Geoff Dale’s new book The Fine Art of Boxing - No Stooge in the Ring

Local journalist and author Geoff Dale read from his new book The Fine Art of Boxing - No Stooge in the Ring to an intimate crowd at the Ingersoll Public Library on September 18, 2014. The book is a fictional biography of Larry Fine. “Larry,” from the vaudeville and comedy act the Three Stooges known as “Moe, Larry and Curly” or “Shemp.” Geoff explained his reason for wanting to write the book: “I’ve wanted to write about pop culture with the mindset to the end of the vaudeville era and the beginning of the film era that’s when they come into play. The interesting part about all that is at that particular time the entertainment world was literally made up largely of Jewish performers even though their names like Jack Carter, Jesse Green don't sound very Jewish they all changed their names.” Due to Geoff’s own Jewish background he had an interest in the Jewish culture especially in entertainment. “What fascinated me about this character this is the guy that no one really looks at, its Larry Fine, the bald headed, curly hair middle guy  who didn’t do much, he was more of a reactor then an actor whose real name was Louis Feinberg.“

Local Author Geoff Dale with his book The Fine Art of Boxing - No Stooge in the Ring

The Back Cover of Geoff Dale's Book

Geoff goes on to explain how Louis got into amateur boxing. When he was three years old Louis was in his father’s jewellery store, he reached over to get what he thought was a bottle of soda pop. His father saw him and threw a tool knocking the bottle of acid away but it spilled all over Louis' arm. The doctor’s first recommendation was to cut the arm off but his father wanted a second opinion. Another doctor suggested Louis to take up an instrument and do skin grafting. As a result, Louis learned to play the violin and became so proficient that when he was eight years old he played soloist in a symphony. His arm got better but not good enough. The doctor then suggested Louis needed to have a really active sport. The three choices then was golf, only played by rich people, baseball or boxing. Louis wanted to box. His parents were horrified for they didn’t approve their son fighting in public. The irony was his father watched boxing every Saturday night.

Due to Louis’ insistence though, his father finally relented. However, the deal was Louis could go to the gym to spur, train and punch the heavy bag but he was not allowed to fight in public. Louis got extremely good at boxing that the manager asked him to fight. Louis reported his parents would not allow it but the manager encouraged him that he could change his name like every Jewish boxer. The Champion at that time was Benny Leonard, not his real name. Louis was called Kid Roth. He trained and fought and moved up from amateur to professional fighting. A best friend of Louis’ father mentioned how well Louis was dong in the ring. When his father learned his son was fighting that night he closed his store and watched his son fight his first and last professional boxing match. Louis won the fight. However, his father went to the ringside, grabbed his son by the ear and pulled him out of the ring ending Louis’ boxing career.

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This is where the facts end and fiction begins. Geoff Dale’s book The Fine Art of Boxing - No Stooge in the Ring begins with Louis Feinberg, Larry Fine, winning his first professional fight. The rest of his book is “a what if Larry fought as a professional boxer? I took his life and changed it with different places, with different people and doing things he got to do as a youth but never got a change to do in his early twenties. I put it in context of time; the champion win comes exactly a month before the Great Depression."  A monumental event, Larry has to make a decision. What does he do? You have to read the book to find out.

Geoff’s interest into the Three Stooges goes beyond just about “these guys, it’s about the cultural impact, the vaudeville era, the Jewish influence and the boxing. That’s why I wrote the book, it’s about the underdog; it’s about the little guy that really shouldn’t have made it and hopefully to educate people who really didn’t know these guys. It’s a futile attempt to someone in their sixties trying to say the Three Stooges aren’t so stupid as you think. There is more to them then smacking or poking each other in the eye it’s quite bit more to it than that.” The book is more fiction then fact. “The reality is I basically wrote a fiction based on an awfully lot of non-fiction.” Geoff does not want his readers to know what is real or not. He would rather his readers go out and find out for themselves or they could sponsor him to write another book.

Geoff’s next move is writing a non-fiction on another Stooge, Shemp Howard the Forgotten Stooge.

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Click on the words to view my videos on Geoff Dale’s presentation and reading on my Google+ account.

Check out Geoff Dale’s campaign to write a biography on Shemp Howard