Pat O'Dowdy was the wrestling promoter in Big Spring and later Odessa for many years, when he got older. I recall a dinner where boxing champion Jack Dempsey made spaghetti for a crowd that included the Mayor in a tux. Dempsey was there to referee. Pat walked around without his shirt, as usual. Pat and his wife, Ruth, were known for their practical jokes. One time they came through town and my our family were gone. So they gave the house a much-needed, thorough, anonymous cleaning.
Pat made more money than anyone around growing up. He'd slip me a $5 bill every once in a while. Pat, and later Danny his son, another famous artist and a collaborator with Terry Allen, had the weirdest, most garish automobiles: Hudsons, Kaisers, Fraziers. It was part of the show business.
Rowdy Pat O'Dowdy was quite a showman. He helped invent the really bad guy. His gimmic was to spit alcohol or tobacco in their eyes, pin them, and win the round because they were blinded. Bad guys had bad luck in the third round. Pat wore a great, green robe with a shamrock on the back and emphasized his Irish linage. He went by Irish Pat some.
Pat had been quite a drinker in his younger days. He sobered up and devoted decades to working with Alcoholics Anonymous. One story was that he was headed to the Olympics as a wrestler. They found that all he had in his suitcase for the boat voyage were half pints of booze. They suitcase jingled like Santa's sleigh. Pat told me that once he and Gorgeous George were forced into drunk folk's rehab by their wives. Gorgeous had thoughtfully bought a new car and had the radiator filled with vodka. After dark, they would slip out of the rehab cabins and go get drinks. I don't know about that story.
The wrestlers ran around without their shirts all the time. All the early guys had califlower ears. Gorgeous George was the most famous in his day. His trademark was long, peroxided hair back when you never saw any men with long hair. His son, Gorgeous George, Jr., also had long, dyed hair as a child. Made him tough. Gorgeous would give away gold-colored bobby pins. Once when Gorgeous was in Odessa, Texas visiting the O'Dowdys, he was out mowing the lawn in his wrestling trunks. A neighbor called the police and they came quickly.
By today's standards, Pat was not very large. Maybe 185 pounds. When he and Gorgeous started wrestling on TV in Chicago, he would drink cream to put on weight. Pat was only seriously injured a couple of times around Lubbock, that I know of. Both times when fans attacked him. One of showman Sled Allen's tricks were these wooden folding chairs with the seat boards only about a quarter of an inch thick. The wrestlers would hit each other over the heads perfectly where the thinner, center boards would break loudly without doing too much damage. A woman took one of the same chairs and hit Pat in the face with the chair from the side. He had a black eye for weeks.
Pat O'Dowdy lived into his eighties. He was always available to go out in the middle of the night to help a drunk just getting out of jail. Pat and Ruth came from Duke, Oklahoma is the middle of the depression. As that famous gambler Benny Binion said, "Tough times make tough people."
JohnnyHughes.com, author of the novel, Texas Poker Wisdom
I only met Rowdy one time, and he was working with a social worker to get me placed since I had no place to go after the police picked me up in Odessa for not being in school. I been on my own for over a year and had traveled from Kansas to Washington to Ohio to Texas. When Bill the cop asked me to go to the police station with him (I was not under arrest) and then he contacted the social worker. For the time being I was placed in Terminal Texas until they could decide what to do with me. I was 15 at the time, and this is when I met Rowdy... he was a big man (at least to me) but one of the nicest guys... he and the case worker found two places that would take me... Buckner Boy's Ranch in Burnett and Buckner Orphan's Home in Dallas. I wanted the ranch, but Rowdy convinced me that the Home probably offered a better situation. I took his advice and was glad I did. Buckner was my port in a storm and Rowdy was a big part of it...
ReplyDeleteYour post brings me great comfort on the anniversary of my father’s death. Our world lost a good man March 27, 1992.
ReplyDeletePat was my father's uncle. My father just told me the story about Pat... his last name was Dowdy. Word is he added the "O" because the Irish were good Fighters... not Irish at all but the name worked well!
ReplyDeleteMaybe have some Irish in him but his official name was Dowdy
Delete