‘Room’ producers announce biopic about bisexual boxer Emile Griffith who ‘killed’ homophobic opponent
Griffith beat his opponent Benny 'The Kid' Paret to death during a 1962 match.
A biopic about a bisexual boxer who killed his homophobic teammate is happening.
Since 2015 there have been rumours of a biopic on the life of American boxer Emile Griffith, and now director Lenny Abrahamson and producer Ed Guiney – the two men behind the critically acclaimed film Room – are joining forces for the biopic.
Emile Griffith supposedly ‘killed’ his opponent Benny ‘The Kid’ Paret during a March 1962 match at Madison Square Garden.
During the weigh-in for the fight Paret mocked Griffith, who was rumoured to be bisexual, by grabbing his bum and calling him a “maricon”, which is the Spanish word for “faggot”.
During the 12th round of the fight, Griffith cornered Paret and repeatedly hit him until he fell unconscious. The referee separated them but Paret was taken away in a stretcher and died in hospital just 10 days later.
While it’s now believed that Paret died from injuries sustained from an earlier fight, the match changed Griffith’s life and made him notorious in the boxing world.
Speaking to Deadline, Abrahamson said: “As a character study, Griffith is incredibly compelling.
“There was a gentleness and innocence about him, and he never seemed conflicted about his sexuality; indeed he found joy in it. He inhabited two worlds – the underground gay scene in New York in the ’60s and the macho world of boxing. The societal stigma at that time was dreadful and created a crushing pressure on him.”
He continued: “You look at how closely his two worlds intersected. Just how different are they, when the sport is such a celebration of the male body and the beauty of its athleticism. Go one step further, and inject the tiniest sense of sexuality, and people are up in arms.
“Griffith himself once said a quote that just floored me. ‘They forgave me for killing a man, but they couldn’t forgive me for loving a man.’ That to me was so powerful and such a crazy contradiction. And it is still relevant today.”
Griffith died at the age of 75 in 2013 of dementia pugilistic, a neuro-degenerative disease found in people who had suffered traumatic brain injuries or hits to the head.
The biopic is expected to be released in 2018 or 2019.