After the previous year’s farce “Shakespeare in Love” won the Best Picture Oscar over “Saving Private Ryan” in 1999, Academy Award voters finally got it right. At the awards ceremony in Tinsletown on the night of March 26, Kevin Spacy won the Best Actor Oscar for “American Beauty.” And for his portrayal of Rubin Hurricane Carter in “Hurricane,” Denzel Washington didn’t.
In the words of that old song, “Hooray for Hollywood.”
Right off the bat, let me say that Denzel Washington is one of my favorite actors on this or any other planet. We both come from the mean streets of New York City, and man can act with the best of them. Still, I was very supportive of Washington losing the Best Actor Oscar, as much as I support any fighter beating Mike Tyson, or any prosecutor putting Don King in jail.
Washington was nominated for his portrayal of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a former fringe middleweight contender and a man convicted not once, but twice for a brutal double murder that took place in 1966 New Jersey.
In the film, and I quote the words of old friend Wally Matthews in the New York Post:
a) Rubin Hurricane Carter was an upstanding citizen harassed by a racist justice system in general and a racist detective in particular;
b) Carter’s “vindication” was obtained thanks to the efforts of some wacky Canadians, and
c) Carter was the victim of a racist decision in his hometown against Joey Giardello and should have left Convention Hall in Philadelphia with the middleweight title.
These three statements are as true as the fraudulent words of Bob Arum, who once said, “Yesterday I was lying. Today I am telling the truth.”
Rubin Carter was never an upstanding citizen. He was a miserable skell from the day he was born, and he will remain so until the wonderful day the gravediggers plant this scoundrel six feet under. Carter was released from prison after two murder convictions not because he was found innocent, but because a kooky, liberal, left-leaning Lenin judge decided that the DA’s summary before the jury in Carter’s second trial smacked of racism. Carter was then released on a writ of habeas corpus, probably feeling that he had just won the Powerball lottery without buying a damn ticket.
As in Spike Lee’s “Summer of Sam,” the Italian-Americans were torn to pieces in “Hurricane.”
Director/producer/writer Norman Jewison invented a villain; a white, racist Italian-American police officer who harasses Carter for years, later accusing him of a trumped-up murder charge. The fact is that this man never existed.
As for the Giardello fight, in the movie it looks like the champion Giardello was taking a kick from Carter, when in fact in the actual fight that took place in 1965, the consensus at ringside had Giardello winning quite easily.
The truth is, Carter was never much of a fighter in the first place.
The first time I personally attended a professional fight was when Joey Archer fought Carter at Madison Square Garden in the early ’60s. A good boxer who couldn’t punch one bit, Archer pounded Carter around the ring for most of the time. part of all 10 rounds, winning on all of the judges’ scorecards by a total of 9-1. Famous sports columnist Dick Young wrote the next day in the New York Daily News: “Sure Archer can dance. But so can Arthur Murray, and Murray hits harder.”
Carter’s entire reputation was built on a first-round TKO of welterweight champion Emile Griffith in a non-title bout. That night, Carter outpointed Griffith by 10 pounds. A minute into the fight, Carter got lucky with a right hand, dropping Griffith onto the seat of his pants. The next two takedowns were more the result of a wobbly Griffith tripping over his own feet. The three knockdown rule was in effect and Carter was declared the winner. Lucky one.
The fact is, in 40 professional fights, Carter lost 12 times, a whopping 30 percent loss percentage. Hardly the stuff great fighters are made of.
In short, the movie “Hurricane” was a big lie, and Denzel Washington was beaten in the Oscar voting, just as Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was flogged 12 times in the ring.
At last people, justice prevails.
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