To Finish About Actors/boxers
To continue about Jack Palance, if you don't know who he was, he has an acting career that goes back to the 1940s. His rough voice, arched eyebrows and prominent cheekbones served him well in roles such as the vicious gunslinger in Shane, Attila the Hun, and on television in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In 1991 he won the Oscar for Best Actor for his part in City Slickers. Running out of words to say during his acceptance
speech, the seventy-two year old Palance suddenly got down on the floor and did one-armed pushups.
Robert Conrad is most well-known for his roles in the television series Wild Wild West and Baa Baa Black Sheep, later called Black Sheep Squadron. In 1960, years after beginning his acting career, Conrad became a professional middleweight boxer. His record is four wins, two knockouts, and one draw. He retired from the ring in 1962. During that time, he also was acting.
Wild Wild West aired in 1965 through 1969. While rehearsing a stunt on it,
Conrad fell twelve feet, headfirst, on to a concrete floor. Production on the show had to be halted for months while he recovered. In 1992 Geraldo Rivera,
who considered himself quite a pugilist, challenged Conrad to a boxing match.
The fight was to be in New York City and ticket sales would raise money for
charity. Conrad turned him down, probably because he couldn't take blows to his head after being injured. Rivera instead fought an experienced amateur fighter and got a beating, being cornered more than once and getting a bloody nose. But the fight did go to a decision, a loss for him.
Boxing remained a part of Conrad's image. He played a sparring partner in a
boxing gym in an episode of Mission Impossible. In one show of the series Baa
Baa Black Sheep, as the legendary "Pappy" Boyington of World War II fame, he was in a boxing match with the bad guy. The real Boyington had been an
amateur wrestling champion and loved that sport.
In the 2000s, Conrad was seriously injured in an auto accident caused by his speeding. He has had to undergo much surgery and rehabilitation.
John Diehl was a regular on the television series Miami Vice in 1985 when he quit the show to become a middleweight boxer at the age of thirty-five. He
had two fights. The first was against DeBoe Bickering on December 21, 1985. Diehl won that one by a knockout in the first round. On April 11, 1986 he lost on points to Eugene Holly in four rounds. Even though he could have been knocked out or TKOd, Diehl quit the ring after that loss. Oh well, if we don't try, we'll never know, right?
Mickey Rourke had been an amateur boxer as a teenager, with twelve knockouts in a row. After having success as an actor, he was a light-heavyweight boxer from 1991-1994, with a record of six wins, two draws, five kos.