It had not even been 15 years since the greatest night of his professional life – perhaps the greatest night in the life of any professional boxer that Britain had ever produced. But those glory days had passed. Randolph Turpin was unwell and out of money, and the humble apartment above a diner in which he now lived was scheduled to be torn down. On the morning of May 17, 1966, he left a note to his wife, telling her not to give anything to the siblings from whom he had become estranged and urging her to return to Wales, where they had been happiest. And then, he shot himself dead.
It was not supposed to have been this way. Turpin had been the toast of Britain, one of a small handful of British world boxing champions in the years immediately following World War II. He had been a star, and never more so than on the night of July 10, 1951 when, at age 23, he became world middleweight champion with a victory over the great Sugar Ray Robinson.
Truth be told, however, little had ever come easily to Turpin – not that he was without responsibility for the downward spiral that ultimately consumed him. Born in Leamington Spa in June 1928, he was the youngest of five children; his mother, Beatrice, was the white daughter of a bare-knuckle boxer, and his father, Lionel, was a black man from British Guiana who had fought in World War I and who died when Randy was 12 months old. (His death was considered to be at least in part due to a poison gas attack he had suffered during the Battle of the Somme.)
There was not an abundance of black people in Leamington Spa in the 1920s and 1930s, and Beatrice – often described as “feisty” – encouraged her boys to use their fists and stand up for themselves in the face of taunting.
In some ways, it’s a miracle Turpin survived childhood. He contracted double pneumonia at age three and, later in childhood, nearly drowned when he became trapped in reeds while swimming in a river; one of his eardrums burst while he was underwater, leaving him partially deaf for the rest of his life.
His eldest brother, Lionel Jnr, was the first to take up boxing, predictably known as Dick Turpin. He would become British and Commonwealth middleweight champion, the first black boxer to win a British title, and his two younger brothers soon followed him into what was effectively becoming the family business. Randy began fighting amateur bouts at age 12, and continued to box after joining the Merchant Navy in 1945. In 1946, he quit shipboard life and turned professional.
He had built up a record of 19-1-1 when personal troubles raised their head and affected his career for the first, but not the last, time. In 1945, he had tried to commit suicide by swallowing liniment following an argument with his then-girlfriend, Mary Stack; because suicide and the attempt thereof was, bizarrely, against the law, he was investigated but was not charged when he argued persuasively that the ingestion had been accidental. Two years later Turpin and Stack were married, but the union was unhappy, largely as a result of Turpin’s drunkenness, philandering, and short temper.
In 1948, she accused him of beating her violently, with fists and a broom that he broke with the force of the blow. He denied the charges, which were eventually dismissed, although he did confess to slapping Mary when she accused him of cheating on her. But the scandal broke just prior to his facing Jean Stock in September 1948; he told his brother beforehand that he didn’t feel like fighting and, for the first time as a professional, he performed terribly, knocked down three times in the fifth and staying on his stool at the end of that round.
He did not fight again for five months, but when he returned it was with a renewed dedication to his craft. He rattled off 21 straight wins, battering Stock in a rematch and becoming British and European middleweight champion; and, on July 10, 1951, he stepped into the ring at Earls Court Arena to challenge the great Sugar Ray Robinson for the championship of the world.
Robinson boasted an absurd record of 129-1-2 and was on a ridiculous 89-fight winning streak when he faced Turpin. The Battle with the Brit was the last scheduled stop on an eight-week European tour that had been light on substance but strong on spectacle. Robinson, who had grown accustomed to the high life, arrived in England with a pink Cadillac and an entourage that included a dance instructor, a hairstylist, and a little person known as “Arabian Knight.”
It seems unlikely that Robinson had shown the required devotion to training and preparation for his bout with Turpin, but to use that as the sole explanation for what happened would be an injustice to the Englishman. Turpin used the strength and stamina he had been building up since his upset loss to Stock to harass, out hustle, and outwork the American, and at the end of 15 rounds, the verdict was clear
“I have no alibi,” admitted Robinson. “I was beaten by the better man."
It was and remains the greatest upset win by a British boxer and one of the greatest by any boxer of any nation. Overnight, Turpin became a national hero. The Royal Air Force performed a flyby as thousands thronged the streets of Leamington Spa to welcome him home.
At 23 years old, Turpin was on top of the world. He would remain there for just 64 days.
Robinson, naturally, exercised his right to a rematch, which took place at the Polo Grounds in New York on September 12. Once again, Turpin gave Robinson hell until, in the 10th round, the former champ, blood streaming from a cut, landed a right hand that buckled his nemesis. A follow-up barrage dropped Turpin to his back, but although he beat the count, Robinson would not be denied. He continued to attack with Turpin against the ropes until referee Ruby Goldstein stepped in to halt the carnage.
Turpin had lost his crown, but his time in New York also laid the foundations for more trouble. While preparing for the rematch, he had met and begun an affair with a woman named Adele Daniels. He purportedly promised to marry her and take her back to England, despite the fact that he was now in a relationship with his future wife, Gwyneth, whom he had met in Wales while training for the first Robinson fight – and was still married to Mary, from whom he did not become divorced until 1953.
By then, Turpin had regained the European middleweight title and had stopped Don Cockell – who would later give Rocky Marciano a tough fight – for the British and Commonwealth light-heavyweight belts. That earned him another crack at the world middleweight crown, by now adorning the head of Carl “Bobo” Olson. This challenge, however, was a disaster and would mark the beginning of the end of Turpin’s career and life.
The fight was slated for Madison Square Garden on October 21, 1953, but when Turpin arrived in New York, Adele Daniels was waiting for him. She showed up repeatedly at training camp, demanding to know why he had ghosted her. And then she accused him of raping her when they had been together. The case was settled out of court, but the accusation and sordid details of his affair strained his relationship with Gwyneth, caused him to fall out with his eldest brother - whom he accused of telling Adele about the allegations surrounding his first marriage - and left him unenthusiastic about training for the fight with Olson. Unsurprisingly, after a solid opening few rounds, he fell behind on the scorecards and ultimately took a fierce beating over 15 rounds.
Two fights later, he was knocked out in the first round by Italian Tiberio Mitri. No longer able to make the middleweight limit, he continued as a light-heavyweight but he was finished as a world title-caliber contender. He retired in 1958 after being flattened by Yolande Pompey and trying and failing four times to clamber to his feet.
Turpin had not been one to manage his affairs properly, spending money as soon as he earned it and making one bad financial investment after another. Against the advice of his manager, he bought a hotel that hemorrhaged money until he sold it at a loss in 1961. Accused of underreporting his income and underpaying his taxes by UK authorities, he was declared bankrupt in 1962. He tried his hand at professional wrestling, but he wasn’t particularly good at it, didn’t earn what he needed, and spent what he earned. He bought a building housing a diner and an apartment even though it was under threat of a compulsory purchase order. He was hit with another tax bill and threatened with a second bankruptcy. He also was showing signs of damage from his career in the ring.
It was a lethal cocktail of despondency and despair. Family and friends never like to accept that their loved ones could end their own lives, and his family maintained that the end came at the hands of gangsters who were shaking him down. The evidence and Occam’s Razor paint a different story.
Facing another tax bill, another bankruptcy, and the loss of his home and business, his brain addled from a lifetime of hard punches, Turpin first shot his 17-month-old daughter, Carmen. She, fortunately, survived her wounds. Turpin did not. A first bullet lodged against his skull without passing through into his brain. A second pierced his heart and killed him. He was 37 years old.
