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Accepting for his late father:
JASON WILLIAMS
PHOTOGRAPH BY IRWIN MARKOWITZ
Honoring Gary Hart:
Sir Oliver Humperdink
PHOTOGRAPH (L) BY CHRISTINE COONS •
STUDIO 11-B | PHOTOGRAPH (R) BY DAVE LAYNE
On the next-to-last day of Gary
Hart’s life, he was doing what he loved best – sitting around with
some old friends like Skandar Akbar and explaining wrestling. Not
“talking wrestling,” mind you – but explaining. Even though most
fans knew him only as a sinister manager who directed the fortunes
of the Great Muta, George Steele, and King Curtis, Hart was one of
the driving, behind-the-scenes forces in wrestling from the early
1960s to the late 1980s. He helped to make Dusty Rhodes a star in
Florida, and invented the gimmicks of Muta and the Great Kabuki out
of whole cloth. He was the booker for World Class Championship
Wrestling during the 1980s, and for the record, was booker in charge
of the first Starrcade in 1983, the event that started the
pay-per-view phenomenon. “Gary had one of the best wrestling minds
of anyone I’ve ever met,” said veteran Texas referee James Beard, a
close friend. “Everywhere he went, and he went a lot of places, he
brought the business to life.” As Hart, nee Gary Williams, explained
it: “My forte was, I had the ability to find and develop talent.
That was what I brought to the table more than anything else. I
always felt that you could be excellent at interviews, you could be
excellent at ideas and finishes and the way to present people, but
if you didn't have a good eye for talent, pick the right, you
weren't going to be very successful.”
Hart started off under Billy Goelz in his native Chicago, switching
his last name to honor a man who saved his uncle’s life in the
Korean War. In his early years, he switched between wrestling and
managing, most notably guiding Steele as the Masked Student around
Detroit. His career really took off when he put a mask on a
good-looking wrestler named Don Jardine in Texas, and turned him
into the vice-gripping Spoiler. “All Don really needed was some
packaging and some direction,” Hart said. “I was the guy who more or
less got him through the red tape and bullshit, got promoters to
look at him and see what he really was. Once Donald and I hooked up,
after that, he was a main event wrestler from then on.” From there,
the Hart roster included names like Al Costello, Pak Song Nam,
Abdullah the Butcher, and Mark Lewin. Behind it all, Hart imparted a
unique sense for a heel manager. It was important, he said, for him
and his charges to be convinced of the correctness of their ways,
even as boos and beer bottles rained down on them. “I think he was
the best of all the managers,” said Texas TV announcer Bill Mercer.
“With all respect to the others, God, he could slink around and look
like he was always involved in doing something dirty behind the
scenes—which he did.”
In the Mid-Atlantic, Hart worked with Rip Hawk and Swede Hanson and
later moved on to Kabuki, one of his greatest roles. “I love martial
arts and always liked Bruce Lee movies, so I wanted to find the
right Japanese wrestler and merge martial arts with wrestling. I
also wanted him to have a subtle samurai warrior and kamikaze pilot
feel about him,” Hart said in his autobiography. He
actually put $4,000 out his own money in the garb and gear for
Akihisa Mera, who became the mist-blowing Kabuki in Texas and the
Mid-Atlantic, where he won the TV title. Back in Texas, Hart was the
brains behind the legendary Freebirds-Von Erichs feud. “With the
[Von Erich] boys, you could get a big house with them every week.
They were great kids, easy to work with, easy to develop, and do
anything in the world to make the match work.”
Fed up with the backstage politics, Hart ended his association with
national companies – World Championship Wrestling, in particular –
in 1990. He helped his son Chad train to be wrestler and was a
fixture at events like Fanfest and the Cauliflower Alley Club
reunion. His final public appearance in March 2008 was in Allentown,
Pa., as part of a World Class reunion, just before he succumbed to a
heart attack at 66. “I just wish people from this generation could
see a guy like him work for 10 minutes because then they'd
understand how we got so caught up in this business,” Beard said.
Gary Hart – gone, but still celebrated at the Hall of Heroes.
- Steve Johnson
Co-Author, The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams
Co-Author, The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels
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