How a gay wrestler from Montreal made it big,
Pat Patterson ( born Pierre Clermont in Montreal) parlayed charm, a love of the sport and a talent for showmanship into a celebrated pro wrestling career. Perhaps even more surprising, the kid who never finished high school and left home after coming out
I always told my family when I was competing, but they never came to see me. I wished they had been there just like they were when my brother was playing hockey. The first time my parents saw me in the ring was many years later in San Francisco. It was quite the shock for them as I picked them up in a Cadillac and brought them to my big house. My mother kept crying in the car because she had never before even sat in a Caddie. And she could not believe my place was actually my house. I was headlining the Cow Palace, the Montreal Forum of San Francisco, at the time . . . But there I go again, getting ahead of myself.
My dad and I kept arguing about me getting a real job. Men didn’t show affection back then, not even fathers and sons. I had nothing in common with him anyway. We never found anything to bond over on any level. The reality was the family was just too big and everyone just wanted to get the hell out as soon as possible. Everyone was always invading everyone else’s space when we were together at home. Dad was strict and I hated all the rules. And I was always looking for affection — that was not his strong point.
The reality, too, was that on a personal level I still really didn’t know who I was. I’d tried going dancing with girls like any other boy, but I knew almost from the start that it wasn’t for me. I never knew why, but girls just weren’t doing it for me, even if I found them cute.
I had a friend in my class who was gay. At the time, he knew where the gay tavern was, so we started going there Friday nights. When the waiter spotted us, he told us we were too young, but then he told us to be quiet and sit in the corner. I don’t know why he didn’t kick us out, maybe because he wanted to help. It was quite the sight — everyone in there was cruising me. I was a goodlooking young man.
After going a few times, I finally met a guy my age — I must’ve been 16, closer to 17 — at this tavern. As they say, he was very good-looking, too. We started talking and one thing led to another.
He brought me to his place because his parents were out of town. It was incredible, and I felt so good afterward. There was tenderness and affection. We were just two people, together, sharing their feelings. It was a strange sentiment. In fact, I couldn’t think straight anymore.
I got back home around 1 a.m.; I had missed my curfew, so every door was locked and I had to ring the doorbell to get in. I knew I would wake up everybody but I didn’t care. My dad was doubly pissed — because I wasn’t home on time and now I’d woken him up — and my mom tried to play peacemaker. While I wasn’t completely drunk, I was still floating on the alcohol I’d had plus the incredible evening I’d experienced. That’s when, with the alcohol helping me muster my courage, I completely opened up.
“I need to tell you something: I think I’m in love.”
My mother was happy for me, telling me how good that was. Then I added that it was another boy who made me feel this way. More than likely it was the buzz speaking for me, but I felt too good to keep it a secret.
My dad was like, “Quoi?” What? “Don’t tell me you have become a tapette?”
I defended myself the best I could. “I’m not a tapette.”
“I won’t have a tapette in my home; you’re going to have to move out.”
My mother started to cry. “Gérard, you can’t do that to our son.”
He snapped: “I can’t have a tapette in my house. What will everyone say?”
This was the turning point. I’d wanted to leave home for the circus but hadn’t had the guts. I knew I had to get the hell out and the sooner the better. My mom ended up winning that argument and I was allowed to stay a little longer, but I had learned that Dad was not ready to share this with me. Things would get smoother as the years went by, but I was in New York before we truly spoke about that night again.
I was working at the shoe factory around that time and I gave all the money I made to my mother. She would give me back a little money, and with that I would go to the tavern. I had found a place where I could be myself, where people understood me, where we would talk until closing time.
Fast-forward a few years to the end of 1960: I was still working for Samson outside the city. The Boston promoter Tony Santos came to Montreal to check out the talent and he brought some people to his territory. One night, I got hold of him on his way out of the matches at Paul Sauvé Arena, on the corner of Beaubien and Pie-IX.
“Me. Talk to you. Want to wrestle for you in Boston. Give me start.”
To which he answered, “Argh, take my card!”
When I think about it now, he was trying to blow me off, but I took that as a yes. There was no stopping me; my mind was made up. I found an old suitcase in the garbage and put everything I owned in there. My mom could not believe I was leaving, but I was. When I finally left, my dad told me he didn’t want me coming back, knocking on his door ever again, and I never did. I promised myself not to. Strangely, that made him mad, even though he was the one who said it in the first place.
I wished I could have spared my mom from all the s--- she went through when I left home. I borrowed 20 bucks (a lot of money at the time) from my sister Claudette and left for Boston on a Greyhound bus. I was 19 years old, had no plan, and barely any money. What was I thinking? I guess it’s a good thing I wasn’t thinking too much, because today I’m glad I left. Little did I know, I was going to meet my soulmate and embark upon a career that, more than 50 years later, I still love.
In the early 1960s, everything was so much easier. Immigration to the United States was not a big problem. The big problem was that my English was limited. Actually, it was terrible.
At the border, all I had was that business card and a letter from a wrestling promoter, and I attempted to explain that I was going to work for this man Tony Santos in Boston. Three hours later, customs was finally able to get in touch with him, and he said I was coming to wrestle for him. I was lucky he said so. Once they had that confirmation, I was allowed to enter the country and work here. Imagine trying that today!
I was dropped at the Greyhound bus stop in Boston with my five-word English vocabulary and barely any money left in my pocket. There was a little man called Bobo who was wait- ing for me there — he was a wrestler, too. I was three hours late, but he was there waiting for me as per Santos’s request.
This guy told me we were going to walk to the apartment complex where all the wrestlers stayed. It still stands there today at 72 Westland Ave., right around the corner from the Boston Symphony Hall on Massachusetts Ave. I was tired and wished we could take a cab, but neither of us had any money, so we walked. It was an incredibly long walk, close to an hour. Thank God I had a lot of practice from Montreal.
When we arrived, I was introduced to the landlord, Ralph, whom I proceeded to torture mercilessly with my pranks for the next year or so. It was a six-floor building, with maybe three to five rooms on each side of a giant staircase and a shared bathroom. It cost $10 a week for a room furnished with a bed, a table and a small black-and-white television. Some of the other non-wrestling tenants were old people who would pass out drunk on the stairs on a regular basis. It was quite the place — not exactly the Ritz. (Today that property is probably worth millions.)
Still I had fun. We all talked to each other from room to room. It was a big change from my family’s place in Montreal: I didn’t share my space with 10 other people. Living all by myself, I felt like I was on top of the world. I even had hot water. All in all, it was a big improvement for me.
I had so much fun living in that place, enjoying my new life and freedom while playing pranks on the people who had the misfortune of renting a room near me.
My English was, as I’ve said, terrible. I made all the classic mistakes French people make when learning English. We just take the French word and try to say it in English. So I would say gouvernement instead of government, only I added an English pronunciation. I probably don’t have to tell you, but everyone was always laughing at my attempts to speak English.
But living with so many different people helped. They asked me often enough to repeat myself. The more I talked to people, the more functional English I learned. What really helped was television, especially The Price Is
Right. I learned the best I could like that, so if you don’t like my English, blame TV.
My first week in Boston, I ate the same thing every day: hamburger steak. Why? Simply because I had no idea what anything else on the menu was. One time, the special was pork chops and I knew I liked chop de porc
frais, so I was about to try it because the names were so similar. When they asked me if I wanted “gravy,” I was sure I was not going to like the meal. “Just hamburger steak,” I said. My friend ordered the pork chops
with gravy. When I saw what they brought him, I knew I would be ordering it soon.
And so I added “pork chop” and a few more words along my way and started to expand my knowledge of English.
When it came time to wrestle, I had no problem. I had learned enough wrestling lingo in Montreal to keep up in any ring. They had a gym with a nice ring at the wrestling office, located in the old Boston arena on St. Botolph, now the Matthews Arena, a 10-minute walk from my place. They even kept the wrestling bear there. I wrestled it once and that was enough for me — it was much scarier than any human opponent.
On my first day at the office, I met Golden Boy Dupree. He was 35 and gay, as I later found out. Santos wanted me to wrestle with him, so he could see how good I was. I passed that test with flying colours: Golden Boy was very happy and Santos told me not to worry, that I was booked. Three or four days later, he drove Golden Boy and me to wrestle on a show in Buffalo.
It’s a seven-hour drive from Boston to Buffalo. In Montreal, I did a few long trips but never one that long. Since my English was so s---ty, I had no idea I was in for such a long ride and the conversation was almost non-existent.
We got there early and Santos bought us each a sandwich. We were going to wrestle in the opening match even though no one knew who we were. That night, I walked into the ring in front of 6,000 people. It was impressive for someone like me; I’d only wrestled in front of much smaller crowds. We had a very good match — even though we were nervous — and the local promoter and Santos were happy. We went back to Boston right after the show. A few days later, Santos brought me a cheque for $50. Fifty dollars for one match? I was rich!
Then Santos laid it out on me. “You have to pay me transportation.” So he took $35 for himself and left me with $15. I had never owned a car or bought gas, so I had no idea how paying “trans” worked. He was screwing me, but I didn’t know that at the time.