- Born
- Died
- Birth nameRoger E. Donoghue
- Nickname
- The Golden Boy
- Roger Donoghue, the son of an Irish immigrant, was a professional middleweight boxer who won twenty-five out of twenty-seven professional bouts; on August 29, 1951, he fought George Flores at the old Madison Square Garden in New York City. Donoghue knocked Flores out forty-six seconds into the eighth round, but Flores died four days later and Donoghue never boxed professionally again. However, he became known as a trainer - he taught Marlon Brando how to box for "On The Waterfront" (1954) and James Dean for "Rebel Without A Cause" (1955) and was known in artistic circles as a raconteur and storyteller who provided Budd Schulberg with Brando's signature line ("I coulda been a contender") in "On the Waterfront", as an answer to Schulberg's query "Could you have been a champion?"- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jane Margaret Laight
- SpouseFay Mowery Moore(1963 - August 20, 2006) (his death)
- Was a former boxer. After his retirement from the sport he helped teach many actors such as Marlon Brando and James Dean how to box for film roles.
- Director Elia Kazan hired Donoghue at $75 a day to coach Marlon Brando . The training included road work through Central Park and sessions in the ring at Stillman's Gym. Director Nicholas Ray, who became a friend of Donoghue's, planned a film on the boxer's life that was to star James Dean. However, Dean's death in a car crash ended the project. Donoghue was also a friend of Norman Mailer, who credited the former fighter with giving him the line "Tough Guys Don't Dance," which he used as the title of one of his novels.
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