Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship

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Simon and Schuster, 2006 M03 10 - 384 páginas
Muhammad Ali and Howard Cosell were must-see TV long before that phrase became ubiquitous. Individually interesting, together they were mesmerizing. They were profoundly different -- young and old, black and white, a Muslim and a Jew, Ali barely literate and Cosell an editor of his university's law review. Yet they had in common forces that made them unforgettable: Both were, above all, performers who covered up their deep personal insecurities by demanding -- loudly and often -- public acclaim. Theirs was an extraordinary alliance that produced drama, comedy, controversy, and a mutual respect that helped shape both men's lives.

Dave Kindred -- uniquely equipped to tell the Ali-Cosell story after a decades-long intimate working relationship with both men -- re-creates their unlikely connection in ways never before attempted. From their first meeting in 1962 through Ali's controversial conversion to Islam and refusal to be inducted into the U.S. Army (the right for him to do both was publicly defended by Cosell), Kindred explores both the heroics that created the men's upward trajectories and the demons that brought them to sadness in their later lives. Kindred draws on his experiences with Ali and Cosell, fresh reporting, and interviews with scores of key personalities -- including the families of both. In the process, Kindred breaks new ground in our understanding of these two unique men. The book presents Ali not as a mythological character but as a man in whole, and it shows Cosell not in caricature but in faithful scale. With vivid scenes, poignant dialogue, and new interpretations of historical events, this is a biography that is novelistically engrossing -- a richly evocative portrait of the friendship that shaped two giants and changed sports and television forever.

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Contenido

Bound Together By a Common Sympathy
11
You Got a Little Joe Louis There
30
Liston is a Tramp Im the Champ
45
The Black Mans White Man
61
We Dont Want to Live With the White Man
119
TeleVISION
140
Youll Never Really Know Him
154
God Knows the World Wants Me to Win
163
You Feelin Any Pain Joe Feelin Any Pain?
235
Mother Cosell Saving Us All From Prostitution
252
Your Unconquerable Soul
282
You Stood Up and Told the Truth
297
Hes Americas Only Living Saint
307
The Alpha and the Omega
323
Acknowledgments
329
Bibliography
351

A TwentiethCentury Torture Device
216
You Know You Need Me More Than I Need You
224

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Pasajes populares

Página 310 - And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.
Página 281 - MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk...
Página 282 - Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Página 78 - During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept in the same bed (or on the same rug), — while praying to the same God — with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. An in the words and in the actions and in the deeds of the 'white' Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan,...
Página 302 - May your hands always be busy, May your feet always be swift, May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift. May your heart always be joyful, May your song always be sung, And may you stay forever young!
Página 284 - Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Página 106 - WE BELIEVE that we who declared ourselves to be righteous Muslims, should not participate in wars which take the lives of humans. We do not believe this nation should force us to take part in such wars, for we have nothing to gain from it unless America agrees to give us the necessary territory wherein we may have something to fight for.
Página 310 - And Joab gave the sum of the number of the people unto David. And all they of Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand men that drew sword : and Judah was four hundred, threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.
Página 80 - In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I never will be guilty of that again — as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.
Página 164 - Joe Frazier is too ugly to be champ. Joe Frazier is too dumb to be champ. The heavyweight champion should be smart and pretty like me. Ask Joe Frazier, 'How do you feel, champ?

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Acerca del autor (2006)

David Kindred has been a newspaper and magazine columnist for thirty-six years and has written seven books, including Around the World in 18 Holes (Doubleday 1994), a chronicle of a 37,000-mile golf trip. For his newspaper work, Kindred received the Associated Press Sports Editors Red Award and is a three-time Pulitzer nominee. The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association named him the national sportswriter of the year in 1997 and he is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame.

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