FLASHBACK: Giardello Settles 'Hurricane' Suit --Movie falsely says judges "robbed" Carter in fight with Joey.

By Bernard Fernandez, Sep. 27, 2000, Daily News Sports

Almost 33 years after his final professional bout, former middleweight champion Joey Giardello has the look of a winner again.

The Daily News has learned that 70-year-old Giardello, whose real name is Carmine Tilelli, has settled his lawsuit against the makers of "The Hurricane," the highly acclaimed 1999 movie about the life of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. Giardello, a longtime Cherry Hill resident and 1993 inductee into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, contended a crucial 3-minute sequence depicting his successful Dec. 14, 1964, title defense against the top-ranked Carter in Philadelphia's Civic Center severely distorted reality and damaged the reputation he so painstakingly crafted in the ring.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Giardello and his Center City attorney, George Bochetto, seem pleased.

"I can say that Joey's legacy as a great world champion has been restored," said Bochetto, who also is Pennsylvania boxing commissioner. "The makers of 'The Hurricane' acknowledge that he's a great fighter and want to make it clear that they never intended to detract from that legacy in making this movie. Their primary purpose was to demonstrate Rubin Carter's struggle for freedom for being wrongfully imprisoned. They have stated as much in writing, and to the mutual satisfaction of both parties."

Said Giardello: "For 19 years, I fought the greatest fighters around and I beat Carter fair and square. I just wanted to set the record straight, and I think it has been."

Bochetto filed the lawsuit shortly after Giardello and his wife, Rosalie, attended a screening of the movie as guests of the Daily News in January. "I thought the movie belittled me," Giardello said at the time. "I fought so many fights [133] for so many years, with all my heart, and the movie makes a mockery of that."

Although terms of the settlement are confidential, there are subtle but significant alterations to the home-video release of the movie that soften the implication, intended or not by the filmmakers, that Giardello was the beneficiary of a racially motivated decision. Giardello is white; Carter, convicted of the 1966 murders of a white bartender and two white patrons in Paterson, N.J., is black. He was released from a New Jersey prison in 1988 and is now the executive director of the Toronto-based Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Accused.

The standard disclaimer - which states that certain events and characters "have been composited or invented, and a number of incidents fictionalized" - has been moved from the closing credits to the beginning of the movie. And the epilogue, which shows the real-life Carter receiving a championship belt from the World Boxing Council in 1993, now notes that the awarding of that belt was "in recognition of his 20-year fight for freedom." The additional explanation is important, because it refutes any implication that the WBC was attempting to rectify an injustice tied to the 1964 unanimous decision for Giardello.


Armyan Bernstein, head of Beacon Communications Corp., which financed the film, stopped short of an apology in his letter to Giardello, but he wrote that "we had no intention of taking away from your legacy as world middleweight champion, or of besmirching the other boxing accomplishments in which you, your friends and family take pride. Rubin Carter, who worked with us on 'The Hurricane,' told me that you never ducked a fight."

But it is a voice-over by director Norman Jewison in the DVD version of the home video that comes closest to acknowledging that Giardello might have been unfairly represented by both the fight sequence and the music that played during it. Some of the song lyrics, which have an early rap edginess, state that "the revolution will not have a message about a white tornado, white lightning or white people."

Jewison, whose movies frequently have political or societal overtones, said, "This [the fight sequence] is probably one of the most controversial scenes in the film. This is the famous fight with Giardello, who was then middleweight champion. Rubin was a strong contender.

"We just dealt with the last few seconds of the fight, where it seemed that Rubin had it. But, going back over it, there's no doubt about it, Giardello won it. I can understand the controversy in our interpretation of this, because of the music we used."

Jewison's voice-over also addresses a scene in which the television blow-by-blow broadcaster exclaims that "I've seen a lot of things in my time, but it's taken 35 minutes for these judges to tell us what this hometown crowd already knows: Joey Giardello is about to lose the crown to Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter."

"Whether the announcer ever really said that, I have no idea," Jewison said. "But we did want to build some of the kind of prejudice that existed. And it did exist, whether people want to deny it or not.

"The truth is a moving target, I found. When you make a film about real people, about something that really happened, you'll never get it right because there's always somebody who's going to disagree with you."

Somebody, for instance, such as former 76ers and Big 5 announcer Les Keiter, who called the fight on TV.

Keiter, 80, who now is assistant to the manager of Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, said the fight sequence and the actor-commentator's description of it wasn't anything like what really happened.

"The scene was absolutely, totally fictitious," Keiter said. "I never said any of that. Not even close.

"I have my call of the fight on tape. I played it for several of the sports writers here in Hawaii. Giardello, in my scoring, was the clear-cut winner. Now, it was a reasonably close fight. But the 15th round was just the reverse of what was shown. It was all Giardello, with his boxing and his counterpunching."

And the movie's depiction of fans hooting and jeering the decision for Giardello?

"Don't be ridiculous," Keiter said. "Nobody was going to do that to Giardello, in Philadelphia, especially after a fight he won and deserved to win."

Bochetto, who won a $10.7 million judgment for former heavyweight contender Randall "Tex" Cobb in Cobb's defamation lawsuit against Sports Illustrated, said Giardello deserved to have his name free of taint.

"The fact that he stood up for what he knows to be right says a lot about who Joey Giardello was, and who he is," Bochetto said. "Joey's a sweetheart in all respects, unless you attack him unfairly. Then he stands up and is there to be counted.

"His reputation always was his primary concern. He wanted it restored. He put himself on the line again to make sure that it was."

Source: www.articles.philly.com

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