SO MANY STORIES, SO LITTLE TIME:
THE BILL CAPLAN STORY

By Michael Swann

This week I had the pleasure of accompanying World Boxing Hall of Famer Bill Caplan on his journey from his home in the Granada Hills section of Los Angeles to Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Well, at least my cell phone did. Caplan, who has been in boxing since 1962, is approaching his 71st birthday in September without any backward steps, his pilgrimage to Vegas being to serve as publicist for Top Rank for the Rahman-Maskaev fight this Saturday.

One cannot help but marvel at Bill’s incredible attention to detail as he relates story after story going back to his youth, even spelling the names of people and places while motoring to his destination. The writer finds himself in the horns of a dilemma - how best to convey the content of his story, including as many tales as possible without exceeding the length of Gone With the Wind. A scriptwriter couldn’t invent Caplan, but perhaps they should take note because Caplan’s life is tailor made for the big screen.

Caplan has graced boxing with his services as publicist, matchmaker, promoter, and ring announcer, not to mention being featured in about a dozen major motion pictures such as White Men Can’t Jump, Cobb, Tin Cup, and The Sting II, and he is a walking encyclopedia of every detail in his colorful career.

Caplan’s many friends, from such diverse worlds as Peter Falk, Tommy La Sorda, George Foreman, Robert Shapiro, Dean Chance, Don and Lorraine Chargin, Jerry Perenchio, and the late journalist Allan Malamud among others, know him as a man who is “so loyal to his friends,” having “no peer when it comes to publicists,” “a guy who can work for one promoter that another promoter could despise, yet they’ll both get along with Bill,” and a man who “openly expresses his feelings.”

BEGINNINGS

When Bill was eight years old, he went to summer camp at the Jewish Community Center in his home town of Des Moines, Iowa. Boxing had been integrated into the activities and Bill joined the competition with a kid who had received some previous coaching.

“The kid was my age, my size, with those huge gloves for eight year olds,” he recalled. “I knew how to take a stance, but this kid started hitting me with shots. It was like in the comic books -Boinggg! I’m hearing sounds and seeing stars. I don’t know how long it lasted but it seemed like an eternity.”

That ended Caplan’s active boxing career.

Caplan was the youngest of six children, and his brother-in-law, Larry Rummans, who passed away last year at the age of 94, took young Bill under his wing, serving as a second father. Rummans, who had been in boxing since 1929, promoted fights for Frank Sinatra when “Old Blue Eyes” dabbled in the boxing biz, and was Sugar Ray Robinson’s West Coast representative. Rummans took young Bill to the fights, and the young man would sit there with fighters and managers, soaking it all in.

Larry got Bill his first job as a publicist, with no experience whatsoever. Leo Minskoff, a wealthy builder in New York was backing Joe Louis in promoting fights, and Bill did the publicity for the man who was his boyhood hero. Joe only did a few shows, then Larry talked Leo into promoting fights, and Bill went to work for Minskoff full time.

ONE JOE LOUIS STORY

Bill used to listen to Louis’ fights on the radio with his father, a bonding experience. In 1976, Bill was working with Jerry Perenchio, promoting the Foreman-Frazier II fight in Long Island, sponsored by Caesar’s Palace where Joe worked as a greeter. Caplan and his boyhood hero Louis took a 90 minute commuter train to Philadelphia together for a press conference.

Caplan recalls people lined up in the aisles just to meet Joe and say, “Joe, I just want to shake your hand; you’ve always been my hero.” Bill begins to get emotional even today at the thought of being with Louis at that moment.

“I was so proud,” Caplan says today. “It was just Joe and I and I was thinking to myself, I wish Dad could see me now.”

After a moment, Caplan collected himself and said, “I’m sorry. I’m a sentimental slob.”

“I’M A LUCKY, LUCKY MAN”

The boxing community is familiar with Debbie Caplan, Bill’s daughter. Despite his early apprehensions, Debbie worked with Bill for years as a publicist before branching out on her own with Golden Boy.

“I kind of weaseled my way in,” she recalled this week. “I worked for free until I was indispensable. We made a great team, we complement each other. Now that we don’t work together anymore, we’re healthy competitors. We still support each other and give each other advice because we live a half mile from each other. Our families have dinner together almost every night.

“We work for competing companies so there are things we can’t talk about, but we respect that. He said he was going to put on his business card -‘Debbie Caplan’s Father.’ I’m very proud of him and being raised by him -I’m still being raised by him.”

Bill Caplan calls his family the most important thing in his life, He sees five of his nine grandchildren almost every day.

When Bill was promoting in a small club in Reseda called the Country Club, Bill was the announcer, publicist, and matchmaker. His three sons and two daughters all worked in the operation, and his wife Sandy wrote the checks. Debbie, at 13, was the bouncer. She did have security guards with her, but if someone got in the front door that didn’t belong, she would see to it that they were escorted out. The other kids worked as ushers.

But it hasn’t always been easy.

Bill and Sandy met on a blind date in 1956. He was 20 and she was an 18 year old high school senior. They were married 31 years…Then they were divorced for 15 years…Then they were remarried in 2002 - by George Foreman. Foreman, described by Debbie as “part of the family,” became an ordained minister during his 10 year hiatus from boxing, and also performed the marriage ceremony for Bill’s daughter, Liz.

Bill and Sandy had to endure a parent’s worst nightmare twice. Two of their adult sons died before their time at ages 48 and 40.

“I have a lot of people who were close to me who are in heaven now,” a choking Caplan said softly.

PUBLICITY EXPLOITS AND RING ANNOUNCING

In 1982 bantamweight champion Lupe Pintor was to fight the #1 contender, a Korean, in Los Angeles. Pintor, a Mexican, graciously allowed the press conference to be held in a Korean restaurant to help promote the city’s huge Korean population. The press conference was called for noon. The Korean was late. He was late at 12:15, at 12:30, and at 12:45. Pintor became insulted and impatiently left the restaurant.

“Lupe starts walking out with his boys who brought him there and gets into this old, huge, dinosaur station wagon gas burner,” Bill begins. “They started the car and were ready to leave.

“I thought -what do I do? So I lay down in front of the station wagon like Martin Luther King, looking like a beached Jewish whale with my stomach sticking up. The station wagon is inching toward me, inch by inch. I looked up and saw Lupe looking out the back window, laughing. The car with the Korean fighter pulls into the lot and we had the press conference with Lupe still laughing.”

A journalist friend called the next day from Miami. “Bill, you’ll never believe it. There’s two pictures of you in the Miami Herald lying in front of this station wagon.”

“That’s probably my moment of greatness.” Bill says with extreme modesty.

Caplan enjoyed working as a ring announcer, feeling in some way that he was really intended to do stand up comedy. He booked a light-heavyweight named John Smith for one of his shows in Reseda, on the recommendation of a friend. Somehow Caplan assumed that the fighter was African-American. In the ring he introduced the very Caucasian Smith as John “Surprisingly a White Guy” Smith.

Two weeks later, Smith was again on the card. The program referred to him as John “Surprisingly a White Guy” Smith.

PROMOTERS AND FIST FIGHTS

“I’ve worked for so many great promoters - Don and Lorraine Chargin, Aileen Eaton, George Parnassus - I was Don King’s first publicist. I did Main Events, Dan Duva before he died, Dino Duva, Kathy Duva; Lou Duva’s a great guy. All of the promoters were so smart that they could have been CEO’s at big companies. They were dynamic and they were the real goods.

“Don King is brilliant. He used to say, ‘Make me big, make me big.’ But if I had to put someone #1 it would be Bob Arum. The reason is that he has such a brilliant sense of publicity. He would have been the world’s best publicist if he didn’t want to be a rich attorney and promoter. Some promoters don’t understand publicity. Chargin understands it. King understands it.”

Caplan has been involved in a few minor skirmishes over the years. One was with Greg Fritz, a Don King employee who refused to allow Bill access to the post fight press conference of Holyfield-Tyson II.

According to Caplan, Fritz said, “You can’t come in here, there’s no room for you.

Bill replied, “You’ve got to be kidding me, you know I’m working the fight.”

Fritz still refused, and he had two yellow t-shirted bullies to back him up.

Bill said, “Boy, you’ve always been a weasel.”

“Yeah, well you’re a fat slob,” Fritz charged.

Caplan slapped Fritz with his right hand, knocking his glasses off. A universally disliked internet reporter shouted, “Arrest Caplan! Arrest him!”

Fritz started screaming, “I’m going to sue you. I’m going to sue you.” (Caplan’s interpretation of Fritz’s whining voice is hilarious.)

The story was in the L.A. Times the next day in two columns.

Caplan’s friend, Robert Shapiro, the famed O.J. lawyer is a friend of Bill’s. (Bill was the ring announcer at the Bar Mitzvah for Shapiro’s son - it was a fight motif.) Shapiro asked Bill about the confrontation with Fritz. Bill told him the story and said that Fritz had threatened to sue, asking Shapiro if he would represent him.

“Absolutely!” Shapiro replied.

“Good, because I’m going to go out and get a very sharp knife and really do a job,” Caplan told the attorney.

Bill also had an ongoing beef with Don Fraser, the Hall of Fame promoter and publicist, who he now considers a friend. Actually, the two men had a trilogy of scraps over the years. Caplan says that he would never pick a fight with someone who could get the best of him.

“I’m not a fighter, but I’m a pretty good matchmaker,” Bill says today. “Against Don Fraser I knew what I was up against. I had three fights with Fraser and he never landed a punch.”

BIG GEORGE

When Bill made his acceptance speech to the World Boxing Hall of Fame, he thanked George Foreman for dragging him in on his coat tails. George lost his seventh amateur bout and was so discouraged that he wanted to quit boxing. Caplan, who was the ring announcer that night gave Foreman some words of encouragement and they’ve been joined at the hip ever since.

Foreman started boxing at age 18 and at 19 won the Olympic Gold Medal from literally the pros of the Eastern Bloc.

“George is the only athlete in any sport, amateur or professional to be away for 10 years and come back to compete at a world class level,” Caplan says of his friend. “Then he wins the title 20 years after losing it in Zaire.”

Debbie Caplan says that when Bill read that George was making his comeback, they immediately flew to Houston unannounced to see him. She said that she was shocked to see this big, jovial, guy in farmer’s overalls and a flannel shirt who answered the door.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up,” Foreman greeted them.

Caplan represented George in his effort to regain his license and spoke for him, going before a full meeting of the California State Commission with all of his medical records. Then, along with Don Chargin, he promoted George’s comeback fight.

“He’s the most unforgettable character I’ve ever met,” Caplan says of Foreman. “He’s given millions of dollars of cash to charities.”

CAPLAN IN CARACUS

When Foreman defended his title with a second round demolition of Ken Norton in 1974, Bill had his pocket picked, (including his Muhammad Ali watch) in the ring following the fight. The next day, he and Foreman were stopped by the airline, told that they had been instructed not to allow Foreman to leave the country before paying $255,000 in taxes. Bill explained that the contract was made with the government of Venezuela to be tax free in order for the country to sponsor the fight and they had been greeted by the president upon their arrival.

But during their three weeks in the country there was insurrection, fires, bombs, and shooting as the insurgents attempted to depose the government. Venezuela had a new president who disregarded the previous agreement with Foreman.

Bill in his loudest voice put on a show:

“What? You mean you’re holding the king for a king’s ransom of $255,000 when his contract says he doesn’t have to pay it?”

Foreman and Caplan were confronted by a squad of soldiers carrying shotguns and sub-machine guns to prevent them from boarding the plane.

“The squad looked like they were taken off the street.” Bill remembers with clarity. “They didn’t even know how to carry their weapons. One was on the shoulder sideways, another right shoulder, left shoulder, another is hanging down like he had a shotgun going duck hunting, and another was like he was holding a baby. You could tell that these guys were untrained, and very dangerous.”

Bill started yelling his “king for ransom” routine again and George bent down and said, “Bill, it’s time to cool it,” mindful of the fanatics with firearms in front of them.

A trip to the American Embassy proved to be of no assistance. It was the days of gas lines and the United States was receiving petroleum from Venezuela. The pair wound up back at the hotel under house arrest. Caplan was released after two and a half days. It took five days to have the money wired to free Foreman.

BIG FINISH

In our conversation, Caplan remarked, “Boxing is full of characters which is why so many people love the sport. Because every time you turn around here’s another unforgettable character to keep you entertained.”

Bill Caplan is one of those unforgettable characters.