event fighters enter the restaurant together. They walk over to the counter and sit down together. I could see that Valdez cheek was swollen, and was holding one of the Reyes boxing gloves he'd worn that night. I watched the waitress take the boxer's orders, and then saw her smile as the fighter's joked with her. When she walked away, the smiles left their faces, you could see they were tired, and rightfully so. As Gonzalez spoke to Valdez, the state champ pressed his soggy boxing glove up to his swollen face, as if it were an ice bag.

I remember I was surprised that the boxers were friendly, I learned that boxers don't need to hate one another in order to take care of business in the ring. They were professionals. Less than an hour earlier, they were trading knockout blows, now they were good buddies talking over hamburgers.

I never forgot what I saw that night, both in the ring and at the restaurant. I learned something.
Last year, Frank Baltazar introduced me to Danny Valdez. I told him what I remembered about that night.
Danny smiled, and we had a nice conversation. He had challeneged Davey Moore for the featherweight title.
After boxing, he worked for our local ABC network as a lighting tech.
Ironically, I followed my boxing days by working as a lighting tech.

This coming saturday I'll have a chance to see Danny Valdez again. Danny is an East L.A. guy, from Maravilla.
He had a great career in the ring, and a great one with ABC. A true Classic American West Coast boxer.


-Rick Farris

Filming at the Olympic Auditorium . . .

By Rick Farris

Think back to all the boxing related movies or TV productions you have watched where you find yourself inside L.A.'s Olympic Auditorium. During my years as a film technician, I've worked on several, however, the one that comes to mind was the first, a 1979 production of a TV movie called "The Contender". 

The production was an unbelieveable boxing tale starring a needle-nosed actor named Marc Singer. The cheesy script was bad enough, but no man in history with a long, thin, perfectly-pointed nose like Singer's competed in a prize ring. If they did, the nose would immediatly be rearranged, regardless of the boxer's defensive skills.

We shot all over town, at the Main Street Gym, on stage at Universal, the old San Bernardino Arena, a brick structure sitting so close to the railroad tracks that the place felt like an earthquake was happening whenever a freight train rolled by.

When our production rolled into the Olympic, I was on the crew. I was part of the rigging crew that laid in all the cable for the production lighting equipment. I was up and down into the arena and the balcony area. We had big units burning up high, providing a strong back-crosslight for the ring from the edge of the balcony.

While up in that balcony, I had a chance to see the Olympic in ways I'd never before. I had the freedom to go anywhere in the building I wanted, so I went to a place that had always caught my eye and interest. I went high into the rafters, way above the ring below covered with it's powder blue canvas. High above the balcony seats, directly above the ring, that place where the microphone would drop down from, directly into the hand of ring announcer, Jimmy Lennon. Sr. That's where I was. 

The microphone cable reel was still there at the time. In later years, I would see that it had been stripped and was left a rusting piece of metal, not worth the bother of removing. This was after the "wireless mike" had come tp replace the need for a cable system that was attached to a big, heavy micorophone. In later years, Olympic Auditorium ring announcers would have a small wireless mike and would stick it in their jacket pocket after using.

While up high in the Olympic, I discovered gigantic windows covered with sheet metal. These gigantic windows provided ventilation for cigar and cigarette smoke in the 18th & Grand arena's early days. They could just roll up the metal covers and clear the air. 

Of course, I took time to look around and try to think of every great boxer who had fought there. How many had died there? I myself would see two more die in that building within the next three years (Johnny Owen & Kiko Bejines). I tried to picture May West and George Raft sitting ringside, and I could remember seeing Mickey Cohen ringside at a couple of my own fights. Bogart was a big fan, and Lauren Bacall told me years ago that she and Bogie often were ringside at the Olympic and Hollywood Legion. I thought of Aileen Eaton, Cal, Jackie McCoy, Davies, Chargin, Fraser, Parnassus, Suey Welch, Tom Kennedy, Babe McCoy . . . were their ghosts close by? In my mind, if nowhere else. 

I thought of the real "Golden Boy", and of course, I remembered Mando Ramos. He wasn't such a distant memory in those days, and to be honest, Mando Ramos has never been a "distant memory", never will be. Mando Ramos made a life long impression on me. Mando Ramos and the Olympic Auditorium walk hand-in-hand thru my mental notebook.

I looked down, envisioned some early moments in my boxing history. Watching Danny Valdez and Petey Gonzalez slug it out in one of my earliest thursday night visits. I remember how I wish I had been up there with a movie camera to film the 1964 riot that took place after Hiroyuki Ebihara got the nod over Alacran Torres in a flyweight title fight. The Mexicans wren't happy with the decision. The floor was no place to be. Objects would fly hard from that balcony. Even the coins that often would shower the ring after a good fight would hurt like hell if they bounced off your skull, especially ones that fans whipped down from the balcony. Jimmy Lennon used to have scars on his forehead and hairline from quater sized missles. Part of the game for fans was making Jimmy a target. 

When you are up high in the building, where only maintenance crews work, you see the real age of the old gal. You see the vericose veins on the upper, out-of-site walls that haven't seen a drop of paint since the place opened in 1926. It was here that the old broad could be seen without her make-up. It was her secret, just her's and that rats that walk the beams, and travel close to the walls, where their droppings litter the perimeter. It's a place where you find dust older than your father's first automobile. 

I tried to imagine how it was up there on the day it opened. I remembered the photo I saw of Jack Dempsey breaking ground for the building when it first underwent contruction. It would serve as the boxing and wrestling venue for the 1932 Olympics, about a half dozen years after it's doors first opened. 

So many memories and curiosities crossed my mind that day. Of all the interesting places the film industry would take me, one I appreciate most is the Olympic, where I was able to climb that creaky old ladder into the rafters.

Only in the film industry would that have been possible for me.

What it was like, FIGHTING AT THE OLYMPIC . . . By Rick Farris

Courtesy of Rick Farris

What it was like, FIGHTING AT THE OLYMPIC . . . I'll never forget the first time I went to the Olympic to watch a fight. It was the mid 60's and I was a kid with my dad. The place was like a magic kingdom to me. The smell of beer and cigar smoke, the roar of the crowd, the powder blue ring canvas, the TV lights shining down from the edge of the balcony. The ring lights glaring straight down from above, the beam of light shrouding the ring in smoke that wafted up from ringside.I dreamed of fighting there one day. Just a kid's dream, but I made it come true. How? I don't know, but I did!I remember the excitment of the crowd as I watched as a kid. The fighters would come bouncing down the aisle to the ring, the crowd would greet them with a thunderous ovation, especially for the big fights. You'd never forget the excitement of Mando Ramos, his ring entrance would send a shock wave of energy thru the crowd. So would Jerry Quarry, Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez, and so on. I rememebr Mando when he would enter the ring, it was so different than what you see today. No rap music, no entourage, no dancing, no magic carpet entrance, just Mando bounding down the ring behind Jackie McCoy, holding a bucket. When Mando would step thru the ropes the crowd would explode. When he was introduced by the late Jimmy Lennon Sr. there were no histerics, no stare downs, no false bravado. Mando would just calmly nod to his fans. He'd do his fighting in the ring. He was the coming of a new "Golden Boy".I dreamed of fighting in that ring, and I would one day do just that, and I would do it quite a few times. The first time in the 1967 Jr. Golden Gloves Championship finals, in a bout that Frank Baltazar was matchmaker. Frank's boys were there too, Frankie Jr. Tony and Bobby. Later I would appear there as an amateur, in the Golden Gloves, and the Diamond Belt tournaments, and before the thursday night pro cards on a few occasions, and then as a pro. The first nine pro fights of my career were held at the Olympic. I was never a great fighter like the guys I named above, but I fought at the Olympic, and Jimmy Lennon introduced me to the crowd quite a few times. That is something that NOBODY can take away from me. I had a dream, and made it happen!I sat in those underground dressing rooms, watched the guy fighting before me leave our dressing room and hear him introduced to the crowd from deep below the arena. Then, as I nervously tried to rest, hear the crowd roar. I knew something was happening, as I nervously anticipated my bout, which was next up. Johnny Flores would warm me up, lace on the gloves, apply a thin layer of Vaseline and then pull my robe over my shoulders. The bout would end, a decision was announced and a few moments later the guy who shared the dressing room with me would return, sometimes smiling in victory or not, sometimes battered and bloody, sometimes not. Then the athletic commssion rep would step in and say "It's time Ricky, your on . . ." Johnny Flores would slap my back and say, "Let's go champ", and we were off. Out the door of the room, down to the exit tunnel, thru the opening, turn left and up a short flight of stairs to the top, turn left, past the concessions stands, turn right and down the aisle to the ring. I then move slowly behind Flores as the fans reach out to touch me, we pass from under the balcony and as I come into view of the crowd I hear a roar and I begin to jog the rest of the way to the ring, up the steps, thru the ropes and suddenly all the butter flies disapear. Jimmy Lennon flips a large disk to determine which corner will be mine, then we move to that corner. I walk to the rosen box and see my opponent climb thru the ropes. The perspective from the ring is much different from that outside the ring. Frank will tell you, no matter how many times you've sat ringside, nothing looks quite the same at the Olympic as it does from inside that powder blue ring. Things are suddenly much smaller inside the ropes. There is an unexplaneable intimacy, excitement, energy. Suddenly, the microphone drops down from the rafters into Jimmy Lennon's hands."Ladies and gentleman this is the semi-main event of the evening, six rounds of boxing between two outstanding banatmweights. Calling the bout from ringside will be TV announcer Jim Healy, keeping account of the knockdowns will be our timekeeper Jack Smith at the bell, and physician in attendence will be Dr. Bernhart Schwartz. Judging from ringside will be George Latka and Dick Young, and the referee in charge of this bout will be John Thomas. Allright fans here we go . . ."Sorry guys, I just got caught up in the greatest memory I posess. . . I FOUGHT AT THE OLYMPIC!-Rick Farris