The ‘Great White Hope’ Boxer Lived in Verdugo Canyon

For those who know their history, in either boxing or race issues, the term “Great White Hope” has inflammatory meaning. It comes from a period of overt racism, 1908 to 1915, when a Black man was the world champion heavyweight boxer. His name was Jack Johnson.

Jack Johnson, besides beating several White boxers, also extended a middle finger to race standards of the day by having dalliances with White women, even marrying a White woman. White America was outraged. There were race riots after some of his fights.

It was writer Jack London who coined the term “Great White Hope.” He asked for a White fighter to come and “remove that golden smile from Jack Johnson’s face” and defend the White race.

There were several Great White Hopes. The first was Jim Jefferies from Burbank and the last was Jess Willard who after retirement lived in the Verdugo Woodlands, just below CV.

In 1910, the first Great White Hope, Jim Jeffries, came out of retirement from his farm in Burbank to (as he put it) “reclaim the heavyweight championship for the White race.” Jeffries only lasted 15 rounds before he threw in the towel. Once again, race riots followed the fight.

In the next five years, other White boxers stepped up to the title of Great White Hope but all were defeated by the Black boxer Johnson.

In 1915, Jack Johnson fought the last Great White Hope, Jess Willard. Jess Willard was gigantic and strong. Willard was 6’6” with a long reach. He had literally killed a man with one of his punches. In the 27^th round of this fight, Jack Johnson was knocked out by Willard’s powerful blows and Jess Willard, the last of the Great White Hopes, was the new champion. He held the title for four years.

But in 1919, Willard took on Jack Dempsey, who gave Willard what has been called the most brutal beating in boxing history. Dempsey knocked Willard to the mat seven times in the first round. By the second round, Willard was nothing more than a punching bag for the powerful Dempsey to hit as hard as he could. Just like Rocky Balboa in the first “Rocky” movie, he was reduced to a staggering mass of bloody hamburger meat and broken bones. But unlike Rocky, he couldn’t go on after the third round.

Willard retired from boxing and dabbled in exhibition shows and even a comeback attempt. In the early ’20s, Willard moved with his wife and five kids to Wabasso Way in the Verdugo Woodlands. Willard opened a grocery store in Hollywood and worked as a boxing referee while the kids attended Glendale schools.

In 1935 the family moved a short distance to a home at 2312 Blanchard Drive, about a block from the Catalina Verdugo Adobe, in a beautiful quiet neighborhood. The house was a storybook cottage, built in 1929 by a woman, Lena Nickel, the wife of an Oklahoma oil man who had invested in LA real estate. The storybook style of architecture was a Los Angeles invention, popularized in the 1920s, probably influenced by the film industry. It combined Medieval, Tudor and Norman elements into a cartoonish version of something out of a storybook. The house today is beautifully preserved and is well worth a drive-by. It was added to the Glendale Register of Historic Resources in 2015.

Jess Willard and his family lived in the Verdugo Canyon until 1946 when they moved to the San Fernando Valley. Jess Willard died in 1968 and is buried in Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills. He was inducted in the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003.    

Jess Willard is largely forgotten today except in boxing circles. But the term Great White Hope has lived on, kept alive by a Broadway play and movie of the same name, along with recent interest in the history of race relations in the U.S. Jess Willard, the last of the Great White Hopes, was a small piece of Glendale history but was huge in boxing and race relations history.