Shining a Spotlight 11.05.09: The Queen of the Ring

The best history books are those that illuminate little known stories for modern audiences and do so in brilliant detail. Such an example is The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds and the Making of An American Legend (Atlantic Monthly Press, $25). In this amazing 356-page volume, Jeff Leen uses slews of stories and information to tell the life story of a figure who deserves to be remembered in the minds of wrestling fans everywhere.

When the golden age of women wrestlers is mentioned, the Fabulous Moolah is the one most fans think of. But when it comes to putting women wrestling on the map and showing fans how the females could entertain as well as men, Mildred Burke is where it all began. In the golden age of the 1950’s, Burke was a phenomenal athlete and an amazing worker. She was a striking beauty as well, using that to keep her fame as she did her best to make women’s wrestling legitimate in the minds of fans. Her strength was as great backstage as her battles against former husband Billy Wolff shifted quite a bit of power in the NWA. While her fall was sad, her rise was amazing and her achievements deserve the recognition that the book provides.

Leen is excellent making the book work. He did slews of research (indeed, the last fifty pages are all notes) with a great photo gallery, including tracking down Burke’s never-published autobiography. The picture he paints is a remarkable journey of a woman from small beginnings to fame, of a professional through and through who overcomes quite a lot in her journey before life comes crashing in. But it’s still an amazing story to read and brought to vivid life.
　
Beginnings
　
The book begins on August 20th, 1954 as Burke and June Byers are about to lock up in a woman’s title match in Atlanta. In a move huge for its time, the two planned this a true shoot with the future of women’s wrestling at stake more than any title. Just as the bout is about to begin, Leen bounces back to Burke’s life. Born Millie Bliss if Coffeyville, Kansas in 1915, Burke grew up to a hard life. The youngest of six children, her father was a would-be inventor whose fortunes shifted from rich to poor on regular intervals before he and her mother Bertha split when Millie was eleven. Bertha provided the rock to her daughter’s life as Millie excelled at sports such as soccer and track but had to give up school to help her family when the Depression hit. She had to learn the hard way about boys, even fighting the advances of men at work and when she married, it was pretty much just to get out of her home town. In Kansas City, Millie first got hooked on wrestling, which was beginning its transition from the shoot style to being pre-planned. Millie was instantly struck by it and immediately decided she wanted to be a wrestler, ignoring how women athletes were considered “too elegant” to do anything truly physical, despite the nice history of women in the sport Leen provides, including a look at Cora Livingston, who was one of the first women champions. With her husband leaving her pregnant and unemployment rising, Millie was desperate for a way to change her life.

Enter Billy Wolfe. While in the army during World War I, Wolfe had found a talent for wrestling and soon became pro with the classic “wrestling a bear” gimmick. The height of his career was losing the light heavyweight championship to Charles Fischer in Kansas City in 1932 in an acclaimed bout. A top heel, Wolfe was in demand all over the South but his fame had gone to his head a bit as he left his wife to take up with female wrestler Barbara Ware. Millie instantly caught Wolfe’s eye and he frequented her restaurant until they were an item. After giving birth to son Joe, Burke finally got Wolfe to agree to let her try out for wrestling. When she manhandled another man in the ring, Wolfe instantly saw dollar signs.

Things did not get to a good start as Wolfe flew into a rage when Millie didn’t get any money selling her diner and threatened to have her arrested which the naive Millie believed. It also wasn’t helped when she found him cheating on her with a woman at a carnival, setting the tone for their complicated relationship to come. Millie took a bad move that tore her leg ligaments, but bounced back to continue her success, first against women, then men. One bout, however, left her nearly paralyzed and her new marriage to Wolfe was falling into abuse, not just with her but also her son. He waged a campaign to get her back and Millie decided that she would put up with him just in order to get ahead into the business, figuring putting up with Wolfe was a small price to pay for success.
　

Molding the Champion

In 1936, Burke and Wolfe headed South where she was set against noted female wrestler Clara Mortensen while Wolfe managed to get them booked in an actual arena. Since Mortensen was the veteran, Burke had to lay down for her, exposing her to the fixed nature of wrestling, making her more determined than ever to succeed in order to call her own shots. She and Mortensen would trade the woman’s title, Leen saying the circumstances were always shadowy, typical of the cutthroat world of wrestling at the time. Indeed, one match ended in such controversy that both women claimed to be champion for the rest of their lives. That failure of trust pretty much wrecked the chances for the two to continue such a money-making program, forcing Burke to move on.

The key of Burke’s success was her appearance: Strong, lean, her hair in lush curls, face in makeup, her body clad in one-piece suits that accented her curves. In the 1950’s, you didn’t see women like this, strong and yet also sexy and that combination brought in fans by the droves, thanks to Wolfe sending photos of her around the country to promoters. As a baby face, Burke controlled her matches, taking hits but always bouncing back with the big victory at the end, showcasing both power and speed with the grace of a ballerina. Her success came at a good time as the wrestling business was undergoing a massive crisis thanks to Jack Pfefer spilling the beans to the press about how it was all planned. The shockwaves nearly undid the business and would take something big to rebuild it. Burke was just that.

Since New York and New Jersey banned women wrestling, Burke and Wolfe were kept to the Midwest and South, facing opposition from women’s groups and clergy. Despite that, Burke’s fame was growing more and more but Burke never forgot her roots. A great story is how, while driving back to her home for Christmas, she passed by a group of starving folks and bought them hamburgers, milk, pie and gave them money to help them along. Wolfe’s brilliance at promotion is shown by how he got newsreels to take footage of Burke to rise her fame across the country. In some interviews, she came off tough talking but others had her drop the persona to be more like herself, talking of her lack of vices to harm her training. Even her tactic of winning every match didn’t hurt her drawing power but that came to an end with a brutal series of bouts against Betty Nichols in 1938. Burke would triumph in the end before facing Gladys Gilliam, another tough rookie and a young woman later named the Fabulous Moolah was struck by the amazing craft Burke showed.
　

Spreading Fame

　
In 1940, Wolf started to get involved with two powerful East Coast promoters, Jack Pfefer and Rudy Dusek. Pfefer was better known for his appalling hygiene than promotional skills and made it clear he was using women’s wrestling for the freak show factor of it. However, the audiences loved what they were seeing and soon women’s matches were outdrawing men bouts. Pfefer added to the heat with stuff like actually having his male wrestlers form a “union” to “picket” the arena protesting the women taking their jobs. Their professional lives grew even as their marriage remained more a business arrangement. As World War II began, women wrestling became more popular with a lot of women, feeling a new responsibility with most of the men gone, coming out as fans, including Mae Young who soon joined Wolfe’s stable of female workers. Even California opened up to female wrestlers, allowing Wolfe to grow even more.

Behind the scenes, Burke maintained a strict moral front while having an affair with Wolfe’s own son George William or “G Bill.” While not proven, Leen speculates that Wolfe may have actually known and even allowed the affair as Burke allowed his own indiscretions. Leen also provides a fascinating look at those both for and against Burke, including women leagues and how even Congressmen had comments on her life and career, including her obsession with diamonds. Wolfe continued to build his roster of women who soon became something of a harem to him, including young Verdie Nell Stewart. Molded by Wolfe, the bountifully endowed woman was a rough heel and rival to Burke in the eyes of fans. Also added was June Byers who Wolfe took a major shine to, to the jealously of the other girls besides Burke. He didn’t sleep with all of them as a few were, in fact, lesbians who Burke did have a problem with . Wolfe was a fair man though, leveling fines on girls for breaking rules or going too far inside the ring. At the same time, he would play them against each other for his own benefit, also ready to appear the father figure swooping in to help. An interesting bit is how Burke actually claims to have helped inspire Gorgeous George.

This was the Golden Age of wrestling as television was coming to prominence and wrestling was able to reach more of the masses. Wolfe was made for this environment, making himself look fancy in expensive outfits and jewels, smoking cigars and living the high life. His ego grew as well, to the point that he claimed he’d been running women’s’ matches before meeting Burke, which didn’t sit well with her. His comments about women being better than male wrestlers didn’t make him friends in the NWA either. Leen goes into great detail on how Wolfe ran his operations with training, lodgings and bookings, showing how different things were in this old era. Burke usually kept to herself, making some of the girls think she was a snob and a bit too serious to truly be friends with. Also not popular was the arrogant Byers who was stiff in the ring but Nell was well-liked due to her personal charisma. Mae Young got into a fight with Wolfe that became physical, leading to her exit. But Wolfe does deserve credit for allowing black girls to join in 1951 and being one of the first bookers to break the segregation lines. By 1952, Wolfe and Burke were on top of the wrestling world in an age where the business was booming like never before.
　

Declines
　
On July 28, 1951, Janet Boyer, a worker six weeks into her career collapsed in the ring during a tag team match, her second of the night, and was pronounced dead hours later at an Ohio hospital. The women in his roster blamed Wolfe, feeling he’d trained Boyer too hard and long, pushing her before she was ready. Her death was “the first domino in a chain that led to the undoing of the sweet life the women wrestlers had been living.” G. Bill had gone to his father trying to get him to grant Burke a divorce so she and Bill could get married. Needless to say, it didn’t go very well and the effects would eventually lead to the downfall of the affair. On September 27th of the same year, while driving to a show, the front tire of Burke’s car blew out, sending the Imperial smashing into a tree trunk. G. Bill was left in a full body cast while Mildred had severe injuries to her ribs and neck. To make it worse for G. Bill, Wolfe himself read a letter from Burke that ended their affair while he was recovering.

With Burke injured, the question of succession started to tear the usually close girls apart. Burke soon started to push Nell to the forefront, over Burke’s objections. The two did go at it several times in long battles and while Burke claimed she was clearly the superior there, newspaper reports say the bouts were longer and more even than she claimed. In August of 1952, Wolfe said it was time for Burke to drop the belt to Nell, arguing she’d been champion for fourteen years and was still recovering from her injuries. Burke refused, feeling the title was her only power over Wolfe. Hurt over being dumped, G. Bill joined his father in pressuring Burke and Burke claimed they both actually beat her. The whole incident finally made Burke realize it was time to cut ties to Wofle. She did run into a major problem there as Wolfe controlled finances and her publicity. Leen illustrates how wrestlers of the time were always exaggerating their earnings and living higher than their means and Burke was soon in a squalid flat in New York.

Knowing her own indiscretion with G. Bill might be used as retribution for accusations of Wolfe’s cheating, Burke made the mistake of letting Wolfe’s lawyers handle things. She avoided a hard legal battle but got no alimony or other payment. The NWA had to step in to handle things like the booking and naturally backed Wolfe. Even the esteemed Sam Muchnick pretty much said a woman had no business running things in wrestling although Lou Thesz did give her friendly advice to watch herself. That would be prophetic words as Wolfe and G. Bill rushed to set themselves up as powerhouses in wrestling with a new promotion and Bill married Byers, the trio setting themselves up against the group Burke was putting together. While Burke may have had the title, Wolfe had the cash and the backing of the NWA and with wrestling experiencing a downturn, Burke was being overwhelmed. Throwing flame to the fire was Ed Contos creating a new woman’s title in Baltimore. Burke protested the whole thing as a sham and refused to show up with Byers winning the title over Nell Stewart. Stewart did get a consolation prize in marrying Wolfe a few weeks later. Soon, Burke was forced out of business and Wolfe brilliantly manipulated the lawyers to make sure Burke was left with almost nothing. Burke used her fan base, particularly Senator John Bricker, a big fan of hers, to attack Wolfe’s moves. Unfortunately, the two ended up hurting each other as the NWA board decided they were sick and tired of all this strife and voted to divorce itself from women’s wrestling for good.

Burke still had popularity and used it in solo trips around the world while Wolfe realized the hard way that Byers wasn’t as big a draw. Stewart also left him, the last straw when he had her tubes tied. Leen devotes a lot of pages to the build-up to the Byers/Burke matchup, difficult as there is limited coverage and Burke’s own description sounds far more fantastic than it actually was. The problem was that because it was a shoot and Byers and Burke hated each other, you couldn’t get the trust needed to make an hour long battle work. Byers took one fall but they wrestled hard for the rest and Burke refused to give in so she was announced still champion. Of course, Wolfe maintained Byers had won and anger by promoters over the poor match cost Burke some love.

Final Years

Burke tried to move on, marrying young Bert Younker and engaging in a successful trip to Japan. However, her injury and money status, not to mention the refusal of the NWA to allow women’s’ wrestling forced her to soon hang it all up, getting a job as a stenographer that barely covered the debts her lavish lifestyle had accumulated. She would divorce on good terms in 1962 and eventually end up back where she started, running a chili restaurant in Los Angeles. When California lifted the ban on women wrestling in 1966, Burke leaped into it but soon found herself facing a problem when a story about the Fabulous Moolah beating her for the title became accepted as fact for a long time to come. While Moolah would say Burke was the best, she would also claim to many ring meetings despite Burke’s protests that they’d met only once in a dressing room. Burke would produce the famous “mixed tag bout” videos that would lead to a rise in business for her and even dabbled in Hollywood. She suffered a fatal stroke on Valentine’s Day, 1989, buried in Forest Lawn.

Wolfe would divorce, remarry and sleep around for years later but his business declined as women’s wrestling faded. He died of a heart attack in 1963 with G. Bill following almost exactly a year later. Nell Stewart would pass of cancer in 1961 while Byers would survive a car accident and seven marriages before her death in 1998.
　
Burke’s unpublished biography had her decrying how women’s’ wrestling had become a joke. The final pages discuss how women have risen in various sports, including collegiate wrestling while pro wrestling welcomed the “diva” era. Leen does make a notable error in saying Moolah won the title from Wendi Richter at the first Wrestlemania and discusses how women in wrestling are mere eye candy, with no mention of actually great workers like Trish Stratus among others. However, he finishes by saying that Millie would have accepted them all, that every woman who laced up the boots after her was part of something bigger. “They were all Millie’s girls.”

Summation

The book is very well detailed with tons of facts and stories. Indeed, the last sixty pages are a full list of references and while Leen makes the occasional error, he gets most of it right. He’s wise to not just rely on Burke’s memoirs as the woman, like many old-timers, still stuck to kayfabe so her claims of the constant shoots should be taken with a grain of salt. But he still paints a fascinating picture of an incredible performer, a woman who rose from nothing to change the face of wrestling and her impact continues today. Mock the “Divas” stuff as you want but there are women who are truly great athletes putting it out there to entertain people and Mildred Burke was the reason for all that. For a great read of an amazing life and a major shift to the business, this book wins on all counts in its regal glory.