Food and Events

One day he saw the owner's daughter selling candy for her Brownie pack. But nobody had a bad word to say about him, which in the end matters more An example of his kindness came before the Ali fight No big hotels for him; he stayed at a local Travel Lodge. He dropped out of school as early as he could, and it was only when he was an adult that he was found to be dyslexic. He finally quit for good in September 1972 when Ron Lyle, one of the biggest- punching fighters of his generation, knocked him out in two rounds."It was hard," Mathis said "I thought it would be easy. I'd be a fighter instead of getting a job." Mathis was not an educated man. He went the full 12 rounds in a contest for the North American championship. But he won six fights in a row, including a 12-round decision over the Canadian brawler George Chuvalo.

Then Jerry Quarry outpointed him and he retired.With his wife Joan and baby son Buster Jnr, Mathis lived on what was left of his ring earnings, then came back and fought Ali in November 1971. While the World Boxing Association put together an elimination tournament that was eventually won by Ali's sparring partner Jimmy Ellis, the New York State Athletic Commission matched Frazier and Mathis for their version of the championship.And in Madison Square Garden, New York, in March 1968, Frazier knocked out Mathis in the 11th round to begin the reign that eventually brought him to the marvellous 15-round points win over Ali in 1971 For the loser, Mathis, there was only more of the treadmill. While Frazier hogged any publicity given to rising stars, Mathis learnt his trade thoroughly under his manager Cus D'Amato, compiling a record of 23 consecutive wins, including a third- round stoppage of Chuck Wepner.Muhammad Ali was stripped of the world heavyweight crown in 1967 because of his refusal to be drafted for the Vietnam War and the boxing world argued over who should be his successor. His decline was tragic - before his death at the age of 51, Mathis had survived two strokes, a heart attack and heart failure. Yet go back three decades and Mathis was a brilliant heavyweight prospect.

He stood 6ft 31/2in tall, and, although he was on the bulky side at around 18st, was a clever, crafty boxer with surprising speed for such a big man. In 1964 he won the US Olympic trials by beating Joe Frazier twice, but a broken hand forced him to withdraw - and Frazier took his place at the Tokyo games, returning with the gold medal and a perfect launching pad for a professional career. In 34 professional fights between 1965 and 1972 he was beaten only by the best: Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Jerry Quarry and Ron Lyle. He was also a quality performer in one of the greatest eras the heavyweight division has ever seen. So many boxers are nice guys out of the ring Buster Mathis was one of the nicest, both inside and out. Gerard Depardieu brings the same weight that they did, which Denner did not: but Denner was always a pleasure to see, for he had mercilessly tooled his character to the requirements of the screenplay and the direction, whether in those films he carried or in which he supported others.Charles Denner, actor: born Tarnow, Poland 29 May 1926; married (two children); died Dreux, France 10 September 1995.. Chantal Akerman's highly stylised Demy-influenced musical was set in a Brussels shopping mall.Denner was not a great actor in the tradition of Harry Baur, Raimu, Michel Simon and Louis Jouvet.

La Premiere fois (1976) was a sequel to Le Vieil homme et l'enfant, with the young hero now a girl-chasing adolescent, while Denner himself was similarly afflicted during Truffaut's po-faced plod through one man's sex-life, L'Homme qui aimait les femmes (1978).The ill-health which was to dog Denner for the rest of his life curtailed his work from 1983 as can be seen in his drawn expression in his last film, Golden Eighties (1986), in which he was Delphine Seyrig's husband. More than most of Lelouch's films they insult the intelligence while astonishing with their sheer technical brilliance. In the first, a panoramic survey of the century, he had a double- role, as a cameraman of early movies and a Jew returning from a concentration camp, while in the second he is the lawyer of Catherine Deneuve, playing an ex-con trying to adjust to the son she conceived in prison. The girl was Bernadette Lafont.Denner was Belmondo's side-kick in two of the amiable action-adventures this actor was now making, L'Heritier (1973) and Peur sur la ville (1975), and then in two more for Lelouch, Toute une vie and Ci S'etait a refaire (1976). Denner was a republican returning from the US with Belmondo in Jean-Paul Rappenau's comic swashbuckler Les Maries de l'an deux (1971) and a rat exterminator in Truffaut's Une Belle fille comme moi (1972), fixated on his profession, utterly without humour and fearful of pornography.