Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Sports News

Italy plans Carnera film

|
|
 
  
Published: Jan. 26, 2006 at 2:18 PM

ROME, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Italy is planning an English-language film about its only world heavyweight boxing champion, the giant 1930s slugger Primo Carnera.

Partly a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Carnera's birth, the film will be directed by Renzo Martinelli with a cast that includes Joe Pesci and Giancarlo Giannini, ANSA reported.

Former world middleweight champion Nino Benvenuti and Carnera's daughter, Giovanna Maria, are acting as consultants on the film, which is due for release next year.

Carnera got into the fight game to support his two children in the Depression years and rose to win the championship from Jack Sharkey in June 1933. He lost his title the following year to Max Baer.

"They used to say he wasn't skillful," Benvenuti said. "That's false. He had one of the best jabs I've ever seen in a boxer of that size. And he had a very good uppercut. They created false legends about him."

Topics: Joe Pesci, Max Baer
© 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Super Bowl XLVI ticker tape victory parade N.Y. Giants win Super Bowl XLVI Cheerleaders of 2012
Additional Sports News Stories
1 of 25
Meryl Streep and Colin Firth attend the "BAFTA" ceremony in London
View Caption
fark
Trading crack for a lapdance, yelling racial slurs, assaulting police, spitting blood, and beating...
History will remember George H.W. Bush for his part in the first Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin...
And now, pictures of dogs underwater
There are many layers to the OWS onion, and each one is more difficult than the last to peel back....
Remember that YouTube Dad who shot daughter's laptop? Apparently some of the local city leaders...
America has a long history of being VERY VERY ANGRY. But we get over it