Recorded Books Inc. - The Queen Of The Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, And The Making Of An American Legend

Growing up in the St. Louis suburbs, I would eagerly enter Rexall Drugs to spend what seemed like hours perusing the magazine stands. I was on the lookout for Marvel Comics and glossy depictions of war, movie monsters, and sports heroes. Among the latter were the baseball and football players, the boxers, the body builders, and, lastly, the wrestlers. Growing up in St. Louis also meant catching Sam Muchnicks cheesy but spectacular Saturday morning TV show, Wrestling at the Chase, and what little boy in the 1960s wasnt a fan? I marveled at the antics of Dick the Bruiser, Bruno Sammartino, Harley Race, and Cowboy Bob Ellis. Wrestling on TV and the wrestling magazines led me ultimately to Mildred Burke. The front parts of the magazines were packed with stories and photos about the exploits of hugely muscled men, providing an image of masculinity that beckoned a skinny boy worried about ever having biceps. In the backs of the magazines, in tiny ads, a woman showed off her own impressive biceps, touting her school for girl wrestlers. This was a shock. More than that, the magazines occasionally featured photographs of Millies girls squaring off in the wrestling ring against the muscle men. More often than not the women won these battles of the sexes. This was an even bigger shock. How could this be? Answering that question led me to the forgotten story of Mildred Burke and the golden age of wrestling.

Uncovering that story required all the tools I have developed in thirty years as an investigative reporter and editor. It also required a trip through a long-departed era and a subculture long devoted to secrecy and deception. Luckily, I had an army of guides and supporters to aid my journey.

I would not have embarked at all without the singular example of Laura Hillenbrands Seabiscuit to light my way like the brightest beacon in a dark ocean of lost time. Both Seabiscuit and Mildred Burke rose out of the Great Depression, making their debuts on the national sports scene in the summer of 1937. This seemed to me much more than mere coincidence.

Like Laura Hillenbrand, I turned to the Internet and eBay for primary source material, bidding on and buying a boatload of womens wrestling videos and wrestling magazines like Wrestling Review and Wrestling Monthly, which returned me to my youth at Rexall.

Exhausting the wonders of the Internet and Google, my search for Mildred Burke began in earnest in the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame. My guide was the very able George Rugg, curator of the Joyce Sports Research Collection, which numbers among its treasures the records of the womens baseball players immortalized in A League of Their Own. George curates the archive left behind by Jack Pfefer, an inimitable and Runyonesque character who was also a glorious packrat that saved every piece of paper that came his way. I went through the Pfefer collection, which entails seventy-five bankers boxes of documents containing more than fifteen thousand letters, thousands of photographs, and primary source material virtually untouched by researchers. The correspondence between Pfefer and Billy Wolfe convinced me that this was a story worth telling. George graciously put his archive at my disposal, cheerfully answered my questions and requests, and arranged for Notre Dame students to aid me, particularly Sara Szakaly.

I tracked Mildred Burkes seventy-year-old son, Joe Wolfe, to a small town in Oregon. Joe granted me permission to use material from his mothers unpublished autobiography and spent hours sharing his own memories and photographs of his mother during her heyday. Joes daughter, Wendy Koep, also provided stories of her own career as a wrestler for her grandmother. Mildred Burkes manuscript, written with the assistance of Trevor J. Constable, proved to be an invaluable key for unlocking her story and her state of mind. She spent thirty years toiling on the work she variously titled The Third Fall; Sex, Muscles and Diamonds; and, finally, Wrestling Queen. This book you are holding in your hands could not have been written without her labors. Every sentence in my book is my own and I alone am responsible for its conclusions and any errors it contains, but a part of me cannot help but feel that my effort in some small way completes Mildreds own journey.

Also helpful and generous with their memories were Bert Younker, Mildred Burkes third and last husband; Terry Patterson, Nell Stewarts niece; and Jewel Olivas, June Byerss daughter.

Billy Wolfes relatives greatly aided my search for the truth about Millie and Billy. Especially helpful was Betsy Wolfe Stemple, G. Bill Wolfes daughter; and her sister, Mickie Johnson, who opened up their homes and hearts to me and showed me their grandfathers surviving business records. Tim Kelly, Billy Wolfes son by Karen Kellogg, took time to tell me about his own search for his biological father.

My search continued through dusty archives that spanned the country, from College Park, Maryland, to Kansas City to Los Angeles. Especially helpful were Maudine Bennum, corresponding secretary of the Harrison County (Mo.) Genealogical Society in Bethany, Missouri; John Struchtemeyer, district registrar for the Kansas City, Missouri, school district; Tom Reeder at the Columbus Historical Society; Shirley Harper, records clerk in the civil division at the Franklin County Hall of Justice in Columbus, Ohio; and Jim Hunter, librarian for the Columbus Dispatch.

In the National Archives in College Park, I sought United States v. National Wrestling Alliance, Civil Action No. 3-729, which records the efforts of the Justice Department to bring wrestlings illegal monopoly to heel. I benefited from the helpful professionalism of the archives staff. Alas, the main part of the case, FBI File 60-406-0, could not be located. A large piece of this story would be lost but for the efforts of Tim Hornbaker, author of the authoritative National Wrestling Alliance: The Untold Story of the Monopoly That Strangled Pro Wrestling. Tim sent me relevant documents, read this work in manuscript and provided helpful suggestions. Weldon T. Johnson, coauthor of another fine examination of the NWA, Chokehold: Pro Wrestlings Real Mayhem Outside the Ring, also provided me with quick answers and documents at a time when I needed them most. Steve Johnson, coauthor with Greg Oliver of books on tag teams, villains, and Benoit: Wrestling with the Horror That Destroyed a Family and Crippled a Sport, provided encouragement and reasoned judgment, and also read the work in manuscript and offered suggestions and corrections. I value his friendship.

At the Library of Congress, Bruce Martin set me up in one of the worlds greatest research facilities and Thomas Mann, reference librarian in the main reading room, kindly showed me what I could do with it.

The professional wrestling world, in the form of the Cauliflower Alley Club, welcomed me with just a pinch of skepticism and an abundance of patience and kindness for which I am forever grateful. Karl Lauer, CAC executive vice president, paved my way into the wrestling community, and Dean Silverstone, the organizations executive director, was also helpful. The best of the wrestling historians generously schooled me in the subject they have turned into their lifes work: Tom Burke, who worked his vast network of connections on my behalf; the late Jim Melby, Greg Oliver, Vance Nevada, Scott Teal, Don Luce, and, especially, J Michael Kenyon, who spent hours explaining the sports nuances to a newcomer. Several wrestling old-timers let me in on what it was like to live through the golden age of the sport: Frankie Cain, Al Mandell, Tommy Fooshee. Ruth Ellen Henry, Terry Milan, Michael Lano, Judo Gene LeBell, and Joseph Svinth also helped with various aspects of the story.