Muhammad Ali, the greatest athlete of the 20th century, was to writers of his time what the Madonna and Child were to painters of the Renaissance. Everyone took a crack at Ali. Here at The Stacks, we’re been honored to curate Ali stories that previously weren’t available online. Our collection makes up but a small…
Rich Cohen writes books that are hard to put down. From Tough Jews and The Record Men to his hilarious memoir, Sweet and Low: A Family Story, to the boss appreciation of the 1985 Chicago Bears, Cohen is smart, funny, and above all, entertaining. His latest combines memoir, critical and social analysis and good,…
The classic 1974 Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire attracted, among other things, famous writers like Norman Mailer and George Plimpton and even ol’ Hunter Thompson. But while Mailer and Plimpton and the rest of the world marveled at Ali’s command performance, Thompson, well, he experienced the fight as only he could.…
In the late 1940s, a young Nebraskan actor named Marlon Brando had been starring for several months in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway when he was contracted to play a fighter in a TV pilot, Come Out Fighting! For the role, Brando decided to secretly study the famous New York tough guy with the hoodlum backstory,…
Michael Sragow’s review of the director’s cut of Once Upon a Time in America appeared in the March 5, 1985 edition of The Boston Phoenix and appears here with the author’s permission.
Excerpted from Davis Miller’s new book Approaching Ali: A Reclamation in Three Acts (W.W. Norton). Be sure to read Miller’s other famous story about his relationship with Ali right here.
This piece originally appeared in the August, 1982 issue of Film Comment. It is reprinted here with permission.
Benjamin May’s documentary about Llyod Daniels—executive produced by Carmelo Anthony—will play tomorrow night at DOC: NYC tomorrow night, November 19th.
Excerpted from Diane Roberts’s new book, Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America, now on sale.
The good people at Taschen have decided to show us more of sports photographer Neil Leifer’s work, and this is a very good thing. We’re in the thick of football season now, and I can think of no finer accompaniment than Leifer’s collection, Guts & Glory: The Golden Age of American Football, which tracks the NFL’s rise…
Mugged, mugging. I remember hearing those words all the time growing up. Always aware that it could happen, that it would happen. When it did, getting mugged didn’t mean you’d be killed, just that someone would take your shit, probably beat you up, too.
Vic Ziegel got around. His career in journalism spanned more than 40 years. Vic worked at the New York Post, New York Daily News and New York Magazine. He also contributed to Rolling Stone and Inside Sports and co-wrote a funny book with Lew Grossberger called The Non-Runner’s Book. He was, at various times, a…
Dusty Baker, who you probably best know (somewhat unfairly) as the author of many befuddling managerial decisions, wasn’t necessarily destined for a career in baseball. His first love was actually music, and now he’s written a memoir of attending the infamous 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, which featured a disgustingly…
The man who took one of the most famous photos in Olympic history wasn’t a professional photographer. Tony Duffy was on vacation at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, and with nothing more than an amateur’s bravado, he casually wandered into the Athletes’ Village—which should have been off limits to him—and first heard…
This piece was first published in the July, 1977 issue of Esquire. It is reprinted here with permission. Also be sure to check out the other Jackson profile, written the same year, that we republished in March.
One of the coolest things about Elmore Leonard’s crime fiction is that he didn’t get to it until he was close to 50 years old and had been a professional writer for more than 20. His books pared away anything unnecessary with the ruthless good cheer of a steely veteran with little patience for wasting time.
A Siegel Film, Don Siegel’s account of his life as a film director is an entertaining and instructive guide to making movies. I especially like the section about Siegel’s experience working with Walter Matthau on Charley Varrick.
The following is excerpted from Nathan Ward’s The Lost Detective, a new book about the early life of Dashiell Hammett, one of the greatest crime writers in history.
