Antelope Valley Press - AV Living (Antelope Valley)
The boxing barrister at Paradise Trout Club
After actor Noah Beery Sr. (1882-1946) visited a Valyermo property owned by his friend, Pasadena attorney Louis Luckel, he thought this mountain location was perfect for hunting, fishing and relaxing.
He envisioned a special retreat/trout club, which would give him the opportunity to make money as well as share his love for the rugged life.
He opened his club in the Big Rock Creek area in the summer of 1928. Some sources place the purchase price at $4 million. The club’s name, Paradise Trout Club, was said to have come from Gloria Swanson (his one-time sister-in-law), who supposedly called the place “paradise” when she saw it.
The retreat had a clubhouse, kitchen, dining room, tennis courts, a dance hall, pools, two stone lodges and a few cabins. There were also several large concrete ponds filled with enormous trout.
The Club soon became a favorite rendezvous for many popular Hollywood stars and notables such as Buster Keaton, Maurice Chevalier, Gary Cooper, Will Rogers, Sid Grauman, Clara Bow, William Powell, Joseph P. Kennedy, Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Mary Pickford, W.C. Fields, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and William Randolph Hearst, among others. Antelope Valley residents would also come here for its entertainment, delicious food and varied sports activities.
Programs included fishing, hunting, tennis, croquet, swimming, evening dances, toboggan sliding, rodeos, archery, horseback riding, buffalo barbecues and baseball. Perhaps the first Antelope Valley fox hunts, fencing and polo games were held here. A Major Brown was the athletic director. He was a graduate of the British School of Fencing. Fox hunts were led by Wiley Hill, a prominent local cowboy/stockman.
Beery also constructed a gymnasium where amateur boxing bouts could be presented. This boxing feature caught the attention of pugilist Armand C. Emanuel (1905-1979), who certainly did not fit the popular image of a professional boxer. A graduate of the Golden Gate Law School (1927), while attending school, he became a boxer known as “The Boxing Barrister.”
He utilized his superior speed, busy left jab and nimble footwork to win the Pacific Coast and National
AAU (1926) Heavyweight Championships. He turned professional as a middleweight in 1927. Emanuel claimed he made more money in the ring than in a courtroom. As he was Jewish, he would wear a star of David on the side of his shorts and gloves.
On April 14, 1929, Emanuel was scheduled to fight Ace Hudkins (1905-1973) “The Nebraska Wildcat” who was Southern California’s most popular fighter at this time. To prepare for his upcoming fight, Emanuel visited Beery’s Club to investigate its training potential. Beery made immediate adjustments for him and Emanuel soon returned with his large entourage of trainers and sparring partners, including Tommy Maloney, Ed Martin, Eddie Gill, Tom Ryan, Red Martin, Roy Moore and Joe Cardoza. Beery provided the camp free as it was great publicity. Emanuel’s group stayed here for nine days.
Besides training, Emanuel roped a buffalo, took cooking classes, fished trout for everyone’s dinner and ran five miles in the snow. During one sparring event, Emanuel injured a bone in his right duke and the fight was almost canceled. Ace claimed Emanuel was afraid to fight him and he was using a “bad hand excuse” as a means of “running out” of the match, but doctors declared he was fit to fight.
Hudkins did not consider Emanuel’s decision to train at Noah’s faraway camp a good one. He wanted to call off the fight because Emanuel had not trained lo
cally in a Los Angeles gym, which he claimed could affect ticket sales for the upcoming fight. Hudkins trained at the Main Street gymnasium. Soon Emanuel returned and finished his last week of training in Los Angeles.
The Emanuel-Hudkins fight promised to be the most sensational outdoor bout ever held in Los Angeles. Emanuel was favored to win the 10-round match, which was held before more than 15,000 fans at the popular Wrigley Field in Los Angles. Although named after William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum magnate and the owner of the Chicago
Cubs, this field should not be confused with the Chicago Field. The referee was George Blake, a popular and respected referee in the greater Los Angeles area. He was also the chief U.S. Army boxing instructor during World War I. Interestingly, he had also previously been a one-time guest at Beery’s Camp.
It was a colorful, gripping fight but Emanuel only captured the first round. Hudkins, who had never been knocked out during his career, pounded Emanuel and jabbed him with a couple of stiff jabs and outboxed him. After all the pre-fight banter, Hudkins was declared the winner. Emanuel continued to fight until 1932, but never received a title shot.