Jack Doyle: The tragic tale of the Gorgeous Gael

JACK DOYLE, boxer, singer, actor, lover, drinker, was born a hundred years ago this Saturday, Aug 31, in Cobh, Co Cork. His life was preposterous — he knocked out Clarke Gable in a fight over actress Carole Lombard — but it ended, like that of so many prizefighters, in the gutter.

When Doyle walked O’Connell St in Dublin in the 1940s, alongside his wife, the actress Movita Castaneda, who later married Marlon Brando, a couple of hundred people trailed awe-struck behind the glamorous couple.

“He used to always say ‘a generous man never went to hell’. He did like a gamble, but if he had any money he liked to share it with his friends, to spread it around,” says Chris Doyle, 55, Jack’s nephew, whose father Bill acted as Doyle’s valet during the good days.