Person Biography:
Max Everitt Rosenbloom, also known as "Slapsie Maxie", was born on September 6, 1904, in Connecticut to a Russian-Jewish shoemaker and his wife. He was a truant and upstart from the beginning, but his older brother, Leonard Rose, helped him straighten out and influenced him to try boxing. Maxie had a lackluster amateur career, losing most of his matches, and worked odd jobs to support himself. He turned pro in 1923 as a welterweight and won all of his first 36 professional fights in various weight divisions.
As a professional boxer, Maxie was known for his aggressive fighting style, which included slapping opponents with open gloves. He was dubbed "Slapsie Maxie" by sportswriter Damon Runyon, who disapproved of his unclassy style. Maxie is considered the most active champion in contemporary boxing history, with a fighting total of 106 while champion, and held the light heavyweight belt from 1930 to 1932.
Outside the ring, Maxie was infamous for his gambling and womanizing. He married psychologist Muriel Faider in 1937, but the marriage was childless and lasted only eight years. After retiring from boxing, Maxie turned to Hollywood and appeared in over a hundred films, including Nothing Sacred, The Kid Comes Back, Each Dawn I Die, and Irish Eyes Are Smiling. He also opened a nightclub, "Slapsie Maxie's", and partnered with another former boxing champion, Max Baer, in a nightclub act and a few films.
In his later years, Maxie appeared on TV as a regular on The Joe Palooka Story and on stage as Big Jules in a 1961 revival of "Guys and Dolls". He published his autobiography, "Fifty Years at Ringside", in 1958. Maxie's health deteriorated with age, and he suffered from pugilistic dementia, also known as Paget's disease, as a result of the continuous head blows he endured as a boxer. He died on March 6, 1976, at the age of 71 in South Pasadena, California.
