Maximilian Adelbert Baer also known as “Livermore Larupper” or Madcap Maxie.

Was an outstanding fighter of the 30’s who enjoyed life in the limelight and was a gifted showman both in and out of the ring, often at the expense of his training.

Max Baer for a short time became Heavyweight Champion of the World; he was also an actor, entertainer, professional wrestler and referee.

He was the brother of twice World Champion boxing contender Buddy Baer and father of actor Max Baer, Jr., known to two generations as Jethro Bodine of the Beverly Hillbillies. He is rated #22 on Ring Magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time.

Maximilian Adelbert Baer was born on February 11, 1909 in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Jacob Baer (1875–1938) who was Jewish of French ancestry and Dora Bales (1877–1938) who was of German and Scots-Irish ancestry. His eldest sister was Frances May Baer (1905–1991), his younger sister was Bernice Jeanette Baer (1911–1987), his younger brother was boxer-turned-actor Jacob Henry Baer, better known as Buddy Baer (1915–1986) and his adopted brother was August "Augie" Baer.

The Baer’s lived in Northern Californian before moving to Livermore in 1926. In 1928, the Baer’s bought the Twin Oaks Ranch in Murray Township. Max Baer dropped out of school in the 8th grade to help his father on their cattle ranch and often credited working as a butcher boy, carrying heavy carcasses of meat, sledge-hammering cattle with one blow, and working at a gravel pit, for developing his powerful shoulders.

Baer turned professional in 1929, progressing steadily through the Pacific Coast ranks.

When Max Baer first began to appear in West Coast newspapers in 1929, following several first round knockouts, the press would comment on the speed with which he dispatched his opponents, the seriousness with which he trained for a bout and how like a young and eager pup he was to strap on his gloves and show off his amazing punching abilities.

 

A ring tragedy little more than a year later almost caused Baer to drop out of boxing for good.

Baer fought Frankie Campbell (real name Francisco Camilli, whose brother was Brooklyn Dodgers star Dolph Camilli) on August 25, 1930, in San Francisco in a ring built over home plate at San Francisco's Recreation Park to fight for the unofficial title of Pacific Coast champion. In the 2nd round of the fight, Campbell clipped Baer and Baer slipped to the canvas. Campbell went toward his corner and waved to the crowd. He thought Baer was getting the count. Baer got up and flew at Campbell, landing a cheap-shot right at Campbell's turned head which sent him to the canvas.

After the round, Campbell said to his trainer "something feels like it snapped in my head." But Campbell went on to handily win rounds 3 and 4. As Baer rose for the 5th round, Tillie "Kid" Herman, Baer's former friend and trainer, who had switched camps overnight and was now in Campbell's corner, savagely taunted and jeered Baer. In a rage and determined to end the bout with a knockout, Baer soon had Campbell against the ropes. As he hammered him with punch after punch, the ropes were the only thing to hold Campbell up. Tillie Herman, as Campbell's chief second, had the privilege of throwing in the towel, but did not. Referee Toby Irwin seemed oblivious to what was occurring. When Irwin finally stopped the fight, Campbell collapsed to the canvas.

It is reported that Baer's own seconds administered to Campbell, and that Baer was by his side until an ambulance arrived 30 minutes later. Baer "visited the stricken fighter's bedside," where he offered Frankie's wife Ellie the hand that hit her husband. She took that hand and the two stood speechless for a moment. "It was unfortunate, I'm awfully sorry.” said Baer. "It even might have been you, mightn't it?” Ellie replied.

At noon the next day, with a lit candle laced between his crossed fingers, and his wife and mother beside him, Frankie Campbell was pronounced dead.

Baer was charged with manslaughter when. He was cleared of all charges, but was banned from boxing in California for a year. Baer was so frightened by this incident that he chose to quit boxing altogether for several months.

 

Upon his eventual return to the ring, it was obvious he was not the same man who once trained so seriously and enjoyed the sport with such boyish unrestraint. In his next six bouts, Max lost to four men whom he could have easily bested before. Max Baer in effect became frightened of his own strength in the ring. It can be observed time and again in old films of his fights that he pulled his punches. 

This negative publicity was further sensationalized by Baer's return bout with Ernie Schaaf, who had bested Baer in a decision during Max's Eastern debut bout at Madison Square Garden on September 19, 1930.

An Associated Press article in the September 9, 1932 Sports section of the New York Times describes the end of the return bout as follows:

Baer smashed a heavy right to the jaw that shook Schaaf to his heels, to start the last round, then walked into the Boston fighter, throwing both hands to the head and body. Baer drove three hard rights to the jaw that staggered Schaaf. Baer beat Schaaf around the ring and into the ropes with a savage attack to the head and body. Just before the round ended Baer dropped Schaaf to the canvas, but the bell sounded as Schaaf hit the floor."

Schaaf was never quite the same after that bout. He complained frequently of headaches. Five months after the Baer fight, on February 11, 1933, Schaaf died in the ring after taking a left jab from the Italian behemoth Primo Carnera. Carnera was vilified as a "man killer", and two sports writers (Grantland Rice and Jimmy Cannon) claimed that Schaaf had died as a result of damage previously inflicted by Baer.

However, an autopsy later revealed Schaaf had meningitis, a swelling of the brain, and was still recovering from a severe case of influenza when he touched gloves with Carnera.

 

While early news accounts of the rapidly rising pugilist indicate he was a natural showman outside the ring, such as when he arrived to sign a contract in a chauffeured limousine dressed in hunting tweeds, inside the ring, young Baer was all business. After Campbell's death, though Max abhorred boxing, he had come to crave the trappings of fame. As a naturally warm and entertaining fellow, being the clown was an easy enough role to play. It served to cover up how conflicted he actually felt. He began to entertain the crowds rather than accommodate their thunderous yells of 'kill, kill'. Audiences loved him. Between rounds he threw kisses to the ladies and waved to his pals. During rounds he was known to feign a swoon, stagger about on rubber chicken legs or rub his shoes in his opponent's resin dust like a dog marking its territory. He gave triumphant war whoops celebrating his own punches, and responded to an opponent's miss with a thrust out jaw or a beckoning taunt of "c'mon ! c'mon !" as he smirked to the crowd. An 'errant' backhand or a hit below the belt got a touch to his forelock or a bow of insincere contrition to the referee.

 

 

 

Max Baer a people’s hero -- On a June night in 1933, a deadly serious warrior stepped into the ring against Max Schmeling of Germany. The Jewish six pointed Star of David blazed white on his trunks, sewn there by his Aunt Emma Edelstein. A cestus was tucked into his right glove and a small golden Star of David was in his left glove. Adolph Hitler had proclaimed the quietly anti-Nazi Schmeling as Germany's symbolic hero of Aryan purity and declared a win over Max Baer was a win for Nazi Germany.

He dominated the rugged fighter from Germany into the tenth round when the referee stopped the match. Because Baer defeated Schmeling, German dictator Adolf Hitler's favorite, and because Baer had a half-Jewish father, he became popular among Jews, those who identified with Jews, and those who despised the Nazis.

 

On June 14, 1934, Baer knocked out the massive, 275-pound (125-kg) Primo Carnera, Heavyweight Champion of the World, to win the world title, which he would hold for 364 days.

 

On June 13, 1935, one of the greatest upsets in boxing history transpired in Long Island City, New York, as Baer fought down-and-out boxer James J. Braddock in the so-called Cinderella Man bout.

Baer hardly trained for the bout. Braddock, on the other hand, was training hard. "I'm training for a fight. Not a boxing contest or a clownin' contest or a dance." he said. "Whether it goes one round or three rounds or 10 rounds, it will be a fight and a fight all the way. When you've been through what I've had to face in the last two years, a Max Baer or a Bengal tiger looks like a house pet. He might come at me with a cannon and a blackjack and he would still be a picnic compared to what I've had to face."

Baer, ever the showman "brought gales of laughter from the crowd with his antics" the night he stepped between the ropes to meet Braddock.

As Braddock "slipped the blue bathrobe from his pink back, he was the sentimental favorite of a Bowl crowd of 30,000, most of whom had bet their money 8-to-1 against him." Max "undoubtedly paid the penalty for underestimating his challenger beforehand and wasting too much time clowning." At the end of 15 rounds Braddock emerged the victor in a unanimous decision, outpointing Baer 8 rounds to 6 - Braddock took heavy hits from Baer, but kept coming at Baer until he wore Max down.

At the end of the bout, Baer hugged and congratulated Braddock. The fight has since become a boxing legend.

Baer and his brother, Buddy, both lost fights to Joe Louis. In the second round of Max's September 1935 match, Joe knocked Baer down to one knee, the first time he had ever been knocked to the canvas in his career. A sizzling left hook in the fourth round brought Max to his knee again, and the referee called the bout soon after.

In the first televised heavyweight prizefight, Baer lost to Lou Nova on June 1, 1939, on WNBT-TV in New York. His last match, in 1941, was another loss to Nova.

Baer's motion picture debut was in The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) opposite Myrna Loy and Walter Huston. In this MGM movie he played Steven "Steve" Morgan, a bartender that the Professor, played by Huston, begins training for the ring. Featured were Baer's upcoming opponent, Primo Carnera, as himself, whom Steve challenges for the championship, and Jack Dempsey, as himself, former heavyweight champion, acting as the referee.

On March 29, 1934, The Prizefighter and the Lady was officially banned from playing in Germany at the behest of Joseph Goebbels, then Adolf Hitler's Minister of Propaganda and Public Entertainment, even though it received favorable reviews in local newspapers as well as in Nazi publications. When contacted for comment at Lake Tahoe, Baer said, "They didn't ban the picture because I have Jewish blood. They banned it because I knocked out Max Schmeling."

 

Personal -- Baer married twice, actress Dorothy Dunbar (married July 8, 1931-divorced October 6, 1933) and Mary Ellen Sullivan (married June 29, 1935-his death 1959). With Sullivan, he had three children, actor Max Adelbert Baer Jr. (born 1937), James Manny Baer (born 1942) and Maudie Marian Baer (born 1944). During a separation from his first wife, Max had affairs with movie stars Jean Harlow, Mae West and Greta Garbo.

 

Retirement -- After retirement from the ring, Max soon came to missed the limelight. He simply loved being the center of attention. Never one to sit still, when the United States entered WWII, Max and his brother Buddy enlisted in the Army Air Corp. Max's service records list his occupation as "Athletic Instructor." The brothers appeared in uniform at large events to appeal to the public to buy war bonds, taught boxing and physical fitness courses and spoke about the importance of keeping fit for the overseas battles ahead. Max received a medical discharge as a Staff Sergeant in 1945 at Kelly Field in Texas after neck and shoulder injuries received when an 85 pound punching bag fell on him. After the war, Max criss-crossed the country acting as referee for boxing and wrestling matches. Matches that would have only drawn a few hundred people drew thousands who came to see the ex-champion ham it up. In the late 1940s, he partnered with former Light Heavyweight Champion "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom in a raucously successful nightclub act that spanned the continent. In the early 1950s, the two Maxies acted in several movies and comedy shorts.

In 1953-54, Max hosted a successful evening radio program, "The Max Baer Show" on KLX. In 1955-56 he hosted a "Sunday Breakfast" show on KLA. Both shows were broadcast live from various popular restaurants around the San Francisco Bay Area and included interviews and musical performances. In 1956, King Max got his crown back when he played the Heavyweight Champion in the critically acclaimed movie, "The Harder They Fall" which starred Humphrey Bogart and Rod Steiger. Max also engaged in public relations campaigns, including radio commercials and public appearances, for several West Coast businesses. Embracing the new technology of television with ease, Max appeared on early television favorites such as "Playhouse 90" and "The Abbott and Costello Show" and even had his own variety show, broadcast from Long Beach, California, in 1958-59. He was "always available for public appearances on behalf of church, school or charitable causes." and even refereed Little League.

 

Death -- On Wednesday, November 18, 1959, Baer refereed a nationally televised 10-round boxing match in Phoenix. At the end of the match, to the applause of the crowd "Baer grasped the ropes and vaulted out of the ring." and "joined fight fans in a cocktail bar." The next day he was scheduled to appear in several television commercials in Hollywood, California. On his way, he stopped in Garden Grove, California, to keep a promise he had made thirteen years earlier to the then five-year old son of his ex-sparring partner, Curly Owens (who was later affiliated with the Robert Kennedy assassination conspiracy). Baer presented the now 18-year-old with a foreign sports car on his birthday, as he had said he would.[12]

Baer checked into the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel upon his arrival on the 19th of November. "Hotel employees said he looked fit but complained of a cold." As he was shaving, the morning of November 21, he experienced chest pains. He called the front desk and asked for a doctor. The desk clerk said "a house doctor would be right up." "A house doctor?" he replied jokingly, "No, dummy, I need a people doctor".

Dr. Edward S. Koziol "gave Max medication and a fire department rescue squad administered oxygen. Baer's chest pains subsided and he was showing signs of recovery when the mere 50-year old fighter was stricken with a second attack. Just a moment before, he was joking with the doctor, declaring he had come through two similar but lighter attacks earlier in Sacramento, California. Then he slumped on his left side, turned blue and died within a matter of minutes. His last words were, 'Oh God, here I go.

 

After Death -- In the movie Cinderella Man (2005), James J. Braddock is the hero and fights Max Baer in the ultimate match. Critics took issue with director Ron Howard’s portrayal of Baer as cruel and snobbish, when he is remembered as audacious and amiable. The final climatic scenes between Baer and Braddock have people hating the moneyed, snobbish Baer; while cheering on the beloved, average-Joe Braddock. The film portrays Baer as a womanizer and jokester, which he was, but also as malicious, which is not how he is remembered. Before the match, Baer is heard commenting to Braddock’s wife “You’re too pretty to be a widow”; however, according to Baer’s family and historians this malice was atypical of the boxer.

His friends and family members are justifiably angered that the man they knew as warm, generous and gentlemanly should be portrayed so falsely. Love him or hate him, Max Baer was quite simply an unforgettable character in our nation's history. That the myths presented in the movie should be perpetuated by future generations who take the script lines as gospel is unconscionable, as is slandering the memory of a colorful personality to make a buck.

In reality, Max Baer was a warm person and one of America’s beloved boxers, with an infectious, likable personality.

Since Max Baer Sr. was unable to defend himself from Ron Howard's unflattering portrayal in Cinderella Man, the task of rehabilitating his father's reputation has fallen to Max Baer Jr.

Max Baer was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1995