64 LISTENER JUNE 1 2019
That’sEntertainm
G
ETTYIMAGEST
he world isn’t short of
information about the
greatest boxer of all
time, but a new two-part
documentary by Antoine
Fuqua reframes his life and legacy
in his own words.
What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali
(Prime, Queen’s Birthday, 9.30pm)
has no new interviews featuring
his friends or pontificating com-
mentators. Instead, Fuqua, who
is best known for his 2001 film
Training Day, uses the plentiful
archive footage, photographs
and audio from throughout the
champ’s life.
The documentary is a triumph
of editing, both pictures and
sound, and Fuqua places Ali
within the political context of the
time, such as the deep wrongness
of Olympic gold champion Cas-
sius Clay returning home from
his triumph in Rome in 1960 and
being turned away from a segre-
gated Louisville restaurant.
Ali may have been known
as a motormouth, but in many
amusing and pithy interviews, he
used his fame to call out racism
and injustice. He lived through
the civil-rights era and, famously,
refused to go to Vietnam to fight.
He met such leaders as Martin
Luther King Jr, but, Fuqua says,
his conversion to Islam and the
change of his name from Clay to
Ali was only one of his “several
fights”.
“In the ring, spiritually, outside
of the ring and with Parkinson’s,”
Fuqua told the Hollywood Reporter.
“There’s all these fights. That was
his life.”
Certainly, the Nation of Islam,
led by Elijah Muhammad, was
seen by the US Government as a
dangerous political organisation,
and Ali’s mentor, Malcolm X, was
a controversial figure.
Many people, even those in theThe forever fighter
The story of Muhammad Ali’s life is told
in his own words. by entertainment editor FIONA RAE
TV • TV REVIEW • RADIO • TV & RADIO LISTINGS
What’s My Name:
Muhammad Ali, Monday.