One of the greatest heavyweights in history was also an accomplished actor, artist, and writer.
Courtesy Sports Illustrated
Muhammad Ali held the heavyweight title, became the undisputed champion, and also won the WBA heavyweight championship. Beyond boxing, Ali showed his talents in a variety of other fields.
Ali’s acting career took him from Broadway to movies. He played himself in Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) and Body and Soul (1981). In the documentary Black Rodeo (1972), he rode a horse through Harlem and even tried riding a bull. In 1975, Ali wrote his autobiography, The Greatest: My Own Story. Two years later, it became a film called The Greatest, with Ali starring as himself.
While banned from boxing, he appeared in the 1969 Broadway musical Buck White, which ran for just seven shows, but he and the cast performed on The Ed Sullivan Show. In 1979, he starred in the TV mini-series Freedom Road as Gideon Jackson, a formerly enslaved person and Union soldier who is elected to the U.S. Senate in 1870s Virginia. Ali also made guest appearances as himself on TV shows like Diff’rent Strokes, Vega$, and Touched by an Angel.
Ali also appeared on television commercials. In 1971, he appeared in a television commercial for Vitalis, alongside his opponent Joe Frazier. He also appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for Pizza Hut with his longtime trainer Angelo Dundee. In 1978, Ali appeared in a public service announcement for the New York City Department of Health encouraging parents to immunize their children.
Ali famously crossed paths with professional wrestling on two notable occasions. In 1976, while Ali was preparing for his fight with Antonio Inoki, he attended a match featuring Gorilla Monsoon. After the match was finished, Ali took his shirt and jacket off and got into a heated confrontation with Monsoon in the ring after his match at a World Wide Wrestling Federation show in Philadelphia. After ducking a few punches, the 400-pound Monsoon put Ali in an airplane spin and dropped him to the mat. Ali was a special guest referee for the main event of the inaugural Wrestlemania in 1985. Ali was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by The Undertaker at the 2024 ceremony.
Courtesy Zari Gallery
Muhammad Ali’s love of art started at an early age, and it continued well after his boxing career. Ali was introduced to the world of art by his father, Cassius Clay Sr., a sign painter and muralist who instilled a love of art in young Ali. In 1962, Ali met Leroy Neiman, the distinguished artist known for his colorful sports illustrations. Many of Ali’s works are inscribed to Neiman.
That same year, Ali met Howard Bingham. Bingham would later become Ali’s personal photographer. Another accomplished artist, Andy Warhol, visited Ali’s training camp, Fighter’s Heaven, in Deer Lake, Pennsylvania. Ali’s artwork was featured in the inaugural issue of Avant Garde magazine in 1968, where it focused on his beliefs and practices of Christianity and Islam. In 1979, Ali was appointed by the World Federation of United Nations Associations to create artwork for the organization. Let My People Go would be the piece revealed at the United Nations. Other pieces of art Ali has created are Sting Like A Bee, Under The Sun, Guiding Light, and Mosque II. In 2021, 26 of his drawings and paintings were placed on auction and sold for close to $1,000,000.
Muhammad Ali’s love of music led to many encounters with some of the greatest musicians of the 20th Century. He had encounters with Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Sam Cooke, The Jackson 5, and Prince. In addition to meeting those musicians, Ali himself was nominated for two Grammys. In 1963, Ali released an album of spoken word music titled I Am The Greatest. He even sang on the album as he recorded a cover version of Stand by Me. The album sold 500,000 copies and was recognized as an early example of rap music and a precursor to hip-hop. The album was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album at the Grammy Awards in 1964. Ali got his second Grammy nomination for Best Recording for Children with his 1976 spoken word novelty record, The Adventures of Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay. The narrator for the album was Howard Cosell, who had a tight friendship with Ali.
Muhammad Ali’s poems have solidified his legacy for many years. His poems exuded self-promotion, political expression, and philosophical values. Ali’s poems also expressed his predictions in the boxing ring with his longtime opponents. Some of his poems even boasted that he was the greatest.
An example is the poem he wrote before his 1964 world title fight against Sonny Liston:
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
The hands can’t hit what the eyes can’t see.”
Here’s the poem he wrote before the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle fight with George Foreman in Zaire:
“When George Foreman meets me, He’ll pay his debt.
I can drown the drink of water, and kill a dead tree.
Wait till you see Muhammad Ali.”
“I am the greatest!” easily translates into “He was the greatest!” … Muhammad Ali
