Background
Jack Kearns was born John Leo McKernan on August 17, 1882 in Waterloo, Michigan, United States, the son of Phillip McKernan, a journalist, and Frances Hoff.
(excellent condition inside of the hardcover book; pages a...)
excellent condition inside of the hardcover book; pages are clean; the binding is sewed and tight; the spine is intact without creases; light wear and a slight age-tanning on the dust cover; 333 total of pages; size:5 1/2"x8 1/2"; 1966 first printing; published by Macmillan Company (ref. up2)
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Jack Kearns was born John Leo McKernan on August 17, 1882 in Waterloo, Michigan, United States, the son of Phillip McKernan, a journalist, and Frances Hoff.
Kearns attended public schools in Waterloo, but left school before the age of fourteen.
Kearns drifted to Alaska during the Klondike gold rush. He never became a prospector, preferring employment in the saloons of Nome, White Horse, and Dawson. His first association with boxing may have occurred in Alaska, where he met Tex Rickard, who later became the famous boxing promoter. By the time he was eighteen, Kearns had drifted to Montana and then to Seattle, where he tried out for a baseball club as a pitcher. While waiting for a contract with the club, he turned to boxing and changed his name to Jack Kearns. He fought sixty-seven professional bouts, competing in the lightweight and welterweight divisions. He was knocked out in 1901 by Honey Mellody, who became welterweight champion in 1906. Kearns soon recognized his pugilistic shortcomings and turned to the management of other boxers.
Kearns's first prominence as a promoter came when he took a group of American boxers to Australia, After his return to the United States in 1917 he became a national sports personality as the manager of Jack Dempsey. Accounts of his early life may have been colored in retrospect by the flamboyance of his career after his association with Dempsey. Many incidents attributed to him may or may not have been true. It is extremely difficult to separate fact from fiction, partly because of Kearns himself--he was a master storyteller--and partly because of the boxing milieu, where flamboyance, stretching the truth, and excessive promotionalism were and are the normal way of life.
Kearns was at the center of the "Golden Age" of boxing in the 1920's. Jack Dempsey began fighting in Utah and Colorado mining camps about 1912. Kearns, who became his manager in 1917, taught him how to box and how to use the left hook, which became Dempsey's most feared punch. After Dempsey won the heavyweight title from Jess Willard in 1919, Kearns began to cash in on Dempsey's popularity. He was Dempsey's manager in boxing's first two million-dollar gates, against Georges Carpentier and Luis Firpo. Nat Fleischer, editor of The Ring, credited Kearns with inventing the art of modern ballyhoo, the type of publicity designed to draw crowds to fights. After Dempsey married Estelle Taylor, a movie actress, he and Kearns parted company, but not as friends. Kearns unsuccessfully sued Dempsey for part of the proceeds from Dempsey's two losing matches with Gene Tunney. He never really forgave Dempsey; a year before Kearns died he finished writing his memoirs, The Million Dollar Gate (with the assistance of Oscar Fraley), in which he revived a long-standing rumor of foul play in Dempsey's fight with Willard. Kearns claimed that Dempsey floored Willard seven times in the first round because his gloves were loaded. Dempsey denied this, and most boxing authorities discount Kearns's story.
After the 1920's Kearns faded into obscurity. He claimed to have lost about half a million dollars on the stock market, but was still able to leave an occasional $50 tip for a waiter. When Mickey Walker lost his middleweight crown in 1931 because he was no longer able to make the 160-pound weight limit, Kearns was left without a champion. No longer was he able to enjoy the life of a high roller, backing lavish all-night parties at speakeasys such as Texas Guinan's and the Hotsy Totsy Club. After being involved in a number of enterprises, none of them very successful, Kearns revived his boxing career in the 1950's as manager of Joey Maxim and Archie Moore. By this time he was known as "the Doc, " because of his skills in patching facial cuts and abrasions suffered by his charges. He died in Miami, Florida. When Jack Dempsey was told of Kearns's death, he said, "We had a lot of laughs together. "
(excellent condition inside of the hardcover book; pages a...)
Kearns married Lillian Kansler on May 26, 1932. They had two sons, and were divorced in 1948.