Primo Carnera
Vintage French postcard. A. N. [Noyer], Paris, No. 265.
Primo Carnera (1906-1967), nicknamed The Ambling Alp, was a professional boxer and wrestler, who scored 15 first-round knockout victories in his career and was world heavyweight boxing champion in 1933-1934. His career as a boxer served as the basis for the book and subsequent movie The Harder They Fall (1956). He also acted in various films, in particular in Italy.
Born in Sequals near Pordenone, Italy, Carnera started out as professional boxer in France in the second half of the 1920s, winning his first professional fight in 1928. He moved to the US in 1930 where his star rose and publicity around his physique and capacities was enormous, but the mafia also took away most of his incomes. During his whole career Carnera never gained much. Beating Jack Sharkey in 1933 Carnera became world champion, becoming an idol in his home country, but was beaten the next year by Max Baer. After being beaten by Joe Louis in 1935, his boxing career went in decline.
After a few small parts in the early 1930s in the US, Carnera had substantial parts in Italian sound films between 1937 and 1943, such as La nascita di Salomè (1940), La corona di ferro (1941), and Harlem (1943). He fought in the Italian resistance, was captured and interned, but released by the Allies. After the war, Carnera focused on wrestling. In 1953 he received American citizenship. From the late 1940s he had small(er) parts in Italian and foreign films, such as Carol Reed's A Kid for Two Farthings (1955). His last part was Anteo the Giant in the peplum movie Ercole e la regina di Lidia (1959). Carnera died in 1967 in his native town of a combination of liver disease and complications from diabetes. Carnera was the third European to hold the world heavyweight championship after Bob Fitzsimmons and Max Schmeling.
Sources: English, French and Italian Wikipedia, IMDb.
Primo Carnera
Vintage French postcard. A. N. [Noyer], Paris, No. 265.
Primo Carnera (1906-1967), nicknamed The Ambling Alp, was a professional boxer and wrestler, who scored 15 first-round knockout victories in his career and was world heavyweight boxing champion in 1933-1934. His career as a boxer served as the basis for the book and subsequent movie The Harder They Fall (1956). He also acted in various films, in particular in Italy.
Born in Sequals near Pordenone, Italy, Carnera started out as professional boxer in France in the second half of the 1920s, winning his first professional fight in 1928. He moved to the US in 1930 where his star rose and publicity around his physique and capacities was enormous, but the mafia also took away most of his incomes. During his whole career Carnera never gained much. Beating Jack Sharkey in 1933 Carnera became world champion, becoming an idol in his home country, but was beaten the next year by Max Baer. After being beaten by Joe Louis in 1935, his boxing career went in decline.
After a few small parts in the early 1930s in the US, Carnera had substantial parts in Italian sound films between 1937 and 1943, such as La nascita di Salomè (1940), La corona di ferro (1941), and Harlem (1943). He fought in the Italian resistance, was captured and interned, but released by the Allies. After the war, Carnera focused on wrestling. In 1953 he received American citizenship. From the late 1940s he had small(er) parts in Italian and foreign films, such as Carol Reed's A Kid for Two Farthings (1955). His last part was Anteo the Giant in the peplum movie Ercole e la regina di Lidia (1959). Carnera died in 1967 in his native town of a combination of liver disease and complications from diabetes. Carnera was the third European to hold the world heavyweight championship after Bob Fitzsimmons and Max Schmeling.
Sources: English, French and Italian Wikipedia, IMDb.