The fighter and the poet

Poet, filmmaker, and novelist Jean Cocteau was a fighting member of the avant-garde, sure, but music magazine Arthur doesn’t want us to forget that M. Cocteau was involved in a few non-literary K.O.s as well. Citing an old Sports Illustrated article, Arthur digs up the old Beauty and the Beast story :

“The fighter was Alphonse Theo Brown, better known as Panama Al Brown, born in Panama in 1902, a lean, spindly-legged, thin-waisted boxer who won the bantamweight title when he was 26 years old. With a scrupulous exactitude that was rare for him—he was one of the most tireless name-droppers in the history of literature—Cocteau insisted that he was not Brown’s manager in a professional sense, that there was no contract or financial arrangement between them. But, in fact, Cocteau got to know Brown when he was down on his luck, persuaded him to train, selected opponents for him, directed a masterly publicity campaign on Brown’s behalf and guided and goaded Brown back to the championship."