PRIMO (Paperback, New Ed)

He was a phenomenon. The most colossal boxer ever to win the world heavy-weight championship, thereby becoming one of the only three Europeans and the first Italian fighter ever to win the crown. They called him 'Man Mountain', and also a fraud far the way he was promoted to contender status by a series of 'fixed' bouts and media ballyhoo. A 1956 Hollywood film, The Harder They Fall starting Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger, was a thinly disguised story of a giant peasant ruthlessly exploited and abandoned to poverty. The true life story of Primo Carnera: prizefighter; lover; popular idol; tragic victim and, finally, international star of the wrestling ring is far more fascinating. It is told here, for the first time, in a full-length biography, by novelist, biographer, and one-time boxing critic, Frederic Mullally.