Retro Bout:  Summer 1963

Posted by Simguy on 7/18/2005, 1:23 am.

(Parrish the blonde in “The Manchurian Candidate”--Joan Blackman an Elvis movie gal)

Before: “Leslie was taking on airs after ‘Candidate’,” recalls Blackman in her memoirs, talking about Ann Margret, Raquel and the other big names--but she as never in their class. I got tired of hearing it and I called her out. I didn’t think she was as good as me and I told her so, there really wasn’t anything more to it: I just wanted to hang an L on Leslie Parrish and teach her a little lesson--that’s all.” The FCBA annals are filled with contests such as the one which occurred between Parrish and Blackman in the summer of ‘63--a struggle for position between two hard-working young beauties fighting for attention in the shadow of the greats of the age. Parrish didn’t share Blackman’s opinion, having campaigned to get an Ann Margret fight before year’s end--to Leslie, Joan was stay-busy exercise. “She’s a bimbo.” Parrish told fight scribes at the time, ‘a tramp, I’ll finish her in two snips and com rolling into Ann with a full head of steam!” Joan in hipster Hawaiian print bikini with bra straps--Parrish in pink/white check print hipster bikini with bra straps. Fought in the poolside bring at the Beverly Hills Hotel--Bobby Darin in attendance.

During R1: The girls stalked. Circled, both prowling flat footed with KO lust in their hearts. Blackman worked her jab with a curious, doubled-up pawing action, looking to step in and swing her right hand hard to Leslie’s midriff. Parrish kept weight on her right foot, easing back from Joan and walking her into robust rights of her own to breadbasket. With distance negotiated, the girls came together in a series of heart pounding collisions, arms pumping, fists thumping downstairs--both with the idea of climbing the ladder and cashing in chins with hooks, Late the round, one of these furious exchanges ended with Parrish rocking Blackman hook to chin with hooks, staggering the brunette and finally forcing her back. Leslie took to mop-up with gusto, lowering her head and thrashing away with both arms (“givin’ her ginger” as they used to say) as Joanie sat in the strands and soaked.

R2,3: The same stalking, prowling pace, the same initial pawing negotiations, then blockbuster fireworks as the girls closed and brawled in earnest.; With her right at the cheek, Leslie was hook-committed, turning her torso, shifting her hips with the shots and getting terrific clout upside Joanie’s head., Blackman proved hittable, and she was moved by solid blonde stroke, but hardly daunted. Joan continued to attack Leslie to the body, both hands churning, climbing the torso and finishing up on chin. When they clinched at all, it was merely to body the other back and position her for punishment--neither girl wanted to stop punching, After three, both women panted with exertion, hair obscuring pretty features, mouths open.

R4,5,6: Slowly but surely, Joan Blackman imposed her will. She did it stubbornly, by taking Leslie’s hook and walking through it. She did it aggressively, attacking the Parrish torso with a non-stop barrage of lefts and rights, slugging away with chin forward as her hands lapped at Leslie’s vitals downstairs. Quit showed in Leslie’s backside, quivered in her thighs, drooped at the corners of her mouth. Joan came forward, stepping and punching and pushing until Leslie’s back touched ropes. Parrish fought with a permanent grimace, hard-pressed to her body and feeling the strength ebb from her limbs. She unleashed her hardest right hands--great scooping blockbusters to the gut of Blackman, but Joan could not be outfought at this point. Leslie’s only chance would be to box, but she had come to the dance prepared to destroy her foe, not finesse her. After six. Leslie Parrish wilted on her stool between rounds, legs buttery, eyes waxen as Joan chirped and fidgeted on her stool like a fretful gamecock anxious to continue.

R7: Joan’s three knockdowns of Leslie in this round were visions of persistence and pursuit as brunette walked blonde down around the ring, punching. Parrish was undone, reeling along the ropes, simply trying to escape and catching wide hooks or lunging right hands on her jaw in the process. Blackman pinned her ears back and looked almost amateurish in her zeal to finish, sweeping and leaping at Leslie, piling into her and struggling to disengage. Each knockdown was a sloppy compilation bludgeoning lefts and rights crashing against skull and shoulders if the blonde--her legs giving way from a combination of her disorganized retreat and Joan’s clubbing power. As Parrish scrambled to her feet the third time, tears brimmed in her eyes and she swayed uncertainly on her hips: it was all the ref needed to see. Cradling the blonde to safety, the official called a halt half way through the seventh round: TKO7 Joan Blackman.

After: A distraught Leslie Parrish had been outworked and dismantled by Joan Blackman, and although a Parrish/Margret bout would eventually transpire, it was a far cry from the main event Leslie had envisioned in the summer of ‘63. Blackman would go on to a successful, if unheralded career as a gatekeeper while Leslie Parrish would drift aimlessly from fight to fight, frequently on short notice and rarely with the kind of pub accorded a marquee name. “I exposed Leslie,” Joan would say gleefully when asked years later about her proudest achievements/. “That was my job--to find out if a girl could fight. Leslie was a punk, pure and simple--she had no business looking down on me. I’m glad I don’t have her nerve in a tooth!”

Reposted by Archer 7/11/11.