Gene LeBell, 89, Judo Champion, Wrestler and Star Stuntman, Dies

Ivan Gene LeBell was born on Oct. 9, 1932, in Los Angeles. His mother, Aileen (Goldstein) LeBell, promoted boxing and wrestling matches at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles; his father, Maurice, was an osteopath and diet doctor who died after being paralyzed in a swimming accident in 1941. His mother later married Cal Eaton, with whom she promoted fights.

Gene started to learn to fight at 7, when his mother sent him to the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

“I went up to Ed ‘Strangler’ Lewis and said, ‘I want to be a wrestler,’” Mr. LeBell was quoted as saying by the Slam Wrestling website in 2005. Mr. Lewis, he recalled, asked him: “Do you want to roll? Do you want to do Greco-Roman? Do you want to do freestyle? Or do you want to grapple?”

“What’s grappling?” Gene asked.

“That’s a combination of everything,” Mr. Lewis said. “You can hit ’em, eye-gouge ’em.”

He was sold.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/movies/gene-lebell-dead.html