Foreman, before the fall.

I've long thought that the way to do a George Foreman biopic was to begin with the Rumble in the Jungle, or its aftermath, maybe the screen dark and you just get the audio of the final moments in the 8th round, Foreman going down, “the fight is stopped!” and “He's done it! He's done it!” and then cut to Foreman afterwards, battered and alone in his locker room, which is like a tomb, quiet except for the chants still resounding around the Zaire stadium, “ALI, BOMAYE! ALI, BOMAYE!” Ali, kill him! kill him! And this is him, in his tomb, killed.

And the rest of his movie is resurrection.

Did anyone have a greater, more varied, more fun second-half than George Foreman? He became a minister, a TV sitcom star, a businessman and a business partner in one of the most popular home shopping products of the late 20th century. He became a father many times over. He also became, at the age of 45, the heavyweight champion of the world again with a 10th-round knockout of Michael Moorer in Las Vegas in November 1994. Maybe you end there, maybe you keep going. But that's the story. Resurrection. Redemption. Over closing credits you can run Leonard Cohen's “Anthem”: “There's a crack, a crack in everything/That's how the light gets in.” Ali cracked him, the light got in. Foreman let the light in.

Back in 2004, I got to interview him (a phoner) for a feature I did on LA entertainment attorney Henry Holmes. Foreman gave me his time and he gave me great quotes. The attorney worked on the sitcom deal for him, “George,” then paved his way for the title fight when it ran into legal issues, and afterwards he worked on business deals that made sense for the new/old heavyweight champ. One was a grill for your countertop, “The Lean Mean Grilling Machine”; they wanted Foreman associated with the product. By this point Foreman had done tons of ads promoting products, and that's what he assumed this deal would be: spokesperson, get paid, keep going. But Holmes had seen clients dropped after helping launch a product so instead he worked on a joint venture to make Foreman part-owner of the product. Foreman humorously remembered his initial reaction:

Foreman: How much are they going to pay me?
Holmes: Nothing, George.
Foreman: Nothing? All the money I'm making and I'm gonna do something for nothing?
Holmes: Yeah, but there's a thing now called joint venture.
Foreman: Joint nothing! I want money!

But they went joint venture, the product took off, and instead of one paycheck Foreman kept getting paychecks. Eventually they were million-dollar paychecks. Eventually the company bought out Foreman's share ... for $137 million. Foreman told me:

The last boxing match I had was...'97, I do believe. And I lost the boxing match. And everybody came back to the dressing room to express how I was robbed. I had a big blown-up check that Henry had brought me from the grill company for $1 million for one month's work. And I told them, “No, I have not been robbed. Where I came from, when you're robbed, you don't have any money left.”

He wound up officiating Holmes' wedding in Tokyo. He'd officiated weddings many times‚ more times than he'd boxed, he said, but this one was special. “I really spelled out to him that marriage was a little more important than just being a playboy. And I was able to tie that knot so tight that I think he was afraid to even tug at it.” During the ceremoney, Foreman added a little extra to the question, “Is there anyone here who can see why these people should not be joined?” by looking around menacingly and growling, “LET THEM SPEAK NOW!” Maybe he did this all the time? Either way, nobody spoke.

Seven years later, this showed up in my email.

I knew I was just in Foreman's email system, his team didn't know from me, but I was tickled. And of course I accepted. Who wouldn't want the heavyweight champion of the world in their corner?

Rest in peace, champ.