'Captain' Lou was an unforgettable character

The world of professional wrestling has enjoyed more than its share of colorful personalities over the years.

It said goodbye to one of them last week with the passing of the legendary “Captain” Lou Albano at the age of 76.

The beloved wrestler-turned-manager, recognizable by his penchant for loud, open Hawaiian shirts that exposed his bulbous belly, trademark rubber bands adorning his wily goatee and pierced cheeks, and a gift of gab that had no bounds, will be remembered as one of the greatest managers in the history of the business.

But Albano was more than a wrestler or a manager. He was a pop culture icon whose role as rock star Cyndi Lauper’s father in her “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video kicked off the “Rock ‘N Wrestling Connection” that helped make the then-World Wrestling Federation a household name in the 1980s.

The good captain was, as he regularly quipped, “Often imitated, never duplicated.”

Albano, who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 1996, had been a mainstay in that organization for decades, joining Vincent James McMahon’s World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1960, and staying the course with Vincent Patrick McMahon when he took over for his ailing father in the early ‘80s, creating the WWF juggernaut.

Albano had made his mark on the business years earlier, joining the pro ranks in 1952 after attending the University of Tennessee on a football scholarship and serving a stint in the U.S. Army.

He wanted to be a boxer, but legendary trainer and manager Lou Duva, a distant cousin of Albano, sent him to wrestling matchmaker Willie Gilzenberg, who was promoting in New Jersey, and Albano was advised to get into wrestling because he was deemed too short for the sweet science.

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Captain Lou

The late Captain Lou Albano was one of the most popular and charismatic legends in professional wrestling.

Along with Tony Altamore, another Army veteran of Italian decent, the two rose to prominence as a tag team called The Sicilians, replete with tuxedo jackets, fedoras, velvet gloves, big cigars and machine guns. Their gimmick, a pair of stereotypical Italian mobsters, got over with the audience so well that some legitimate “wise guys” in the Chicago crime syndicate sent word to the two that it would be in their best interest to tone down their act.

“Lou’s always been a part of pop culture,” says Philip Varriale, who co-authored the 2008 book “Captain Lou Albano: Often Imitated and Never Duplicated.”

“Even back with Tony Altamore as The Sicilians, that was a kind of groundbreaking gimmick. They took something that was very popular on television, ‘The Untouchables,’ and they did The Sicilians fighting against The G-Men (Billy Goelz and Johnny Gilbert) in Chicago in 1961. It was the height of ‘The Untouchables’ going against the mobsters. It was cutting edge back then.”

Albano, who made his Madison Square Garden debut in 1960, teamed with Altamore to win the prestigious Midwest tag-team title in Chicago in June 1961. Six years later they would rise to the top of the WWWF tag-team ranks by winning the U.S. tag-team belts from Bruno Sammartino and Spiros Arion.

Albano took on a new role after the breakup up the team — that of a wild-eyed, over-the-top manager who would groom the company’s most ruthless heels in attempt to dethrone legendary champion Sammartino. That goal was achieved in 1971 when his villainous “Russian” protégé, Ivan Koloff, scored an improbable victory to end Sammartino’s seven-year reign in a match at Madison Square Garden.

Koloff would be the only world heavyweight champion Albano ever managed. He would lead Don Muraco, Greg Valentine and Pat Patterson to the Intercontinental championship, but never again tasted a world title.

The rotund Albano’s forte, however, was serving as the mouthpiece for some of the greatest tag teams in WWE history. He guided 15 different duos to tag-team gold. Among those teams were The Valiant Brothers, The Wild Samoans, Mr. Fuji and Mr. Saito, Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo, The Executioners, The Moondogs and The British Bulldogs.

Managing was Albano’s true calling. Being around wrestling for 17 years had given him the knowledge to become a great manager. He was a New Yorker who understood the psychology and politics of the business as well as the market.

“He made a great transition to manager in the ‘70s, and with so many people in the New York area, that was a golden era for the WWF,” says Varriale. “He was there every year and every month bringing in new challengers. He literally talked people into Madison Square Garden or the Boston Garden or Capital Centre in Maryland. He was a very, very important part of the success for the WWE in the ‘70s.”

Ironically it was Sammartino, a fellow Italian, who influenced Albano to get into the managing side of the business.

His bad-guy antics earned him the reputation of being one of the most hated men in wrestling circles, but outside the ring was a different story.

“Basically a regular guy who, like everybody else, is trying to make a dollar and enjoy life,” was how Louis Vincent Albano described himself. He was a religious man who always carried rosary beads in his pocket.

“He became a very mellow, soft-spoken person over the years,” says Varriale. “He loved his family and was very much into his grandchildren.”

Many might have been surprised to learn that Albano was an impressive physical specimen in his younger days. He was a star football player in high school who earned a scholarship to the University of Tennessee, but was expelled for disciplinary reasons.

“He never took education seriously,” says Varriale. “He was kicked out of school. He was just a wild, fight-picking kind of guy. But he was a great football player. He was a legendary football player at Stepinac High School in Westchester County. He was very muscular and very much into working out.”

Albano ballooned to well over 300 pounds in later years.

When he lost significant weight over the past couple of years, he was still solid, says Varriale. “It was impressive. He was always very physically strong. I guess that athlete in him stayed.”

Albano gained perhaps his greatest mainstream notoriety when he appeared in Lauper’s iconic music video for “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” in 1983, playing a scruffy, overbearing father in a white tank top who gets shoved against a wall by the singer. He later claimed to be the catalyst to Lauper’s success, and helped spawn the “Rock ‘N Wrestling” era in the WWF.

Lauper credited her on-screen father with taking her up the music charts. “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” was among the most heavily played in the early days of MTV.

Albano’s celebrity status grew as his image evolved, and he landed a number of acting jobs, including roles alongside Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo in Brian DePalma’s “Wise Guys,” the wrestling-themed movie “Body Slam” and “Miami Vice.”

He even became a cartoon in 1989 when he was the voice of Mario “Jumpman” Mario for 17 episodes of the animated and live action Saturday morning cartoon “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!”

Captain Lou was a true showman whose often rambling and sometimes incoherent interviews, with that distinctive loud, growling voice, always drew an audience.

Many of his off-color humor and off-the-cuff expressions made little sense, but the manner in which they were delivered was entertaining and endearing.

Among his most well known:

— “He’s got the brain of a dehydrated BB.”

— “He has a calcium deposit on the medulla oblongata of his brain, but he is a brilliant man. This man has a BA, an MA from Harvard and a PhD from Oxford. He’s a brilliant man I tell you.”

Varriale considers Albano an integral part of the WWF’s national expansion.

“What if Lou Albano wasn’t there? Would MTV have wanted to show the Wendi Richter-Moolah match? Vince didn’t broker the deal with Cyndi Lauper. That was Lou. Lou’s the one who had the connection with Cyndi. He took the angle to Vince. Lou was very important to the boom.”

His longevity and relevance also stand out.

“How many guys who started as far back as 1952 had the ability 50 years later to be an hysterical television character? He was able to transition to what Vince wanted wrestling to be in the ‘80s. He was old school, and a lot of those guys couldn’t do it. Lou was a unique character and a unique person. He was always interested in the cutting edge. In the late ‘70s he started piercing his ears. He was very interested in pop culture and what was going on with the youth.”

Albano, unlike some of the other managers in that market at the time who preferred to work exclusively on TV and the major venues, loved going to the smaller spot shows in the various towns.

“Lou would go to every show he could,” says Varriale. “He wanted his payoffs. He was a hustler and was willing to do a lot of different things. (Managers) Ernie Roth (The Grand Wizard) and Fred Blassie didn’t take bumps. Lou would go in there and blade and get bounced around.”

A short, burly man with scraggly hair and clothes looking like they had come out of a rummage sale, his appearance belied where he had come from.

“It was the antithesis of what he had,” says Varriale. “He had a large, beautiful family. To hear the stories of the wild Lou back then was crazy.”

The Albano home wasn’t exactly like Lou. His house was immaculate. He may have seemed an odd fit, but his pedigree would prove otherwise.

Albano was born in Rome and was baptized at The Vatican. His father was a general practitioner who delivered 6,000 babies during a long and successful medical career. His mother was a registered nurse and a concert pianist who played at Carnegie Hall and passed down her musical skills. “Lou was a wonderful piano player,” notes Varriale. Albano’s three brothers and a sister all became respected educators.

He was married to the same woman for 55 years. “She was with him until the end,” says Varriale. “They were very close. He was a very devoted family man.”

“He had a great life,” adds Varriale. “He had such a wonderful family. He loved them and they loved him. They put all their time and energy into being with him.”

Albano, who made the transition from one of wrestling’s most reviled characters to one of its most beloved, was an unforgettable personality.

“If you ever saw Lou, you’d never forget him. His promos were just so crazy – the burping and the belching and the belly sticking out. You didn’t have to like wrestling to like this guy. He would crack you up. He was so quick-witted and obnoxious. He was a lunatic. It was nonsense gobbledygook, but he did it so well.”

Varriale says Albano was a true survivor.

“He worked with all the greats. He survived in an industry that’s not easy to survive in. He worked his way to the top and he stayed there. Even when he was done with the business, he found work and became very successful on TV and in Hollywood. For many wrestlers, that’s the hardest battle they have. Once their wrestling career is over, what do they do? Lou never had that problem.”

And he remained loyal to friends and wrestlers he had come up with.

Although his old partner Tony Altamore never again achieved the level of success he had as half of The Sicilians tag team, the two remained close friends until Altamore’s death in 2003 at the age of 74.

Altamore, incidentally, discovered a new career after wrestling, serving as the chief lifeguard for the city of Stamford, Conn., for almost 25 years and saving a number of lives.

“Once The Sicilians broke up, Lou’s career took off as a manager,” says Varriale. “Tony became more of a job guy who would help drive the ring around and do assorted tasks. But their friendship was always strong. They remained tight. That was a true friendship. The families still love one another.

“Lou had that effect on people. Fred Blassie loved Lou until the day he died. Lou and Ernie Roth were very close. Lou was that kind of guy. Even The Iron Sheik loved Lou. And that says something. Nobody ever accused of Lou double-crossing or backstabbing them. He was a great guy to work with. He was just a lot of fun.”

Albano also was a major force in raising money to combat multiple sclerosis. His sister-in-law’s mother died from the disease in the early ‘80s, and Albano vowed to make it his cause, raising millions of dollars for the organization He even served as a national spokesman for the group at one time.

“It was one of the proudest things in his life,” says Varriale. “It remained a big cause until the end. It was very personal for him.”

Albano’s health had deteriorated in recent years. But even long before that, it was hardly a secret that he didn’t take care of himself, was grossly overweight and had experienced a number of close calls due to years of heavy drinking and reckless living.

He suffered a massive heart attack in 2005 and had a pacemaker put in. Because of the pacemaker, says Varriale, he developed kidney problems and kidney stones. His body was breaking down, but Albano continued to make a number of appearances at reunion events and fan conventions up until last winter.

The Good Captain passed away at 3:30 a.m. Wednesday at his home in Carmel, N.Y., where he was surrounded by wife Gerri and family members.

• B.J. Race, beloved wife of pro wrestling great Harley Race, passed away the evening of Oct. 9 at Lake Ozark Regional Hospital in Osage Beach, Mo., where she had been treated for pneumonia and other complications.

Beverly Ann Race, who had just turned 60, was a well-loved and well-respected figure in the wrestling community, and was a constant companion to her husband, with whom she helped run the World League Wrestling promotion and a wrestling school in Eldon, Mo., where she became a mother away from home to all those who attended the Harley Race Wrestling Academy.

B.J. was, as her obituary noted, “a devoted wife and right hand to her husband, a wife of whom he was very proud and forever grateful to have as part of his life.”

“She was the most wonderful woman in the world,” Race told KC Confidential last week. “It’s almost impossible to believe that she’s gone.”

Earlier this year B.J. received the Above and Beyond Award from the Cauliflower Alley Club for her dedication to the CAC and the wrestling business. The former banking executive threw herself into professional wrestling and was a driving force behind her legendary husband’s school and promotion.

The two were married on Dec. 28, 1995, in Harrison, Ark., after having dated for several years. Race, who has gone through several lifetimes of physical and emotional pain, always credited his wife with rescuing him at a critical point in his life.

“Through thick and thin, B.J.’s commitment to me never wavered. I’m afraid to think about what would have become of me without her,” the eight-time NWA world champion said in his 2006 book “King of the Ring.”

“I had shredded my insides by jumping through a table, then went through seven surgeries and God only knows how much pain to repair the damage. I had gone through a divorce that left me bitter and damn near penniless. I suffered through a horrible car wreck that left me with an artificial hip. But my marriage to B.J. was not only a ray of sunshine in an otherwise dark time in my life — it was a turning point.”

Cauliflower Alley Club executive Karl Lauer said she was the woman who made Race’s life complete.

“Beverly ‘BJ’ Race was the force behind the man,” said Lauer. “She was warm and gentle, but could get tough when the need was there. It was something to see the young wrestlers who have gone through the school all call her mom. She will be missed by everyone who really got to know her.”

“She was a phenomenal woman who was a huge support system for one of the closest friends I’ve ever had,” said 16-time world heavyweight champion Ric Flair. “It’s really sad.”

Since 1999 the Races had lived in a lakefront home at Lake of The Ozarks in Missouri, a boater’s paradise and water sports playground, that they had purchased four years earlier as a vacation retreat. They previously lived in Kansas City where their home became known for huge barbecue parties the pair would routinely throw for wrestlers whenever they came through town. The affairs evolved from intimate gatherings to parties with an entire crew of wrestling stars.

The two later opened a wrestling school and promotion in Eldon, a small town of 5,000 located between Land of the Ozarks and Jefferson City, Mo.

• Former WWE diva Torrie Wilson experienced a health scare last week after having a bad reaction to medication.

“Thought I was heading up to heaven ... thanks for letting me stay a little longer, Jesus,” Wilson, who was hospitalized Monday night, wrote on her Twitter account.

Wilson later posted on her Facebook blog that the medication had “a horrible adverse reaction for someone with thyroid issues” and that her heart was slowly stopping and got as far down as 30 beats per minute. She added that she was fine now.

• Snoop Dog, who appeared at Wrestlemania 24 in Orlando last year, will serve as this week’s celebrity host on Raw.
• Shane McMahon dropped a bombshell last week when he announced that he was resigning from the family business.

McMahon, 39, the executive vice president of global media for WWE and the son of chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, will remain with the company through the end of this year.

“It has been an incredible experience to help build WWE into a global phenomenon,” McMahon said. “However, having been associated with this organization for the majority of my life, I feel this is the opportune time in my career to pursue outside ventures.”

His mother, Linda, recently gave up the CEO post to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut.

“Even though I am personally saddened by Shane’s decision to leave the company, I am proud of the enormous contributions he has made,” said Vince McMahon.

Mike Mooneyham can be reached by phone at (843) 937-5517 or by e-mail at mooneyham@postandcourier.com.