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| Chief Don Eagle |
Eagle became one of the top wrestlers before injuring his back in his late 30s.
His post-retirement real estate developments failed to go as planned.
He died of gunshots wounds at age 40 in his home in Khanawake on March 17, 1966. It was deemed a suicide. (One report said that his real name was Stanislas Suplatowicz.)
Then on July 21, 1968 his widow Jean Eagle, 28, who worked as a waitress at the Khanawake golf course, was murdered.
She was said to be vey beautiful and was a mother of three.
I do not have a photo of her but a newspaper report from the time, possibly a little cruelly, suggested that she was known to be a libertine.
Her body was found two days later by her father-in-law, who was the chief. It was badly burnt inside a car.
The murder was thought to be a crime of passion and as of six months later the crime remained unsolved and probably remains so.
I would be curious to know whether the two tragic deaths were the result of something larger than a suicide and a crime-of-passion murder.
One of the neat things about growing up in Montreal in the ninteen fifties was collecting trading cards even though I would often be seperated from them by some slick 10 year old in the basement of Willingdon School who had a heavily scotch taped card that would always end up a "leaner" in the game of card toss.
ReplyDeleteI never was a wrestling fan. Aside from being fake, watching sweaty men grapple with one another kind of bordered on perversion.
But collecting wrestling cards was a whole other matter.
The charactors seemed exotic. They probably had the same appeal as Spiderman has to today's young boys.
Some of the names I remember are Georgious George ( I think Liberace stole some of his syle from him), Dick The Bruiser, Argentina LaRocca, Killer Kowalski (I think he bit someone's ear off long before Mike Tyson did it), Buddy Rogers, Haystacks Calhoun, Sky High Lee, Lou Thesz, Don Leo Jonathan, Little Beaver, and Gene Kiniski who ran a bar in Point Roberts, Washington, just across the border from BC in the late 1970s. I remember him spitting on the floor behind the bar as if it was quite a natural thing to do.
I did learn a few things from those trading cards...like Robert Fulton invented the steamship. Unfortunately this has only come up once while I was watching Jeopardy.
Good stories. Some corrections: It's Argentina Rocca and Mot "Larocca". Killer Kowalski's boot cut off Yukon Eric's ear (from a knee drop).
DeleteMy favourite was Whipper Billy Watson, who at the end of his life resided on Jennifer Crescent in Sharon,Ontario...down the street from Olympic medallist Veronica Brenner, and the home of Louisa Good, the widow of Charles Good, the 45 year Hydro Quebec veteran who was assigned to Rene Levesque to bring Rene up to speed on the Hydro dossier when Rene was named to the Lesage cabinet as Minister of Natural Resources
ReplyDeleteWith a name like Stanislas Suplatowicz it was a wise move he adopted the nom de plume of Chief Don Eagle, as he masqueraded as a Native from Khanawake. This reminded me of another famous white man masquerading as an Indian Chief character, who used to go by the adopted name of “Musskeekee”.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone remember him? A medicine man, always appearing in full Indian Chief’s regalia, selling bottles of a white man’s cure-all. Usually from the tailgate of a pickup, often parked at the Shamrocks Market.
He always started his spiel, addressing his audience, with his arms upraised towards the heavens, denoting peace, and shouting:
“Howoh-wee-in-killikum - which, in the words of the pales face, means, - How are you my dear friends”.
He even had ads on the radio.
I don’t think he ever lived in Khanawake. (aka Caughnawaga in those days). My Dad bought his stuff and used it as cough medicine for us kids - and it worked: easier to take and better than Buckley’s.
If you're interested in the history of Montreal wrestling, a new book covers most of it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.ca/Mad-Dogs-Midgets-Screw-Jobs/dp/1770410945/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360595608&sr=8-1
It's called, "Mad Dogs, Midgets and Screw Jobs: the untold story of how Montreal shaped the world of wrestling."
The part in the book about Chief Don Eagle says none of his friends believed the suicide story.
Can’t say that I was ever an ardent wrestling fan but I was always aware of the famous Montreal wrestlers, who actually were very interesting guys. Just last night on the Fight channel I saw an add for, “"Mad Dogs, Midgets and Screw Jobs”.
ReplyDeleteHaving it recommended here by John McFetridge and based on the content of the book as he describes it: is good enough for me. I’m going to pick up a copy. Thanks Mr. McFetridge.
I could never understand the appeal of those monstrous hulks in the ring hammering each other--most of it being obviously fake to begin with.
ReplyDeleteAnd the sight of grannies in the audience shrieking with excitement must surely be a throwback to the bloodthirsty crowds surrounding the guillotine in 18th century France.
There was a brief period in the mid-1960s when daytime TV featured such ugly, foolish clowns like Sweet Daddy Siki, but by the 1990s it became so overly-saturated with this nonsense that it was inevitable that it would run out of steam--which thankfully it did!
But, of course, this is nothing new. The U.S. entertainment media has a history of finding a trend, wearing it out, and then beating it to death.
An appropriate pun in this case!
Wow, you must be unaware of the fortune wrestling made in the 1990's.
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