Ran illegal gambling operation, c. 1950-66; promoted Ali-Foreman heavyweight title fight, 1974; Don King Productions, founder, chairman, and CEO, 1974--; promoted Jacksons' "Victory" tour, 1984; has promoted hundreds of championship fights throughout the world.

Even if he sported a conventional hair style, Don King might still be one of the most recognizable people in sports today. During the last 20 years, no individual has wielded more power in the big- money sport of boxing. At the same time, probably no individual in all of sports has been more controversial. Some observers call him an African American role model, while others call him a ruthless scoundrel. Whichever view one takes of King, the story of his transformation from a Cleveland street thug to the most prominent promoter in the history of boxing is nothing short of remarkable. Through a combination of business wizardry and personal flair, King has managed over a relatively short period of time to trade in his prisoners' coverall for a tuxedo, and he now hobnobs with presidents and royalty.

Don King was born in Cleveland in 1931. When he was ten years old, his father Clarence King, a steelworker, was killed in an explosion at the steel mill, leaving Don and his six siblings in the care of their mother, Hattie King. Hattie used the insurance money from her husband's death to relocate the family from the ghetto to a nearby middle-class neighborhood. To support the family, Hattie baked pies and roasted peanuts, which her sons would sell throughout the neighborhood. As a promotional gimmick, Don and his brothers would insert a slip of paper with a lucky number on it into each bag of peanuts. Those bags became popular among local gamblers, thereby making the King boys acquainted with some of the city's prominent numbers racketeers.

As a high school student, King became involved in Golden Gloves boxing. It soon became clear that he was more talented as a hustler than as a fighter, and after being knocked cold in one of his first bouts, he decided to forget about boxing as a career. Meanwhile, King had gone to work as a numbers runner for one Cleveland's illegal lottery operators. He was accepted to Kent State University after graduating from high school, and he worked for the numbers boss all summer to raise money for tuition. Before he had saved enough for college, however, King misplaced a winning betting slip and had to pay the money out of his own pocket. Instead of going off to college, King stayed in Cleveland and began a numbers business on his own. Although he spent a year taking classes at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, he had more or less decided that college was an unnecessary sidetrack. By the time he was 20, King was a successful, yet illicit, businessman, who was married to a woman named Luvenia Mitchell.

King spent the next decade developing his illegal gambling operation. By the time he was 30, he was running one of Cleveland's biggest numbers games. He was making serious money, and he became a flamboyant figure in the town possessing flashy clothes and flashy cars. He was also making enemies. In 1954 King killed a man named Hillary Brown, who was allegedly trying to rob one of his numbers stations. King successfully claimed self-defense in the killing. A few years later, the front of King's house was blown up by a gangster named Alex "Shondor" Birns, to whom King had refused to pay protection money. Shortly before King was to testify against Birns on extortion charges, King was shot in the back of the head with a twelve-gauge shotgun. Amazingly, he was not seriously injured in the attack.

Meanwhile, King's business continued to flourish. In the late 1950s he bought into a popular Cleveland supper club. It was there that he met a young Olympic boxing champion named Cassius Clay in 1960. King and Clay became friends, and King began following Clay all over the country to attend his fights. By this time, King's first marriage had fallen apart, and he was now married to Henrietta King, the ex-wife of one of his business associates. Aside from occasional trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, King was riding high through the first half of the 1960s.

King's life took a dramatic turn in 1966. That year, he got into an argument with an employee, Sam Garrett, over a sum of money King felt Garrett owed him. Although accounts of the event vary, the fight became physical, and somehow in the course of the scuffle Garrett's head hit the pavement. He eventually died from the injuries. Some witnesses indicated that King had beaten the smaller, sickly Garrett mercilessly, while King claimed that Garrett had attacked him and he was merely defending himself. King was convicted of manslaughter and sent to the Marion Correctional Institution in Ohio.

King used his time in prison to give himself the education that he had earlier chosen to bypass. For four years he immersed himself in classic literature and philosophy. When he was released on parole in 1971, King was, as he told a TV Guide interviewer in 1980, "armed and dangerous. Armed with wisdom and knowledge." King was eventually granted a full pardon by Ohio Governor James Rhodes in 1983.

Determined to leave the numbers game behind him, King began to look for legitimate business opportunities after his release from prison. Around this time he adopted his trademark hair style, a gravity-defying affair that he has repeatedly maintained happened by itself as a "sign from God." It did not take King long to settle on boxing as his new racket. His initial stint as a boxing promoter was innocent enough. In 1972 he organized a benefit to help keep Cleveland's only black hospital, Forest City Hospital, from shutting down. For the benefit's main attraction, he was able to lure Muhammad Ali (the former Cassius Clay) into fighting a ten- round exhibition against four different opponents. The event raised over $80,000 for the hospital. It also convinced King that there was money to be made as a boxing promoter and manager.

King's big breakthrough as a promoter came in 1974, when he was one of the main architects, along with closed circuit television company Video Techniques, of the famous "Rumble in the Jungle" heavyweight title fight between Ali and champion George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire. With only a very limited background in boxing promotion, King used his natural salesmanship to talk the government of Zaire into putting up more than $10 million in financial backing for the event. The fight was a huge financial success, and it vaulted King to the top of the heap among boxing promoters. Since that time, he has had a hand in the pot of major boxing matches.