[BITList] Grappling with the truth

[John Feltham]

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Pallo,  Jackie  [real name Jack Ernest Gutteridge]  (1926-2006), wrestler, was born at 33 Britannia Row, Islington, London, on 12 January 1926, the son of Ernest Harold Gutteridge, french polisher, also boxing instructor and gymnasium owner, and his wife, Annie Elizabeth, nee Lovelock. His grandfather, also Ernest Harold Gutteridge, had been knucklefight lightweight champion of England and one of the first to wear gloves in the ring. Jackie's father boxed under the name of Bob Wilson and taught boxing at Arnold House School, St John's Wood, for over a quarter of a century. (Jackie took over from him in 1943, teaching there until 1973.) Jackie's cousin Reg Gutteridge was a well-known boxing writer.

At the age of fourteen Jackie started work in a butcher's shop and was then apprenticed as a motor mechanic. Three years later he met his future wife, Georgina Preston (Trixie) Wilson, daughter of Robert William Wilson, building labourer; they married on 9 August 1950, when Trixie was twenty-five. After the war he wrestled as an amateur at the Ashdown Club in Islington, which had provided the whole British team at the 1936 Olympics, and it was to supplement his earnings that he decided to become a professional wrestler. With around twelve promotions weekly in London alone a wrestler could make about £30 a week, double the salary of a newly qualified solicitor. He approached the promoters Dale Martin but after being badly beaten in a trial bout was told to become a ring second to learn the tricks of the trade. It was not until 1952, aged twenty-six, that he made his debut, at Eltham against Young Atlas. He then had two years of hard apprenticeship, being scuffed round the ring by his superiors, before he was allowed a win. Not wanting to embarrass his boxing family he took his ring name Pallo from his American brother-in-law.

By the 1960s Jackie Pallo had become one of the most recognizable figures in British wrestling. Although weighing less than 12 stone at a time when heavyweights generally ruled the ring, the bombastic Pallo (known also as Mr TV) topped the bills around the country. He may not have been the best shooter (or technician) in the business but, wearing candy-striped Y-front trunks and gold boots, and with his peroxided hair in a black velvet bow, he had an unerring ability to 'heat' or work a crowd into a frenzy (usually against him)-which was what the spectators had paid their money for. He was particularly unpopular with elderly ladies who watched him avidly and from time to time hit him with handbags or jabbed him with hairpins. His speciality move, which pleased them greatly, was seemingly to mistime a dropkick and land in apparent agony astride the top rope.

Pallo was best remembered for his drawn matches on television with another 'villain', Mick McManus, watched before the cup finals of 1963 and 1965 by audiences said to have exceeded those of the match itself. Pallo claimed that he received a maximum of £80 for one such bout, but at a subsequent match with McManus at the Royal Albert Hall he received £600. He wrestled Johnny Kwango at the same venue before the duke of Edinburgh, tipping Kwango out of the ring in defiance of strict instructions, almost into the duke's lap. Again at the Albert Hall in 1969 he won the British middleweight title from the technically superior Bert Royal. He was only allowed to keep it for a fortnight, losing it again to Royal in Paisley. Driving thousands of miles a month, he was known as exceptionally reliable and prided himself on not missing a bout even when injured or unwell.

In the 1970s the face of wrestling began to change. The impresario Jarvis Astaire bought up various promoters and Pallo and his son, Jackie junior (JJ), who had his first bout in tag with Pallo in 1971, quarrelled with the new general manager of Dale Martin. In 1975 they set up their own venture promoting in small halls around the country. Overall it was not a success. Pallo claimed to have over half the wrestlers in the country on his books, but he found that printers refused his work, posters were never distributed, and halls suddenly became unavailable; if he had a promotion booked, a rival organization would work the town two nights before. At the time promoters were getting a 70 per cent share of the gate money but hall owners began to demand an equal share. When the ITV contract came up for renewal in 1982 Pallo failed to secure even a modest share. He also failed to realize that wrestling was dying as a popular entertainment. In 1985 he hastened its death when, a bitter man, he published You Grunt, I'll Groan, an expose of the game, explaining the 'soft holds' employed, the choreographed matches, and the fixed results. He claimed that in his career, 'I can hardly remember fighting a straight fight, and I have seldom heard of a straight pro fight'  (You Grunt, I'll Groan, 9). Three years later ITV took wrestling off its Saturday afternoon programmes, which at their height had been watched by 15 million viewers. Pallo finally retired to his home in Kent in his sixties, having suffered for some time from arthritic hips.

Pallo's success in the televised sport led to other acting roles. His first acting part was as an injured wrestler in the television soap Emergency Ward 10. He appeared again as a wrestler in Are You Being Served? (in 1979), but in The Avengers (1964) he was a gravedigger, knocked out accidentally by Honor Blackman. His first pantomime appearance was at Norwich in 1969 as Bad Baron Hardup in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It remained his favourite role. He appeared with Barbara Windsor both in pantomine and in the film Not now Darling (1973). He narrated Peter and the Wolf at the Royal Albert Hall and also appeared in Gerry Cottle's circus. A racehorse was named after him.

For a considerable time after the publication of his book, which broke the omerta code of the professional wrestler, Pallo was in disgrace in the profession. He claimed ingenuously that his target was the promoter rather than the wrestler but, although he attended the annual southern area reunions, he was no longer completely comfortable with his former colleagues. It was, however, his old rival Mick McManus who, when hearing Pallo was suffering from oesophageal cancer, suggested that the other wrestlers should support him and, whatever reservations they may have once had, they rallied around him. He died at his home, Ozengell Farm House, Haine Road, Ramsgate, Kent, on 10 February 2006, and was survived by his wife and son. On hearing of Pallo's death, Dickie Davies, the former presenter of World of Sport, is said to have remarked that it was 'an unprecedented example of Pallo not faking it'  (The Independent, 18 Feb 2006).

James Morton 

Sources  J. Pallo, You grunt, I'll groan (1985) + S. Garfield, The wrestling (1996) + R. Gutteridge and P. Batt, Uppercuts and dazes (1998) + The Times (16 Feb 2006) + Daily Telegraph (16 Feb 2006) + The Independent (16 Feb 2006); (18 Feb 2006) + The Guardian (17 Feb 2006) + personal knowledge (2010) + private information (2010) + b. cert. + m. cert. + d. cert.
Archives  FILM BFI NFTVA, This is your life, M. Baker (director), ITV, 18 April 1973 + BFI NFTVA, light entertainment footage SOUND BL NSA, documentary recording + BL NSA, performance recordings
Likenesses  photographs, repro. in Pallo, You grunt · obituary photographs · photograph, 1968, Getty Images, London, Hult. Arch. · photographs, 1968-74, PA Photos, London · photographs, 1961-9, Rex Features, London · J. Curtis, photographs, 1970-79, Rex Features, London · photograph, 1961, Rex Features, London [see illus.]