Jake LaMotta, former middleweight world champion and inspiration for the film Raging Bull, has passed away from complications relating to pneumonia at the age of 95.
The son of Italian immigrants was born in New York in 1922 and turned professional in 1941. He had been excused service in World War 2 on medical grounds after undergoing an ear operation.
Over the course of a 13-year professional career, La Motta became famous for his all-action, swarming style and ability to take a punch.
He handed all-time great Sugar Ray Robinson his first career defeat in 1943 in the second of six memorable meetings between the pair and went on to win the world title against Frenchman Marcel Cerdan in 1949, before losing it to Robinson two years later.
Reflecting on his career, LaMotta once said: "The three toughest fighters I ever fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Robinson. I fought Sugar so many times, I'm surprised I'm not diabetic."
Jake La Motta is dead at 95. Photo: Jake La Motta and Robert De Niro at 1980 New York Film Critics Circle, by Art Zelin/Getty Images. pic.twitter.com/peJMQU3ftV
— Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) September 20, 2017
Post-retirement in 1954 La Motta had a chequered career as an actor, comedian and celebrity night-club owner, and served six months on a chain gang in 1958 for introducing an underage girl to men he knew at one of his clubs in Miami.
In 1960, he told a United States senate committee that he had thrown a fight for the mafia in 1947 so that they would facilitate his title shot against Marcel.
LaMotta's fame and reputation revived in later life after Robert de Niro won an Oscar for portraying him in Martin Scorsese's 1980 film, which was based on the boxer's autobiography 'Raging Bull: My Story'.
His death in Florida was announced by his seventh wife Denise Baker and daughter Christi.
