Graham Greene, actor. I’ve never seen “Dances With Wolves” but Lawrence has it and is threatening to bring it out for the next movie night. NYT (archived).
Other credits include “Wind River”, “Atlantic Rim”, and “Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion” (which I’d really like to see).
Joe Bugner, boxer.
He’s perhaps more famous for fighting Ali twice and Frazier once.
On Feb. 14, 1973, in a 12-rounder against Ali in Las Vegas, Bugner sustained a cut over his left eye in the opening round. But he remained on his feet while losing a unanimous decision. There were no knockdowns. Bugner left with respect from the crowd and from Ali.
The New York Times reported that Ali, who had predicted a seventh-round knockout, said afterward of Bugner, a former sparring partner: “He’s a little better than I thought. I didn’t know his legs were so good. He’s three times better than when I sparred with him through the years.”
Less than five months later, on July 2, Bugner fought Frazier in a 12-round bout in London. It was Frazier’s first fight since losing his heavyweight title to George Foreman in January 1973. Charging ahead in the 10th round, Frazier knocked Bugner down for a nine count, but Bugner recovered and staggered Frazier before the bell, closing his left eye.
Frazier won on points, but The Times said that the decision “may have done more for his opponent’s reputation than for his.”
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Bugner met Ali again on July 1, 1975, this time for a 15-round championship fight in the wilting morning heat of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Both fighters survived the conditions, but Ali won convincingly “with the ease of assaulting a statue,” Dave Anderson of The Times reported.
Bugner acknowledged that he had lacked energy in the heat and humidity. Afterward, he grew irritated with journalists’ probing questions and, according to The Telegraph, declared: “Get me Jesus Christ! I’ll fight him tomorrow!”
To which Hugh McIlvanney, a veteran British boxing reporter, replied, “Ah Joe, you’re only saying that ’cause you know he’s got bad hands.”
Gene Espy. He was the second person to “thru-hike” (make the whole trip in one continuous hike) the Appalachian Trail.
It took Mr. Espy 123 days to complete his journey, which started at Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia and took him through 14 states along the world’s longest continuous hiking-only footpath. Back then, the Appalachian Trail was mainly rugged wilderness, with few trail markers. He walked through parts of the trail where few others had ventured.
“I’d carry a map in my hat,” he was quoted as saying in 1993 by The News and Observer of Raleigh, N.C. “Every so often, I would stop and take my hat off, pull out my map, look around and try to figure out where I was.”
He averaged about 16 miles a day, but sometimes walked more than 30 on his way to Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern terminus of the trail, which he reached on Sept. 30, 1951.
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Mr. Espy’s former home in Macon became a mecca to fans seeking his advice.
“They brought their packs to our house and asked what they would need,” his wife, Eugenia (Bass) Espy, said in an interview. “He always said they were bringing too much and would say, ‘You don’t need this, you don’t need that.’ He tried to explain that you only should carry the essentials and keep the pack as light as you can.”
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One day in 1965, Mr. Espy and his daughters were hiking on the trail in Georgia.
“We heard this crashing in the woods and this scruffy man came at us,” Ms. Gilsinger recalled. “He looked at us and said, ‘Gene Espy!’ And my father said, ‘Earl Shaffer!’ He was really depleted physically, and we took him into town, got him supplies and perked him up.”
(Earl Shaffer was the first person to thru-hike the trail. He passed away in 2002.)