Daughter of a Champ

What better name for the daughter of the middleweight boxing champion Rocky Graziano than Roxee? Her parents obviously thought she was a champ too.

What kind of father was the tough guy who had one of the hardest-hitting right crosses in boxing? According to Roxee, her dad was kind, sweet, thoughtful, and a bit old-fashioned, leaving the raising of his daughters to their mother, Norma. 

And what kind of woman was Norma? Roxee said she was unlike the retiring, nearly shy character portrayed by Pier Angeli in the Rocky Graziano biopic “Somebody Up There Likes Me.” Norma was tough, smart, and knew where to find answers to any questions she had. She guided the Graziano finances, never letting her husband invest in the many schemes that were brought to him. In fact, he once commented that the reason he hung around with millionaires was because they never asked to borrow money. Though knowing what a soft touch Rocky was, the schemers — no doubt — felt he would dig some money out of his wallet for them, and he often did. 

There is an anecdote about Rocky sitting around Stillman’s Gym following his retirement from boxing and observing the up-and-coming fighters. Off in a corner, he noticed a former boxer who had gone blind. The man was nearly destitute, living a crummy fleabag of a hotel. Rocky went around to everyone in the gym, collecting 20 dollars here, 10 dollars there. He put in some money of his own, folded it all together, and inserted it in the blind boxer’s breast pocket. He told the man to come back every month, for he would get the same thing. Because of such acts of generosity, Rocky’s manager, Irving Cohen, suggested that Norma put Rocky on an allowance so that he wouldn’t give all of his money to needy cases.

When I asked about the Graziano marriage, Roxee told me that her parents were madly, passionately in love with each other. And what attracted her mother to Rocky when he was just starting out and his future looked grim? “She thought he was sweet and innocent and positively gorgeous.” And photos of the young Rocky show a young man who was indeed movie-star handsome. Boxing, of course, leaves one with a face that’s a history of one’s bouts, and Rocky was no exception.

I asked Roxee, who survives her older sister, Audrey, how it felt to be the daughter of a celebrity. And Rocky’s celebrity increased exponentially through the years of Roxee’s life, as she went from being a little girl to a teenager. As a boxer, Rocky was admired for this athletic prowess. But as an entertainer seen regularly on television, he became known to millions of viewers who may not have been interested in boxing. Rocky’s career as an entertainer began when he co-starred in the TV series “The Henny and Rocky Show” with Henny Youngman. That was followed by another co-starring role opposite the great rubber-faced comedian and singer Martha Raye in her eponymous TV show. The show ran for three years, and Rocky was in every episode. 

Martha became a good friend of the family, and Roxee said she regarded her as Aunt Martha. 

Before the show went into production, its producer and creator, Nat Hiken, was sitting around with the director and advertising agency people, and they decided that Martha needed a boyfriend. They agreed that it should be a warmhearted, inarticulate guy. Someone suggested a guy like Rocky Graziano. Another said why not get Rocky, and so Nat Hiken went to Stillman’s Gym and offered Rocky the part of Martha’s Goombah. Off screen and on, Martha and Rocky were true pals. 

And Nat Hiken also became a lifelong pal of Rocky’s. He went on to create numerous hit TV sitcoms, including “The Phil Silvers Show” and “Car 54, Where Are You?” 

But they weren’t the only show business people to light up the Graziano household: There was Paul Newman, who played Rocky in “Somebody Up There Likes Me,” which catapulted Newman up into the stratosphere of stardom. He spent months with Rocky, learning to walk like him, to talk like him, to punch like him. And then there was Frank Sinatra, who had not only befriended Rocky at Stillman’s Gym in the early 1940s, but also cast him as his sidekick, Packy, in the movie “Tony Rome.” The Grazianos became quite friendly with the singer Tom Jones, whom they met through the owner of El Morocco, one of the premier New York nightclubs and watering holes for celebrities from the 1930s to the 1960s.  

I asked if the Grazianos were friends with any former fighters. The one who came around most often was Jake LaMotta, and Norma Graziano disliked him. She did not think he was a nice man, and one could certainly see that from his portrayal by Robert De Niro in “Raging Bull.” Nevertheless, Rocky went out of his way to find work for Jake, including parts in movies and TV programs. There is a photo of Jake and Rocky with Martha Raye, and another of Jake and Rocky relaxing with their wives poolside in Miami Beach.

Though those were pals of her parents, Roxee had her own celebrity friend, Lorna Luft, daughter of Judy Garland. In addition to hanging out at El Morocco, Lorna and Roxee, who were the same age, often went to Broadway and Off Broadway shows together.

Surrounded by entertainers, it was no wonder that Roxee embarked on a career to become a stage actress after graduating from Forest Hills High School in Queens. As many aspiring actors have discovered, the road to success is decorated with potholes, and there are many side streets and detours that are dead ends. She eventually gave up her dream of acting and attended college at C.W. Post and Adelphi, earning a master’s degree in education. For 20 years, she was an elementary school teacher, as was her present husband, John Lore.

I asked Roxee to sum up her father, a man who was brutal in the ring and a warmhearted charmer out of it. Roxee said he was a regular guy, never bragged about his careers as a boxer and actor. He had many friends who thought the world of him. 

I can certainly attest to that, for I attended Rocky’s funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. There must have been 1,000 mourners in attendance. And when his coffin left the church, cops cleared a path for the hearse and the limos that followed, not just on Fifth Avenue, but all the way out to a cemetery on Long Island. (Norma, who died years later at age 83, is buried beside her husband.) 

Rocky was the last of the great fighters from the golden age of boxing. And his daughter remains his biggest fan.

Jeffrey Sussman is the author of “Rocky Graziano: Fists, Fame, and Fortune,” among other books about boxers and boxing. He lives part time in East Hampton.