AN EXTRAORDINARY LIFE

WORDS: Chris Nyst - www.nystlegal.com.au/blog PHOTOGRAPHY www.alamy.com

From a war-torn childhood in Hungary to facing boxing legends in the ring, Aussie Joe Bugner lived a life as big as his personality — leaving behind a legacy of strength, humility, and heart

Without doubt, the Gold Coast has seen its fair share of colourful, larger-than-life characters. But none has ever fit that bill quite so comfortably and completely as the late, great heavyweight boxer, Aussie Joe Bugner. The man who fought 83 professional fights, twice faced the legendary, three-time world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali, and endured a cliff-hanging slugfest with the mighty Smokin’ Joe Frazier, passed away peacefully in a Brisbane nursing home in September this year, aged 75. He had led an extraordinary life, striding the globe like a Collosus, a tough guy in the world’s toughest game. But Gold Coasters who knew and loved him during his retirement years will remember Big Joe only as a true gentle giant, the quintessential gentleman, courteous, affable and charming.

Jozsef Kreul Bugner was born into turbulent times, in the tiny village of Szőreg, in southern Hungary, on 13 March, 1950. At the time, Eastern Europe was still struggling to recover from the deep wounds inflicted by Nazi aggression, and the ravages of World War 2. His mother, Margaret, had worked with the underground resistance forces fighting for Hungary’s liberation, but at war’s end she found herself struggling alone, a sole parent caring for five young children.

The Nazi occupation of Hungary had been replaced by a Soviet invasion, and subordination to the USSR, and Joe was still only a child when the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 erupted. The uprising lasted a mere 15 days before it was brutally crushed by the military might of the Soviets. Thousands were killed or wounded, and nearly a quarter of a million Hungarians fled the country in desperation. Amongst them was Margaret Bugner, along with her daughters Margaret and Elizabeth, and her three sons, Tibby, Bill, and Joe. Together, they crossed the Hungarian border on foot, and found their way to a refugee camp in Yugoslavia, from which they were eventually shipped out for re-settlement in Britain.

Despite spending his entire career battling it out in the ring, Joe always insisted his strong-willed and resilient mother Margaret was the real fighter in the family, dedicating her whole life to keeping her family safe and well-fed. Certainly, whatever she was feeding Joe back then seems to have done the trick handsomely. By the time he was 14 years old, he stood around 6ft tall, and was already an accomplished athlete and discus thrower, winning the English national junior discus championship in 1964.

But boxing was his real passion. At age 17 he joined the professional ranks, fighting as a 193cm heavyweight, with a 208 centimetre reach that serviced a lethal jab. Although his pro career started shakily, with a TKO in the third round, Joe learned quickly, clocking up a remarkable 31 victories over the next 3 years, and bursting onto the international scene in 1970 as a world-class heavyweight, still at the tender age of just twenty. By 1974, he was rated in the top 5 heavyweight contenders in the world. Naturally, as the big pay-cheques began to roll in, the first thing he did was buy his dear old mum Margaret a home.

In the 1970s, Joe relocated from Britain to the USA, where he met Australian journalist Marlene Carter at a lavish party thrown by the film star Joan Collins. The couple quickly settled into the Beverly Hills lifestyle, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood heavyweights like Dean Martin, Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. When they tied the knot at a celebrity ceremony in 1978, Joe’s close friend, the superstar singing sensation Tom Jones, stood in as Best Man.

I first met Joe and Marlene in the 1990s, after he had hung up his gloves and retired to the Gold Coast, where I was lucky enough to share some very pleasant lunches with him, and eventually even work with him on a couple of film projects, most notably the 2002 crime comedy, Gettin’ Square. Having written the screenplay for that film, I recommended Joe for the part of a gangster’s bodyguard by the name of Big Mick, a role to which Joe’s still impressively rock-hard guns and massive overall dimensions were perfectly suited.

The storyline called on Big Mick to do not too much more than just simply look large and generally foreboding, which I was supremely confident Joe could ably achieve, pretty much without even trying. And of course, when the cameras rolled, he certainly did. But, as it turned out, what impressed me most about his performance was not evil, villainous malevolence, but a certain sympathetic sensibility he seemed to bring, naturally and effortlessly, to the role. In Joe’s hands, Big Mick looked perfectly capable of beating anyone down to a finely-ground powder, but something about him suggested he might not necessarily relish the task. He was unmistakably a bad guy for sure, but Joe turned him into a likeable one.

Looking back, I’m not one bit surprised. Joe was a naturally amiable, good-hearted guy. In his 2013 autobiography, Joe Bugner, My Story, he wrote “I never went into a boxing ring to hurt anybody” Knowing Joe as I did, I have no doubt that’s the absolute truth. Perhaps his old colleague and fellow pugilist, the former British boxing great John H Stracey, put it best when, upon hearing the news of his passing, simply reflected, ”Joe was a wonderful, lovely man. No argument, he wasn’t flash, he wasn’t big headed. Joe was a sweetheart.”

What more can I say? RIP Aussie Joe.

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