Dimensions
176 x 214 x 27mm
The story of Hugh D McIntosh is certainly one of the high life. Although he started as a humble pie-delivery boy, he rose to wealthy heights that would leave today's millionaires green with envy. His career began in the early twentieth century, when he started promoting professional cycling, importing the celebrated black champion Major Taylor in a blaze of media attention and corruption that was the basis for the 1992 film 'Tracks of Glory' (starring Richard Roxburgh). The controversy continued when ‘Huge Deal’ McIntosh turned to boxing. He built the Sydney Stadium where he presented the racially-fired world's heavy weight championship fight between Tommy Burns and Jack Johnson, and he went on to stage famous fights around the world. In 1911 he purchased the Tivoli Theatre circuit and then travelled the world enticing international stars like WC Fields to come to Australia.
Never one to do things by half, McIntosh owned a fleet of Pierce-Arrow limousines and mansions in Sydney and London. When he wanted Rudolph Valentino to star in his film 'The Hooded Falcon', he clinched the deal by giving Valentino’s wife a mysterious ring that had been taken from Tutankhamen’s tomb. Eventually, though, a string of bad financial decisions and unpaid taxes brought the great, extravagant man down, and he died in poverty.
