معرفی

Introduction

As Jim Braddock stepped out into the bright lights, the crowd became silent. The ring seemed so far away. Between him and it were thousands of people—Jim’s people. He knew the looks on their faces—people who saw no chance of a future. Some had spent their last dollar to be here, but tonight they all held their heads high. Their eyes followed him with the wild hope that the story of the Cinderella Man would have a happy ending.

The story of heavyweight boxer James J. Braddock—the “Cinderella Man”—is a true one. It begins in New York City in the late 1920s. The 1920s had seen good times in the United States. The rest of the world watched as taller and taller buildings were built in cities like New York. More and more Americans were buying Henry Ford’s cars, and Hollywood was making movies that were seen around the world. In the country’s big cities, it was a time of new fashions, new machines, and exciting new music.

President Herbert Hoover thought that the good times would never end, but he was wrong. The country was producing more than it needed, and many historians believe that this was the cause of the problem. There were still many poor people in the United States—almost half the population—and these people couldn’t afford to buy new things. At the same time, the country’s rich people couldn’t continue to buy things they already owned. The end came suddenly, in October 1929, when the whole system crashed. The economy failed, banks closed, families around the country lost their money, and millions of people lost their jobs and their homes. In 1932, the country voted for a popular new president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who worked hard to solve the country’s problems. There were no quick answers, though—in 1933, there were 15 million people without jobs in the country, one in every four working people—and the 1930s continued to be hard for many Americans.

The true story of Jim Braddock was similar to the story of many Americans. He made a lot of money in the 1920s as a successful boxer, and he and his family had everything they wanted. But for Braddock, too, the good times couldn’t last.

He lost all of his money in 1929, and he experienced bad luck in his professional life when he began to lose fights. Like many Americans, Braddock had to take any work he could find. He had to fight just to put food on the table for his family. Most people believed that his life as a professional heavyweight boxer had ended. The story of his second chance is one of the sport’s greatest stories.

It was a story that the writer and boxing supporter Cliff Hollingsworth knew well. Thinking that it would make a great movie, he spoke to Jim Braddock’s sons in 1994. They told him that their father had been a national hero, but that now most people hadn’t heard of him. Hollingsworth wanted to change that situation so “this forgotten hero will be remembered once again.”

Actor Russell Crowe became interested in making a movie of Braddock’s story. Crowe, who was born in New Zealand and grew up in Australia, told how Braddock did everything possible to support his family. “I just wanted people to hear this true American story,” said the actor.

Filmmaker Ron Howard learned more about the possible movie when he made A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe.

Howard already knew about Braddock—when he was little, his father had told him about the fighter.

It was clear to the filmmakers that Braddock’s wife and family were the most important things in his world, so they knew that the character of Jim’s wife, Mae, was very important to the movie.

Actress Renee Zellweger was interested in playing Mae because Mae was a strong woman at a time when many women had no voice at all. “She’s never afraid to tell Jim what’s in her heart, even when it’s not what he wants to hear,” said Zellweger.

Before the movie could be made, Russell Crowe had a lot of work to do. After his last movie, the actor weighed 103 kilograms.

Jim Braddock fought at 81 kilograms and he was taller than Crowe, so the actor had to lose weight. He did this by methods from Braddock’s days—swimming, running, riding a bicycle, and climbing.

He also had to study boxing, working long hours at the punching bag and in the ring. He was helped by the most famous trainer in boxing’s history, Angelo Dundee, who has worked with Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, and the greatest champion of them all, Muhammad Ali. The trainer helped Crowe to box, and to box just like Jim Braddock. Dundee spoke of the actor’s speed and skill in the ring. “Best of all, he has learned to think like a fighter,”

said the famous trainer.

Crowe was also not afraid of pain. He was knocked down several times and suffered loose and broken teeth; one week before filming began, his shoulder was badly hurt. When the movie was made, some of Braddock’s opponents were played by real boxers, who had to learn to throw punches that didn’t hurt so much. They didn’t always remember! In one scene, boxer Mark Simmons hit Crowe so hard that actor Paul Giamatti, playing Braddock’s manager, heard the boxing glove hit Crowe’s head. Giamatti’s look of shock in the film wasn’t acting! “I don’t know how he continued with the fight,” said Giamatti.

In the end, Cinderella Man is not just a story about boxing. It is the story of a family who stayed together in hard times—the story of a man who fought for what he loved and believed in.