Nobody ever got him down

IMET Jake LaMotta in 1979 on the “Raging Bull” set in LA. He was there every day as a consultant. He was Jake — but he was not the Jake in the movie. Those years had passed. He was very calm, cool and collected. And he was funny. I’d be in costume, all dressed up as his second wife, Vikki LaMotta, in the ’50s, and he would see me and laugh and call out, “Vikki! “Vikk-eeeee!”

They used to play football during lunch on the set, and one time he got hit in the head.

I said, “Oh, my God, Jake, are you OK?”

And he laughed and said, “What, are you smoking that stuff ?” Jake was Jake. In the ring, he’d just stand up and look you in the face and let you beat him until he found an opening — and then he’d knock you out.

That’s why they called him the “Raging Bull” — he never gave up.

But you knew by then the damage had been done from taking so many blows to the head.

His speech was a little slow. His thoughts came to him slowly. You can’t take that many punches and not have any sign of it.

But he was there for all the fight scenes — he remembered everything about how each fight went down.

And he always went back to the Sugar Ray Robinson fights. Any conversations went to that. Even though he only won, what was it, one fight out of six?

“He never got me down, Ray,” Jake would say, because he’d stayed on his feet for every one of those fights. He’s the one that came up with that line in the movie.

I remember Sugar Ray Robinson came down to the set one day, and they bonded like old friends.

And of course Jake told him, “You never got me down, Ray.” I’ll go out on that quote. “They never got you down, Jake.”